Integration these days for me, looks like reading the unspoken code of other people’s boundaries.
This is often the most isolating and alienating part about this language: This hard-won knowledge is the very thing standing in the way of connection.
Because while I am accurately scanning, and reading and mapping out other people’s emotional states and capacity levels, I am left with two impossible choices. Either I meet them exactly where they are – which requires shrinking my because they cannot meet me where I am – or I make the wrong calculation, and they write me off as a self righteous know it all.
So, integration becomes about slowing down. It is about being intentional with where I delegate my already limited energy, understanding there is marginal room for error, and waiting for people to show up in consistent ways that actually earn trust.
So while I wait along the shores; I’ll find a nice shady spot beneath a palm tree. It is much different than the pine trees back home. I’ll scan the beach for sea shells, half hoping I can hear the voices from my past one last time. I will marvel at the beauty of sunlight reflecting off the ocean like little diamonds.
And I will cultivate a life so full filling, that maybe, language becomes a little less important. Maybe I’ll fish for food with the locals. Maybe I will build a sand castle with one. Lay in a hammock and let the breeze carry away the pain from yesterday. Maybe, we’ll never speak exactly the same language, but we’ll understand enough to share an afternoon.
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