As a girl, I had a complete and perfect picture of what my grown-up life would be like:
I would live in a stilt house beside a red dirt road. It would be me and my best friend. Our kitchen would be full of garlic, red peppers, mangoes, and rice. Our sugar would be kept in an old Milo (hot chocolate mix) jar. We would be plagued by rain flies, mosquitoes, dust and mold by the seasons and be perfectly happy. Our feet would be orange, and our clothes... well, it wouldn't really matter what we wore, plaid on stripes, polka dot with paisley. In our garden, jasmine, gardenias, bouganvillas, jack fruit and guava trees would grow. Butterflies would flock to our lantanas. We would stick candles to our wooden floors with hot wax when the electricity would go out and dipper baths would be the norm. Roosters, neighbours' gossip and karaoke would wake us in the mornings and the cries of playing children, fighting dogs, and moto beeps would serenade us through the day. And always, always we would have the Cambodian sky.
That's what I thought my life would be like.
As the Cambodians of the world celebrate their new year, I find again in my heart that old ache for the place I called (and still like to call) home.
I have been told that it is strange that I would still look upon it as such, or that I would hold it in my heart as I do... this is not for me to explain to those who can't understand. But for every third culture kid, especially those who have had to move away from the place they love, you know why I still long to be back with my dirty flip flops and kittens with crooked tails.
Yet here I am... a true Westerner, sitting in our little basement apartment on our big, blue couch here in the rolling hills of Germany, with my Dutch husband on the guitar and our baby sleeping inside of me, a blessed woman... thinking of my old home. Many years, five countries, and three languages have separated me from my "perfect picture". How different God's perfect picture is and how beautiful... just in a different way from my twelve year old imaginings.
I will eat some green mangoes today, watch some karaoke and be thankful for every part of my life. The ache is still there but how deep it runs reminds me of all the experiences and love that made it... which make it so very worth it.
Someday, my Dutchman, our Little and I will return and drink ice coffees in a dusty roadside shop together, listen to monsoon rains on tin roofs and sweat in busy marketplaces together. Till then...
Happy New Year, Cambodia!
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