A New Kind of Normal

We are raised with this concept of “normal” – an idea of what is regular, standard, and common. It is what we are comfortable with, what we are used to, and what we know life to consist of. Normal are the things that we cease to notice in life – because they just are there.

Often times I have said that I just wished my life was “normal”. About half way through my time in Asia I began to struggle with longing to be normal. I wasn’t actually sure what I meant by that, but I struggled with the reality of how unorthodox my life was. I yearned to be what I knew, to have a life like what I had seen before. But no, I wasn’t your average American young woman. I wasn’t living a life that my culture had said was the ideal. While all my friends were declaring majors at good colleges back in the US, I was working a full-time job in Asia trying to figure out who I am and what to do with my life. My lifestyle was exciting and adventurous, but some days I just wanted to not be stared out when I walked down the street. I wanted to shop in a regular grocery store. I wanted to be with people who were like me – my age, my stage in life, my way of life. “I just want to be normal!” I would mumble.

But last week I walked by a man who was carrying a live chicken and big knife out to the sidewalk. I looked twice but I didn’t think twice. Last night I sat on my friends’ couch listening to Tibetan music being played in the square outside as women danced to the music in a large circle. At four o’clock every day the call to prayer can be heard over loud speakers. I go to the office every day to work with amazing women who have come from backgrounds of exploitation. I am often stopped on the sidewalk and asked to take my photo with some random excited stranger who makes me feel like a movie star. I eat lamb (and one time rat by accident) on a stick for dinner which has been cooked over coals on the side of the road. I am highly under-trained and under-qualified for my job, but I learn, I make mistakes, and figure it out as I go. The other day I was in my friend’s car driving home and realized that out of the 5 people in the car, 5 different countries were represented. I sat with a British friend, a Canadian friend, a German friend, and a Dutch friend. And this kind of diversity is a common occurrence in my social interactions.

I see and experience a dozen things every day that 2 years ago would have made me either laugh, cry, or go “Huh?” But I hardly even notice them anymore. You know why? Because this life is my normal now.  I’m used to eating yogurt out of a bag, speaking Chinglish, and getting to know people from all over the world. I drink hot water now (something I swore I would never do when I first move to Asia). I have my favorite gaifan (a veggie dish over rice) delivery guy. I’m used to squatty-potties. I don’t think twice when I see a man riding a bicycle with a couch to strapped his back.

I’ve learned that this idea of “normal” I was conditioned to believe in, pressured to pursue, doesn’t really exist. Normal is just what you make life to be. And often times life changes and you have to adjust your perspective and adopt a new normal.

I am soon to leave my normal life in East Asia – the life I know, the life I’m used to, the life I love – for a new and foreign way of life in a strange place called the United States of America. I have come to love my current normal and I know the lessons I have learned and experiences I have had in this normal will equip me for the next normal too.

Vicarious Trauma

I recently ran across a link to this article about Vicarious Trauma which was posted by an individual who works in Southeast Asia with a similar project to the nonprofit I work with. I found it very helpful and interesting to read. After working in Asia for nearly two years with women who have come out of exploitation, I can really relate to what this article talks about. Day after day I see deep pain in women's eyes. I see the look of insecurity and confusion flash across their faces. Even just walking down the street or riding the bus, I am surrounded with people who carry hopelessness in their eyes and a posture that expresses how exhausted they are at trying to balance fulfilling their familial and/or cultural duty and wanting to attain the happiness culture has told them they can buy. 

The abuse, trauma, and lack of love the women I work with have experienced makes me want to weep. It does make me weep. The more time I spent with them, the better we got to know one another, the more each woman became a part of my world. I got to know each of their unique and beautiful personalities and senses of humor. I witnessed their struggles. I saw them grow and journey down the tough road of healing. 

I grew to love each woman deeply and uniquely, and that's why I could really relate to this sentence in the article, "When you identify with the pain of people who have endured terrible things, you bring their grief, fear, anger, and despair into your own awareness and experience." 
Vicarious Trauma is a form of trauma people can experience over time after witnessing other people's sufferings and needs. It is common among humanitarian and nonprofit workers. When you deeply care about someone, and that someone is deeply hurting, you will feel that hurt too. If you are faced with horrible injustices and abuse repeatedly, it is going to start to affect you. We have all at some point had to witness a loved one or a friend go through a tough time and it hurt us to see them in that place. Vicarious Trauma is build up of that experience. It is the result of continual and intense exposure to and interaction with the brokenness in people's souls. 

But as I sit here writing this, I can't help but think of someone I know who has experienced the ultimate exposure to the brokenness of this world. He bore it all so that pain, trauma, and hopelessness would no longer have to be our only reality. You see, even after the things I've seen and experience, even after walking the red light districts of Asia, after seeing little girls and women of all ages with eyes glazed over, after seeing the heartbreaking realities of the poor, the undervalued, the neglected people of this world, I still hold on to Hope. I think I have most likely experienced vicarious trauma. Sometimes the trauma and pain is too much to bear and I just want to run away from it all and shut out the pain. But I will never ever forget the look in a woman's eyes when she is starting to believe that she is loved and valued. 

Direct and indirect trauma is a very real thing. And it is extremely complicated and incredibly difficult. But I refuse to believe that's all there is for us.

The First of Many Todays.

This is my last week of work. This is my last Monday at SFP. I’ve been with the Project for about a year and half now. What a year and half it has been.

At age 14 I sat in chair learning for the first time about this injustice called “human trafficking”. I was so captivated by what the speaker, a young woman who lived and worked in Thailand, said that I forgot to breathe. As I sat there in my chair listening to tales of women and men, girls and boys being so severely exploited around the world, my heart was pounding so fast I thought it would explode. When she concluded her sharing and stepped off the stage, a thought – no, not just a thought, more like a firework of realization – stood before me: Maybe this was what I was born to do. I must and will help bring freedom to people. This is what I am supposed to do with my life.

All throughout high school I dreamed of helping women break free from exploitation. I dreamed of seeing them have the opportunity to live a life of hope. I dreamed of being a part – of doing my part – in bringing restoration to the broken.

But I think I thought it would always be just a dream. What did I have to offer a hurting world? What could I possibly do that would mean anything? How would I find my place?

A few months ago, I rolled over in bed and switched off my alarm. I opened my eyes and stared at the white ceiling. I tried to process the reality of the start of a new day. Then, all of sudden, my eyes grew wider and brighter. And I thought to myself, I’m living my dream.

All this time I hadn’t fully realized it. Yes, of course, I knew I was working with a project I loved and was passionate about. I knew I enjoyed my work. I knew I loved seeing women rescued out of exploitation. I knew I was doing something close to my heart. But in that moment the full weight of it woke me up with more gusto than a bullhorn. I am living my dream.

Maybe I didn’t recognize it fully until now because it doesn’t look like how I had seen it done before. Maybe it was because it wasn’t as dramatic or glamorous as stories I had heard about. Maybe it was because most of the time it is just a lot of hard work, and not very many results. Maybe it was because I was so busy. Whatever the reason, whatever I had unknowingly expected it to look like 10 years down the road, it didn’t matter. It didn’t happen how I thought it would. It didn’t happen when I thought it would. But it is my dream. It is my today.

Over the past year and a half at SFP, I have seen a lot. I have experienced a lot. I have learned a lot.

It has been a rough several months. But the look in a woman’s eyes that says she knows she is in a safe place, the smile she can now mean, the laugh she lets flow, the tears she is not ashamed of, and the Life that now fills her is… indescribable. It makes me so much more breathless than that night did long ago as a 14 year old learning about injustice and heartbreak. I have seen a lot of heartbreak this past year and half. But I have seen what restoration looks like too. I have seen what Hope is. I have seen what was dead come alive again.

This is my last week working at the Project. In a few weeks, I’ll be packing up my faithful suitcase off to the next adventure and hopefully to the next dream. It probably won’t match my knowingly preconceived notions and my unknowingly preconceived notations this time either. But as I leave my home in Asia for a while, I will carry each and every woman in my heart. For they are my friends, my sisters, and my inspirations.

I do not know what the future holds for them or for me.

But this is our today.