Appreciating the Anti-missed.

  The countdown has begun. Two weeks from right now, enormous suitcases packed in my Dad's car and ready to rumble, we will drive to Briefing, convene with our wonderful team, and begin our El Salvador journey. El Salvador will be real again.
  When I really stop to think about it, going to back to El Salvador seems like the most unreal, and natural thing that I could do. But, lot has happened since June 30, 2009.


July 1, 2009: I woke up in the house of the boy who I really, really liked (and unadmittedly to him, loved), in a hot, seemingly unattractive town I had visited once called Bakersfield. I felt relieved, shy, unsure, thrilled out of my mind, and somehow completely at home. But I missed El Salvador.
  That day, I missed El Salvador in practical, tangible ways. I missed having a closet where my clothes lived, recognizing which roommate was walking down the stairs simply by the unique pitter-patter of their footsteps, and knowing that my day would certainly hold the kind of spontaneous adventure that I look forward to in each day. I missed El Salvador.
  I also anti-missed El Salvador the most that day. The stomach-twisting fright every time buses passed on each side of us on a narrow city street; the way I watched the worst of my American arrogance come out when we waited in line to pay bills at the bank; the anticipation of how my stomach may or may not respond the to eatings of the day... perhaps I did not miss El Salvador!


June 28, 2011: Today, I woke up in the the house of that same boy who I really, really like and now admittedly love with all of my heart. It's a different house, one that we have called our own for over a year now, thanks to the sanctioning of God and the State of California in Holy Matrimony. It's the same heat, even that same town of Bakersfield, and today, I look forward, not back, to El Salvador.
  You see, for the last two years, I have missed El Salvador in much less practical, less tangible, but in oh such deep, soul churning ways. And GET OUT! I now miss the things that I anti-missed! Rooting my guy teammates on as they got us through the narrow passageways between the two buses on the narrow city streets; getting a glimpse into "normal" Salvadoran life as I watched war-torn grandpas and globalizing young business women wait in line to pay their bills at the bank too; and boy, do I even miss the laughs, the predictions, the indiscreet dinner conversation, the unsightly panic, that came with the various eatings of the day!
  Today, I look at missing the things that are so familiar, so tangible about my life here: that I have a closet to hang my clothes, a husband who's footsteps I anticipate climbing the stairs each day, and our own sense of simple life adventure. I will miss Bakersfield.
  And I'm quite sure that I will anti-miss parts of Bakersfield (no duh, some of you may be muttering). The current condition of sweating in my own apartment, the faint hint of cows in the air, the fact that the one decent coffee shop is 15 miles away from my house...


God, grant me the change of heart and mind that I might learn to appreciate what you have for the now, that I could identify the things that I will anti-miss and thank You for the ways that you have expanded my life because of them. In other words, God, can I someday just learn to be grateful where I am for what I have!?!?!
  
And maybe that's why I get a second chance at El Salvador. To relearn. To appreciate and praise the Giver. Ah-ha!
  
Time, sweet time, how you turn life's greatest everyday challenges into the nostalgic joys of yesterday. As I prepare for the Great Return to El Salvador, you remind me that no annoyance, no inconvenience, no fear, no conflict, is irreparable, because of the God-given gift of memories and second chances.


And readers, feel free to make me read this again in four weeks.