Going for a break in Hawaii!

So I´m on my way again. A week in China and DPRK and now heading towards Kona Hawaii for 3 months. To get going has been hard on both these trips. With the last trip I faced much fear of the unknown, this time it´s harder than I thought to leave home, I´ve gotten too used to Christina´s great cooking and having the kids around me at all hours, my own car (graciously rented to me for free from our neighbors) and just little practical responsibility. It´s been like a 4-month long holiday.

Now it´s back to reality. Cooking my own meals, cleaning my own apartment and figuring out how to bring the things I need from Walmart and Safeway on the scooter. Plumbing problems, lots of practical things to fix in the apartment... Not tons of people to call if  I´m in an emergency, and not that many people I really know. No security net. 

It´s been hard to leave with this in mind. Coz Hawaii is so much more to me now than just beautiful weather, beaches, and vacation… it´s just normal life… it´s just somewhere I happen to live…. And not much is new or unknown anymore. 

So why am I going? Why do I live there? 

To be honest, I´m not entirely sure…. that might sound crazy. When I came back in 2011 and 2013 it was to visit my sister, and then Ina and I had one amazing month studying and hanging out together…. In June 2014 I went to staff a Discipleship training school, and in 2015 I went back in March to help lead a conference, but this time… I really don´t know why. I´m in the last part of my master studies, writing the thesis, but the most convenient way would be to do it in Stavanger, where I have all the books and articles available and the professor as well. But for some reason I´m going 3 months to write it (or some of it, at least) in Hawaii. I just feel like I´m suppose to go. 

So leaving and uprooting without really knowing why has been hard this time. But writing this on my 3rd plane today, from San Francisco to Kona, I am already getting a bit excited about what is ahead, even though I don´t know yet. Maybe it is to be a bit more unavailable? Maybe it is so I am forced to be more alone, without the security net I usually lean on?

The last months I´ve had a growing feeling that I´m getting too much input. I read and write at least 20 e-mails a day, I´m often on Facebook and read the newsfeed, and try to keep updated on Instagram and Snapchat (though I do forget it at times), I love news, both paper version and online and my cellphone is often checked for messages and phone calls. Not to mention the weather and for me significantly, the exchange rates (valuta), haha.

This summer I´ve really felt that the information is becoming too much. Part of it is the refugee crisis in Europe. The news has been flooded with pictures and heart wrenching stories about refugees in need, and it´s made me feel compassion at times, but also lukewarm and frustrated. Too much news I can´t digest and too many things I can´t do much about right now. Along with the big and small events in everybody´s lives that I see on social media that doesn´t get processed. At times I almost feel dizzy, but keep reading. I tell myself not to go online for news, but end up taking the phone with me to bed and go through several sites before I fall asleep. Sometimes I´ve felt almost numb with the overload of information.

So what do you do if you experience this? Do I cut out social media and news entirely? Cut out phone and internet? Or try to limit it? How do I do that successfully, when it is so accessible all the time! Do I not put my 3G on when I´m without wifi, do I not let social medias and mail update me when I have new messages?!

Don´t get me wrong. I LOVE social media and internet, it´s a great tool. In many ways it suits my personality perfectly. I love being connected to so many people I rarely see, and the quick way of communicating with people all over the world. But… I feel it has become too much for my brain to handle. I want to be touched by the news and let it sink in, I want to be able to stare at one photo for minutes and look at all the details instead of just skimming through 20 pictures in a few seconds. And I want time for my mind to be completely blank, not thinking about anything or anyone.

I still haven´t figured out what to do, or how to handle this overload. But maybe leaving Norway and going to Hawaii some months could help me slow down, be less online…. My apartment doesn´t yet have wifi, maybe we should wait a little longer to get it..?

I don´t know. But I want to slow down life in general…. not just internet… everything… I want to be more alone… I want to be bored and sit on the stone wall in Kona and look at the waves for hours, with nowhere to be and nothing to do…. I want to enjoy nature more… I want to find rest for my mind and my body, and quiet down my heart.

Maybe Hawaii can be a place for that. Maybe that´s why I´m going…?