Here There and Everywhere

“I Think She’s a Liar!”

AdventureMan has just come back from running errands and he has some tales to tell. One of his adventures has to do with meeting a woman a little older than him.

“No matter what I said, she’d been there, done that,” he said. “Like we talked about war experience, and I told her I fought in VietNam. She just nodded and said “I lost two husbands fighting in VietNam.”

“We talked about travel in Africa, and as it turns out, she had been everywhere. She’s travelled all the places we’ve been. I think she’s a liar.”

We’ve all run into them – the lunatics who make themselves big by lying.

And then I stopped, caught by a thought. This blog. My own experiences, roaming the world and then settling down in a small Southern city. It sounds wild. Unbelievable.

I have a friend who once told me “Isn’t it wonderful God blessed us with our different kind of lives? I never wanted to travel, and I love that I got to grow up in a small Southern town where I knew everyone.”

She was right. The thought of living all my life in one place makes me choke; I feel strangled. And living here, I am careful not to talk too much about all the places we have lived, and all the places we have visited. I am careful not to talk about the risks we have taken and the adventures we have had. I got the life I was created to live, and it might sound incredible to others.

It brought me up short. I think of people reading this blog and wondering how it can all be true. I read entries from years ago and I can hardly believe it myself! And I believe it’s entirely possible that people might think I am exaggerating or elaborating.

I shrug my shoulders. Yes, I want to have credibility. No, I am not to concerned with whether people believe me or not. And it is interesting to me to be given a sudden shift in perspective. I know how I see myself, and then, in an instant, I see how I might be perceived in another way.

September 10, 2024 Posted by intlxpatr | Afghanistan, Africa, Biography, Blogging, Character, Cross Cultural, ExPat Life, Lies, Pensacola, Quality of Life Issues, Stranger in a Strange Land, Zambia | Perception, reputation | 2 Comments