Recently I realized (somewhat late in the game perhaps) that I am still using my e-mail address "carlyinbrazil". I also use carlyinbrazil as a username in quite a few other places and accounts. The other day this suddenly struck me as funny... because... I am not carlyINbrazil anymore... and I haven't been in nearly three years.
Yet I hang on to that title.
It makes me wonder. How much of me still really IS in Brazil? I have spent a bit more than a month in Brazil (on two different trips) since I left there in the summer of 2004... but I don't think that is what this idea refers to. I think that a big piece of me is in Brazil still... and probably always will be. So many people see their time in college as this turning/changing time in their lives... and for me I would agree that AU definitely was that... but it was more a part of this 9 year arc that took me to Brazil and back and completely changed the girl that I am and the girl that I will be.
Brazil. I miss it. More than I thought I would... and three years later, I still sometimes feel like I am still coming back to the US... lots of stuff here still baffles me and still bothers me. When I moved to Brazil in 2001, I adjusted so fast and even never really felt like I had left home... Brazil always felt like home to me. Now being here again, in the place that is supposed to be my home, I still feel like a "foreigner".
So odd my life is.
I told Dawn last night that our lives lack any major drama or trauma that most of the world goes through regularly... yet our lives are FULL of the most random and ridiculous things.
It's true.
Today I miss Brazil... so today I will remain CarlyInBrazil.
But lest you doubt me... This proves I am most definetly NOT in Brazil...
It becomes a little easier to see how who you are and the place where you are have been worked together by an amazing God... to put you exactly where he wants you.
