McConversations

These past few days have been fairly surreal. I have been meeting with some of the guys I'll be working with and trying to get settled down here in Chisinau. Both things are going to be a challenge.
Out of the five guys I've sat and talked with, four of them were really excited. However, the conversation with the fifth guy was probably one of the hardest conversations I've ever had in my life. It was hard for a whole lot of reasons. I'll list some of them for you:

1. "I didn't know what life was like outside of the orphanage and now I've lost all my hope and all my trust."

2. "How am I supposed to do anything? I don't have a family."

3. "Friendship isn't enough. Maybe if you were my real brother, maybe that would be enough."

4. "You're just going to leave someday too."

5. "I had no choice in losing my family. You had a choice and you chose to leave your family. Why should I listen to someone who would leave their family?"

That is just a taste of a conversation that lasted over three hours. Those statements stick with you. They came from Ruslan, a guy I had been told was sensitive, very vulnerable, who longs to be close to someone, nurturing to the other kids and who had been orphaned twice. You could taste the hurt he had been through. You could feel the weight he carries around.

I don't want to pretend like I had great answers to those questions. I didn't. He hit me in the gut and it hurt at times. Maybe I could have said a bunch of cliche things to try and comfort him but that would have felt wrong to me, cheap on a fundamental level.

We both know I don't know what it is like to be him or to have gone through what he has. I didn't know what to say when it was done. So I thanked him. He said what he said probably wasn't what I wanted to hear. That is why I thanked him. What he said during that long afternoon was what I needed to hear. It was his heart and it was honest. The conversation was hard, but it needed to be.

All that to say, the conversation was in a strange way encouraging. Our relationship will be built over hard times and struggles. Those kind of relationships seem to be the strongest. My relationship with Ruslan will take time, and it should. I am grateful it started how it did. I love him for it- for being vulnerable, for being honest and saying the hard things.

By the way, today was his birthday, he just turned seventeen and has already "lost hope." So here is where we start. I'm curious as to where it goes from here.

On a lighter note, today I ate at McDonalds (I didn't pick it). Everything on the menu had 'Mc' in front of it. For some reason, I decided to speak with 'Mc' in front of everything.
A sampling:
"It's McFreezing."
"Galina is McGrumpy."
"Where am I going to McLive?"
"There's a McTaxi, maybe we could get a McRide home."
"I'm McLame."
"This apple pie is McAwesome." (fyi- the apple pie here is fried, like they used to be before they started baking them. Delicious)

Man, my McHead is messed up. I think I'll go to McBed.