My tendency with this blog is not to post life updates. Life is best understood in retrospect, or at least, we can pretend it makes more sense that way, so I don't usually see the point in talking about the present. Nonetheless, I recognize the importance of vision or am reminded of it when I forget, which is more often than I would like to admit. Right, so just to break out of the box: life update. And along comes summer.
It has been a strange year of re-acquainting myself with the "real world." DTS is not the real world unless you're called to be a career YWAMmer, in which case, God bless you because it is not for the faint of heart. IMPACT 360 wasn't the real world either. Both good in the lessons I learned and the experiences that I had, but neither of them experientially useful in preparing me for this. Whatever this is.
I survived my year of community college, although hindsight tells me that I could have done better. Regrets being useless, I look to the future, which involves transferring to the University of Pennsylvania for the fall semester, there to work towards a BA in Philosophy. Having just finished Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, I am a bit daunted by the prospect of it all being incredibly lame, but I am holding onto a glimmer of hope that he was being mostly cynical when he wrote so scathingly of the fictional DuPont College. It's mostly what you make of it, right?
This week is my third at 7 Stones, a little independent coffee shop in Media. It was a little bit like jumping into the deep end knowing only how to tread water. I know most of the stuff, but I have been challenged to remain humble and not allow my pride to assert itself. It's a heck of a lot harder to learn when you're pigheaded, and if I get too know-it-all, I don't know how I'll ever adjust myself to fit an entirely new groove.
In some ways, it all feels a bit empty. The one thing that Fire & Fragrance and IMPACT did provide was a strong sense of unified purpose and vision. We all knew why we were there and we all shared a certain support for one another through the learning process. It is so hard to keep going when you don't have that shared momentum and accountability. Maybe that's why some people get into a serial dating pattern where they don't know how to be alone. For however long it lasts, someone supports you and believes in you, and it feels so good.
At the risk of veering away from life update and into philosophizing, the one-and-only Hadassah once shared with me about a time in her life when she felt like God was removing all of her crutches. I don't know what I have left at this point, but I'm probably holding onto whatever it is fiercely, because it is hard to stand on your own feet. Hard to stand before the naked glory of God and not disintegrate into mush or resent Him or despair. Hard to keep going when you can't remember what you have to live for. That's certainly not what it's like every day. And yet, I kind of appreciate having the rug yanked out from under my feet sometimes, because it reminds me not to be shallow. True, the hard knocks can make us forget, but sometimes instead they make us remember who we are.
One of the things that I have had the joy to remember is that I am a sister. It has been almost a year now that I have lived with Katrina, and it has been so much fun. I was a bit shell-shocked when I moved in last August, and I was also a little freaked out that we might discover that we hated being roommates to the ruination of our relationship. Thankfully, with a few adjustments, we have gotten along capitally. Perhaps more importantly, I've seen more of Maria. Katrina and I at least have had phone conversations over my two years away, but given Maria's busy schedule and crazy course load, we sort of drifted for a while. In that sense, the past ten months have been a gift.
So that's mostly it. There have been friends made and perhaps a few lost through the parting of currents. It would be unfair of me to expect more like Tia and Leah, although I have missed their presence a great deal. And we move on.
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