Yesterday was a good, good day. One of those days where you sit back at the end of it and feel so content with everything in life and wish that every day could be like that day. And I started to write this post three different times last night, but I couldn't really figure out what made the day SO good. I wrote about my friends and spending time with them, and I wrote about going swimming in the middle of the day together because all of us got off work, and I wrote about randomly going to eat noodles in town still in our swimsuits. But that wasn't what made the day so great. I couldn't figure it out, so I kept erasing what I'd written and trying again. I didn't realize until today that the reason the day was one I want to remember in my mind for a long, long time is because it was a day in which I felt like I REALLY belonged.
Even though I've lived here more than four years now, I'm still very, very much an outsider. My skin is a different color, for starters. I have curly hair and blue eyes and I'm tall. I have a completely different worldview, mindset, culture, and background. I have a different religion. I speak a different language. I literally live half a world away from home. People don't get me. People usually just stare at me. And I struggle with that.
Belonging is important. Everyone wants to belong. And most of the time here, I feel like I don't.
So many little things happened yesterday though that made me feel like I'm really a part of this place, like I'm one of these people. Nothing huge happened - it was all in the little things.
Like when my friend's one year old baby who hates everyone except his momma came straight to me, wrapped his chubby little hand around one of my fingers, and pulled me out the door to play outside with him. And when he used the few words he knows to communicate with me and then laughed hysterically when I repeated them back to him. And when he fell asleep while I was holding him and a stranger asked if he's my Indonesian baby. Oh, how I love that little boy.
Or when I went out for ronde and noodles with friends, and the cashier, without missing a beat, told me my total in Javanese like he didn't even notice that I was white. I've eaten there several times, and he always speaks Indonesian to me. But not yesterday. Yesterday, I was Javanese like everyone else.
And when I ate dinner with another friend's family, his dad, whom I've never met before, said to me in the middle of the meal, "Where are you even from that you can speak Indonesian like that?" and then later, when I was on my third helping, "You speak the language, you like the food, so you're pretty much Indonesian now, aren't you?"
And I can't forget about the completely bat crap crazy woman who came and sat herself down next to me while I was reading by the pool and proceeded to tell me her whole life story. Apparently, she has two husbands and three children, and she was dead but came back to life and has tried every religion and settled on Islam so now she can't drink pig water (whatever that is). But she really likes Buddhists and dogs. And she's read the Bible, and she was really convinced that the book I was reading was the Bible, so she tried to steal it from me. "I want to kiss you because I don't like you. I hate you! Where? Over there! I don't care! I love you! I love you! I love because it's Christian! I don't care! I need a husband. Where is the exit here? Where are my kids? Over there, I don't care! Oh, are you French?"
Oh, and maybe the littlest thing of all was when I found a back way to my friend's new house. I love back roads, but I don't use them very much here because none of the roads go straight, and it's really easy to get hopelessly lost and facing 180 degrees away from where you started. But I found my way on my first try, and it made me happy to know that I can find my way on the back roads sometimes.
I just read over everything I wrote for the 10th time since I started writing yesterday. And I think I finally nailed it this time. I realize that none of these things seem important. But they really are to me. And on the days when I really feel like this place will never feel like home no matter how long I stay, I want to read this again and again and remember yesterday. Because yesterday, I belonged.
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