The Good and the Bad

My lingering cold has left me with less energy than normal so I decided to take it easy the other night. I stayed in and watched a movie and flipped through some pictures from India. I looked at the pictures of India that some of my fellow group members had posted. I saw still images of a few things I have not forgotten, for I don’t think I ever could. But I also saw a few things that I guess I just haven’t really thought about since starting a job and trying “move on” with life. These images really hit me. They took me back to those moments and experiences, almost instantaneously.

It’s been the weirdest thing coming back from the India experience. I knew it was going to be a life changing experience. But no matter how we try to prepare for these experiences, no matter how much we know it will change our lives, we can never comprehend the affects of these experiences until after. Even now, months after, I’m still not sure I really comprehend just how much the experience has changed it.

So back to the pictures, looking at some of these pictures I was reminded of some of the hard things in India. Some of the pictures of beggars made me think about the constant, daily turmoil I had with facing them. It made me think of the two beggar women that I passed every day on my walk from my host family’s house to the market. One of the beggars was always kinda grumpy, sometimes rude. The other always with a bright beautiful smile, always saying good morning, some mornings even asking other questions and talking with me. This second woman actually never asked for money. I wrote about her at one point, even in this blog. I had always meant to sit down and talk with her, spend more time with her, but I never did. By the time I finally meant to sit down with her, she had moved some where else.

A lot of people talk about how they have no regrets. I don’t think I really believe that, at least not in the way I look at the word regret. To me, regret means you wish you had done something different. I think because we are human, we will make mistakes. I think because we are human we feel bad about those mistakes. I guess this idea of “having no regrets” doesn’t mean that you don’t wish you’d done something different or that you don’t feel bad, but simply that you have accepted the mistakes and moved on. If nothing else you learned the lessons from those moments and choices and have bettered yourself because of it.

In thinking about the beggars, I wish I had done a few things differently. I wish I had taken better advantage of talking to some people. I wish I had handled some situations better. I wish I understood the things I do now about the experience. But the fact that I made mistakes doesn’t mean I have regrets. I learned so much about myself, so much about the world, so much about life. I have pondered a lot on the mistakes and glories and I am learning to face them all at the same time, to see them work together to create a beautiful picture. When people ask me questions about India, I’m trying to paint them that picture, the ones of my hopes and disappointments, the one of my best and not so best moments, the dark and the light, the good and the bad. This picture itself is like a metaphor of India, a country that doesn’t hide its garbage, that doesn’t hid its poor, that’s doesn’t hid its decaying buildings, that doesn’t even hid the dead. But it also doesn’t hide its good, it doesn’t hide its beauty, it doesn’t hide its history, its friendliness, its curiosity, its traditions, its culture. These pictures remind me of this, of this lesson I learned in India, that sometimes the most beautiful things show the good and the bad, all at the same time.

I had been warned that coming home sometimes the culture shock of coming back home is worse than in the field. I wouldn’t say that mine was worse, but I can definitely say that there was some reentering shock. I was coming back to a world I knew and loved and feel so comfortable in. While my country hadn’t changed, I had. The first few weeks, and maybe even months I struggled with where I fit into the world. I am still an American, and still grateful for all the things that are mine because I am American. But after seeing the things I did, after experiencing the things I did, I don’t completely see things the way many other Americans do, the way that I saw things before. I have learned to come to terms with that good and bad, of myself, of the world, of life. I feel like I see things differently and although it was hard at first, I’m now seeing the beauty and wonders it can bring to see both the good and bad at the same time.