Happiness among Adjustments

I never would have thought such effort would be necessary for home to feel like “home”. Our new home here in Turkey is slowly starting to feel more and more like home. Many tears of frustration have fallen here, and many arguments wrestled through from the lack of feeling “not at home” but strangers in a strange land. Considering my recent past before our arrival to Turkey, every time I’ve moved in the US to a new location, be it a city or simply a new flat, it wouldn’t take much time ‘til I felt “at home”.
Emily and I have thought long and hard about what exactly made us feel at home, when we did feel at home. Was it being in a neighborhood that we knew? Was it being able to speak with our neighborhoods and knowing the social mannerisms required to meeting them? Was it simply “knowing” our society, so that wherever we went we at least knew where to start our integration into a new city or neighborhood?
We haven’t arrived at a sufficient conclusion, though “familiarity” may remain as our top way for feeling at home. We are growing in our familiarity of our surroundings and I can say, we are beginning to feel at home here in Mersin, Turkey. So many things are different here; from the beautifully tiled flooring, to the way you defensively cross the savage neighborhood streets, to the way you change the way you think in terms of distance (miles to kilometres), weight (pounds to kilograms) and size (inches to metres).
The name of the game seems to be flexibility in the face of extreme adjustments. And the beautiful thing about adjustments are, you get used to them. Life is a complex series of adjustments. One day you got pimples and peer pressure, the next you have college finals, and then a woman ends up in your bed with a ring on her finger who happily says she got it from you. Life is all about adjustments, but for Emily and Inot only are we preparing to start a family, we are preparing to start a family while language learning and culture learning in a new country. A new child will be quite an adjustment, but I honestly can’t wait.
So here I am, feeling quite at home in a still a strange new land, typing away on a familiar keyboard with a very familiar special someone nearby keeping me company…and I can say I’m quite happy!

“We are far too easily pleased!”

“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Sotics and is no part of the Christian faith.  Indeed, if we consider the unblushing proimses of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.”

C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”