Growing Up Outside

I didn't have what you might call a "normal childhood," complete with cops with AK-47s, testy border crossings, and rivers filled with snakes and piranhas. And I don't say snakes lightly. Picture a 9f t long anaconda. Or feisty black mambas. Or cobras climbing up your screen door. #JustGirlyThings

But at the same time, my life wasn't as abnormal as it could have been. Those cops weren't pointing their guns at me, the border crossings were more annoying than actually dangerous, and we were never attacked by any snakes or piranhas. So, though my life was different, it was...well, boring.

People tell me that I must have such exciting stories to tell and they always scoff when I refuse to talk about my experiences. They think I'm just being shy but, in reality, I just don't have anything to talk about. Unless I completely exaggerate everything to make me sound like the modern day Joan of Arc, if dear Joan was hiking through rainforests and camping in deserts. People don't want to hear that I was a recluse high schooler who spent her adventurous Africa days with her nose in a book. People don't want to hear that I hated every hike and every camping trip, that I spent every waking hour wishing I lived somewhere where the store was a 20 minute drive away.

But I no longer give a shit what people want or do not want to hear. I'm going to break it down for you.

My life sucked.

See? It's only interesting if I exaggerate it. That being said, I really did not enjoy life as an American teenager in the African boonies or the American adolescent in the Amazon rainforest. Beside the fact that, even after ten years, I still could not grasp the different language or the different cultures, I was pretty lonely.

What people don't really tend to talk about is the fact that a missionary kid's life is written in goodbyes.

It wasn't just that every time we moved we left people behind, there was all the other people that moved, too. It was the pen-pals in America that stopped having time to email me back. It was the time differences and the "God's calling us somewhere else." It was the people that swore up and down that we would be friends forever. Clearly, as shown in my bitter tone, we did not stay friends forever.

The worst part of it all was social media. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I live and breathe social media. Nothing goes down in my life without it being Instagrammed or going up on my Snapchat story. But there are pros and cons to anything.

I lived ten hours down a very rough dirt road, ten hours away from the city and the nearest friend. Without social media, I would be sitting on the couch, staring out the window, with no one but my dog to talk to. (Parents don't count, don't @ me). And, yeah, I had my siblings for the most part but we were never really friends. Sure, we didn't despise each other and we had fun hanging out but, like I said, we weren't besties. So, I loved having Facebook. I loved being able to message my friends—it was quicker and easier than email—and I loved finding pages that shared my obsession with One Direction to follow.

But I was also a friendless people person who got to see every person she missed posting about their adventures and their best friends on Facebook. I scrolled and scrolled, seeing post after post of pizza parties, and sleepovers, and "she's my best friend!" and interactions over statuses. All things I had never had. So, though I was lonely without social media, it also shoved that fact down my throat whenever it could.

But I was never allowed to complain about it. Whenever we visited America, my friends would rave about how much they missed me and everyone told me how lucky I was to travel the world! So I just smiled and played along.

I never told my parents that I was suicidal. In truth, I only ever told one person that all through high school. What could I say? My dad was out in the world, saving lives one malaria patient at a time and my mom was busting her ass to get us graduated with high enough grades to get good scholarships. She cried when I cheated at math because she felt she had failed me as a mom. So, what? I was supposed to make her pain worse?

I spent most of my time reading or watching movies, filling up empty hours. I had one friend who stuck by me but she lived in the city while I lived in the village. The village where I stuck out like a sore thumb and couldn't speak the language.

Okay, yeah, my life wasn't all negative. There were plenty of fun times. But not enough for me to look back and feel satisfied. I don't sigh with a sense of nostalgia, looking back at the "good old days." I just went through life hoping it would get better at college.

But when people ask me what life was like overseas, they don't want to hear about the knife I hid in my room. They don't want to hear how I bitterly watched their Snapchat stories and scrolled over their Facebook feed, hating them for not thinking of me. They don't want to hear that I was miserable. That I have given up hope on long lasting friendships. Hell, I don't even try to make friends anymore because of how often I, or they, leave.

People want me to spin lovely, sunlit stories of kind village folk and gritty mountain hikes. They want me to talk about lions! And elephants! And snakes! Oh, the sights I have seen! They want me to be fluent in twelve tribal languages with a pre-bachelor's degree in medicine and international relations. They don't want to hear that I came out on the other side bipolar, bisexual, depressed, anxious, and suicidal with a hint of self harm. They want me dancing in meadows in long, denim dresses with every Scripture memorized, with a plan to marry a missionary and have twelve kids somewhere in China with no electricity or running water.

So, yeah, I'll still bullshit every question people ask me about being a missionary kid, but at least you get the truth. Being a missionary kid wasn't all sitting around a fire telling Bible stories and riding elephants to church to spread miracle healing to lepers. (Though, I will admit, one of these things did happen often.) And, don't get me wrong, I think being a missionary is great job... for the right people. I, as it were, was not one of them.

So, next time someone asks me what it was like growing up overseas, maybe I'll send them a link to this essay. Or maybe I'll just smile and say it was great. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.