What four years will do...

I am sitting at my desk eating borshch.

Remember when I though beets had to be disgusting?

I made it myself.

Remember when I didn’t cook?

I’m drinking carbonated water, wishing it was the strong carbonation and not just the slightly carbonated.

Remember when I thought fizzy water was gross?

Kvas now makes appearances in my diet, not frequently, but there have been moments of craving.

Remember when I didn’t even know what Kvas was?

I walk whenever possible and when not possible I take public transportation.

Remember when I never wanted to grow up, just be old enough to drive?

It’s more likely that you’ll find sour cream in my fridge than ketchup.

Remember when I was the ketchup queen and specifically ordered things without sour
cream?

I dreamed in Russian last night.

Remember when I was studying French in high school?

After 4 years, I finally made my way to a public pool.

Remember when I swam everyday?

Washing machines, dishwashers and microwaves are somewhere in my past (or at friends’ apartments :o)

I know some words in Russian that I have to think hard about to find in English—“икра,”
“тазик,” “зарядка.”

My blessing and my curse is that I am not who I was and not yet who I will be; I am caught somewhere in the middle of a paradox-al life.

I am American. And yet I am not.
I am not Ukrainian. And yet I am.

Home is where I am. And it is where I was. And it is where I am going.

I yearn for the past. I yearn for the future. I live in the moment.

I trust Christ more now than I ever have before. I have more questions now than I ever have before.

I love taking life one day at a time. I hate not knowing what’s next.

Wonder what the next four years hold…

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Jeremiah 29:11-14