Homesick for my little crosseyed fluff nugget, Monet.

This past week has been incredibly rewarding. I’ve released new UI and print work, written and read a ton, and now I’m working on a huge independent project I’m taking on—designing the American immigration process to be more user-friendly. It’s all been a creative whirlwind here, and West Africa hasn’t stopped feeding me inspiration or courage to take on the bigger and better projects. I’m in over my head in ideas, and it’s awesome.

Although the Great "Bethany Has To Save The World And Cannot Chill" freak out of 2015 has passed (read more about that atrocity here), we’re at the tip of the mental iceberg with homesickness. Sometimes I just need to step into the dusty outside, get some air, and remind myself of who I am and who I want to be. Christ has tied the tightrope for me here in Ghana, for me to look with faith. He told me that He would be my wingman, that I would never fall. Now that I’ve lived here for over two months, I’ve floated along, never looking down. It’s so different, in all the difficult ways and good ways. Ways in which I have fought to keep my head above the water, and ways in which I have forgotten that I can swim. Ghana has these moments that empty my ink and fill notebooks with. I’m still exploring Ghana, and I swear on the the breaths it steals in the long morning walks that I’m still processing, learning, and praying for understanding. So here's to us, homesick explorers.

This morning I grabbed my sheets, rolled over to my roommate and whispered, “I dreamt about caramel lattés.” She returned my sentiment with, “I woke up craving waffles.” We sighed and laughed a little, because no matter how long we live here in West Africa, we’ll always be adjusting. I’ve been homesick for a place where I know I can build a career and a life. I’m used to being in an environment that I can control. I’ve been socially wandering for most of my stay— and for the last two and a half months literally so. It’s been enlightening, educational, and fun. It’s also been lonely as a minority, emotionally draining, and physically exhausting, as any long-term stay abroad would be. Which is shorthand for, this is my chance to figuring out how to cope with others, who I really am on an international level, and how I want to live the rest of my life. This is my wonderful chance to do more, to be more. With this reminder on repeat, I tighten my grip on the compass and carry on.

At home, I had it together. At least to my mentors and peers, I was the pinnacle of twenty-something success with the amount of things I could do while completing my undergrad. But when I came to Ghana, I was so crazy confused and slowed down by everything—from things lost in translation to where certain department buildings are. I had no idea where to find the notices posted when a class was changed, because the campus is huge and the university doesn’t post many things online. Before classes I pull my phone out of my pocket and warmly scroll through pictures of my cats (I’ll be home soon, Monet and Sylvie!), pictures of me with my wonderful, supportive boyfriend (be good!), and pictures of home (hey Mom!). I’ve only been gone for a little over two months, but I can literally feel the 5,700 mile distance between me and the people I love more viscerally than I have in years. This is all humbling, and I need all the help I can get. Family, friends, and strangers are eager to give me the help I’ve needed. Now, being here, I can empathize with the fears and challenges in starting over to all the internationals coming to the States. I’m reminded that sheepishly asking for help — and offering it —wonderfully connects us to each other.

However, homesickness is positive because it’s:

Stressful and exciting
Fear invoking and empowering
Unnerving and confidence building

No matter how difficult my wandering has been, I believe it has been ultimately valuable, sacrifices and all. I’ve made a few golden friends, even learned a new language (to the extent of “please” and “thank you”). Between a lack of resources and the emotional burdens that brings, the journey has begun to weigh heavily. While I haven’t seen nearly as much of the world, or even this country, in my heart I know the time has come for me to cease my aimless wanderings and mentally settle down with reality of living far away from home. Homesickness, like lovesickness, can be a good thing —perhaps there is a positive way of looking at it. Susanna Barry, a Senior Program Manager at MIT Medical, specializes in stress management and sleep health. Speaking on an MITConversations podcast about homesickness, she gives advice on how to tolerate new experiences and suggests that thriving on them is the silver lining of homesickness. Anyway, it’s pretty good. So, being here has been a creative blessing and sometimes a hurdle.

And then I was cutting David’s hair.

Now, before you get confused, David put a lot of trust in my almost non-existent talent at men's hair styling (see Bethany's Wheel of Talents). I found myself standing in a co-ed bathroom of the hostel with electric clippers in my right hand, carefully buzzing around my Korean friend’s ear. And through the giggles and cackles between us, I felt at home. I wasn’t in a foreign continent and struggling with homesickness, but in a moment of excitement, presentness, and wellness in my soul. I joked about shaving my hair right above my ear, and then we could all give each other prison tattoos like a gang. Pretty soon my comrade Tyler came to join us in helping, then Natasha, then Abby, then two Germans, one of whom had a bottle of wine, so we just stood there and passed the bottle around, laughing and being in communion with each other’s confused, culturally-adapting, disoriented selves of such different nationalities. All to join in something ridiculous we all knew: cutting hair. We just stood there in the bathroom for hours, laughing and enjoying the company of our international brothers and sisters. I reflected back on the simple equation that guided me to feeling less restless with traveling to West Africa:

Uncertainty = Excitement + Growth

This realization has led me back to the writings I posted when I was en route to Ghana, and anxious in the Amsterdam airport. Becoming more deeply aware of my habits and embracing uncertainty to my advantage are what’s finally allowing me to inspire excitement within myself, instead of stress and anxiety. My dedication to mastering presence instead of homesickness can manifest itself to benefit others. With that kind of dedication, I knew I could help people and being more creative in my work, in my independent design projects.

No one should put pressure on themselves to adapt quickly. Everything in life takes so much time, and my culture presses it into me to go, go, go. Anything worth doing takes years. You can’t set short time frames—that’s short sighted. The thing is, all of those people that I adore in their careers of working internationally put in years of work before they could reach a level of competency, skill and creativity that allowed them to create the work that I look up to. I can’t just start out, wave a magic wand and become as good as them in living and working with international design and marketing. So I have to learn, and learn, and learn. I’m fermenting here to be the best international designer I can be, because I can’t skip the process of adapting here. Rather than skipping or rushing the process, I’m embracing it. Because I know that as I do that, I’ll become the most mature and beautiful version of myself: wide-eyed and excited for new experiences. The challenges I’m imagining through homesickness are probably not as insurmountable as I may think they are, and the rewards are likely far better than I imagine.

And the best part of all? These moments will all fall away to make room for thousands more. And Ghana will slowly, inevitably, feel more like home.

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Homesickness: A Mixture of Icebergs, Cat Pictures, and Haircuts