Francine began losing her leaves soon after Christmas.

She has been a good houseplant, keeping me and my roommates company when we sit at our kitchen table. Her red and green leaves signaled the coming of Christmas, and though she was only intended to live with us for the 6 weeks up till Christmas, our attachment to her has made it difficult to simply throw her away.

Attachment is a funny thing, really. Some say it developed as a help to our survival instinct. It’s hard to see how my love for a Poinsettia could help me fend off predators.

Francine began losing her leaves. I’ve never been really good with plants, but I kept watering her and trying my best to care for her. Some days she seemed to be doing better, but then some more leaves would drop. To say I was anxious about her fate is a little strong, but only a little.

 

It happened again this week. I snapped.

It wasn’t just once. It wasn’t even twice. You see, there’s a difference between a sudden, uncontrolled response to something and the slow tide of brewing anger. A nasty response to a coworker, merciless criticism of your boss, or a sharp word to a roommate, all on the same day… there might be something going on underneath. If you find that you have conflict erupting in every corner of your world, there’s only one common denominator: you.

A year of living abroad has taught me that culture shock, among other things, brings out a very angry side of my self. You can’t get too upset about culture shock, you just have to let there be extra grace. That’s one of the beauties of living abroad for a while: you have to learn grace.

You must learn love undeserved. You must learn to love yourself, undeserved.

 

If you can, however, manage to endure an audience with grace, you may learn something about yourself. Culture shock rarely invents, but rather magnifies.

It sucks when you learn something about yourself that you don’t want to hear. “Prickly” and “aggressive” are words I don’t want on my gravestone, and yet ignoring their real place in my life may very well secure them such a place. It turns out that spending twenty hours a week on language acquisition is not the only way I need to be growing right now.

What concerns me about Francine is that she only has two statuses in life: Growing or Dying.

Francine and I have that in common.

It’s ok, though. This morning at breakfast, I noticed the tiniest of new leaves.

Still Wandering,

Tony