How did I get here?

I had one of those moments today. I was waiting to pay our electric bill.  Someone has a little office that they run out of their house, and I was there, along with several other people waiting. The hot sun was "bravo" or angry as they say here.  I looked around the little neighborhood, tropical trees scattered between make-shift driveways and simple homes.

How did I get here?  Why is walking through the tropical sun to stand in line with my Panamanian neighbors my normal day?  It certainly isn't anything like what I imagined my life as, when I was a child.  I never traveled outside the US until I came to Panama at 18.  I didn't know anything about Panama. I had never been on an airplane, never lived away from my family.

What possessed me to board a plane, and then make a life for myself thousands of miles away. I don't know.  This life pulled me in, I felt compelled, it felt right.  I don't even know how to describe it.

How did I end up here, raising my children in a context so different from my own childhood.  Airplanes, outboard motors, and thatched roof houses are a normal part of their life.  Their mom is from one country, their dad from another, and they don't know that that might make them different.

Life is beyond my capacity to understand. The world is so complex and full of possibilities. For better or for worse, this is where I am. I hate it sometimes, and love it sometimes, and mostly it's just life.

How did I get here? One day at a time, trying to follow my Good Shepherd who knows this path better than I.