Chapter 2: Moving On?

I’ve just started reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and it really has me thinking. I think I’ve always believed in divine intervention. I don’t think I’ve always called it that; I don’t always now; but the concept has always existed to me. I’ve always thought that everything happens for a reason—good or bad—you’re meant to learn from certain things or they happen exactly when you need them to so you can learn something or take one step closer to fulfilling your ultimate potential. The reason I bring this up is because I bought this book years ago. It has been sitting on my shelf collecting dust and making friends with the dozens of other books I’ve purchased and pushed aside for the sake of schoolwork. I picked it up tonight out of what seemed to be sheer coincidence. I LOVE reading; I fall in love with the language and the imagery, the people, the places. They become real to me and I’m sad when I finish a book and have to say goodbye to the characters I had invested so much time in, so much that I feel as if they are friends who have moved away and I may never see again. I finished reading a series this evening and as always, a feeling of despair and loneliness crept over me at the loss of those friends and places. The easiest fix to this for me is grab something off the shelf and delve into the next universe and when I feel close enough to the characters and am sure they will still be around tomorrow to surprise me with their adventures, I can finally go to sleep. When I went to my shelves tonight I was looking for some fictional book I could drown myself in for the next few hours. I’ve mostly exhausted my fictional books apparently and those remaining were not catching my interest. There remained a few shelves of non-fictional books. These are not the textbook type books that come to mind when you hear “non-fiction” but rather real stories told by people who lived them. These kinds of books have intrigued me for a while now; as I’ve mentioned many times before, I love travel and I love to write. These books are basically people traveling for one reason or another and writing about their experiences and how they’ve grown and learned. I have books like this from China, India, Afghanistan, Mali, and on the list goes. I can’t completely say what made me choose this one, again I refer to the divine intervention thing here, but tonight, I picked up Eat, Pray, Love. I lent this to a friend right after I bought it and she loved it and said I would too, but life went on, one thing led to another, and you know the story. But tonight, I started reading it and I’m only about 30 pages in but it already has me looking at so many aspects of my life—how they are, how I want them to be. The author begins her tale by explaining the relational struggles and changes she is going through; I can certainly relate to that on several levels right now. She explains how she was “culturally a Christian, not theologically” which, I thought was a great way of describing that divide that Christians often point out in our society. She “opens a religious conversation” with God and her life, relationships, work, and travels go from there. Like I said, I’m not very far along yet, but I am certainly intrigued and invested already. She makes me want to get up and go. I’ve said in previous entries how I’m excited to get out and live my own life, how traveling is my biggest passion, how I’m dying to write. At several points already I’ve set the book down, looked around my room, and started planning to pack it up. I’ve already taken mental notes of certain characteristics and stylistics of writing that I would be interested in using for my own future works. I’ve certainly been thinking of how I’d love to travel to the places she talks about. (Again, I already wanted to travel everywhere, this has only made me rearrange the list a bit). I can already see it: my small house somewhere—my home base, a neighbor watching over it as I go off for a few weeks or months at a time—exploring remote areas of foreign nations, documenting all of the highs and lows of my visits, compiling each anecdote into some work to inspire others and instill passions within them as my favorite authors have done for me, coming home long enough to enjoy those close to me until I need to move again so I concoct another trip and head off.

Even now, I pause to collect my thoughts on where to go next with my writing here and I find myself evaluating my room again. I like where I’ve come from, what I’ve done so far, what I value, but there’s still something missing. There’s something inside me that’s urging—more like yelling in my soul—that I need to travel and write and get out of this small town and really do something. I mean no disrespect to my hometown or the people in it; it’s just not my calling. Growing up I always said I was going to move far away. I went through a short phase where I was afraid to move out of the wing of my family but events that followed obviously made that decision for me. But now, things are actually really good for my family; in the grand scheme of things they aren’t great, but for my family, this may honestly be the best they’ve ever been for me. I’m on my own, managing my own responsibilities—car, apartment, insurance, school, work, pets…all of these status symbols that I’m an adult in the U.S. but it’s not where I’m called. I’m not even necessarily talking about this from a religious standpoint—although I’ve noticed that they often (if not always) go hand in hand in my life. I think it’s partly because I just finished school this past week (for the summer that is); it doesn’t help that Conner is getting fixed so I’m car-less and stuck in the house for a few days—it leaves me far too much time to think (did I mention I don’t have cable or internet here either?) so all I do is read, listen to music, and think. I’m obviously not opposed to any of these; it just really gets me on tangents sometimes. I just wish I knew where I was going. If I could (which who knows, I may actually end up doing this for all I know) I would just start packing up my things here in this house. Pack up all the memories and put those into a pile to save and open to recount my life to my children someday; pack up all the things I would want to unpack when I actually find that house with the friendly neighbor to watch over it while I travel; and pack up all those things that I want with me in the here and now, the things that will traverse the globe with me and be mentioned for their participation in one crazy event or another. I want to be completely prepared so that when that door finally opens, that light points the way, I can up and go and just really live. I feel like I’m in limbo, biding my time and waiting to see what I’m supposed to do—I hate that. There is a quote from the movie “You’ve Got Mail” that caught my attention the first time I saw the movie as a child. Meg Ryan’s character is typing an email and says, “So many thing I see in life remind me of something I read in a book when, shouldn’t it be the other way around?” As much as I have been blessed with, I still feel like this is my life. I don’t want to live only in these other worlds, through other people. I’m here, I exist, I’m able. It’s time I started living these things myself.

I'm Seeing a Theme in My Life

Wow. There are so many different things that I want to talk about here but with school and life and everything else I have found it increasingly difficult to sit down and post on this thing. Now I look back and have maybe five different things that could have been full posts individually with more depth and meaning to all of them and unfortunately I will cram most, if not all, into one mere entry and never do them justice as I had originally intended.

I've written posts about this before in other blogs and while I always think it's semi-stupid and semi-funny to write about, there is still something behind the surface that is very important. Sadly, I am a Gleek. For those of you who have no idea what that is or are thinking of that weird spitting thing from under your tongue and are even more confused, let me help. A Gleek is someone who watches the show Glee and (unfortunately) gets too into it. Basically, Glee is a trashy show with so much ridiculous drama that I really can't stand it most times. However, as the title suggests, this is about a glee club: therefore, lots of singing. I get sucked into this stupid show all the time because of the great music they put out (mostly remakes, but they have dabbled in original works recently). So while the plot-lines drive me nuts, the music keeps me coming back. Every once in a while however, they come out with something pretty great. The episode I'm talking about is "Born This Way". The episode focuses on accepting the things you hate about yourself because you were born that way and are special for a reason. This culminates with a performance of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga. I had never heard this song until then (I know, I live under a rock...named gradschool; and I know this episode isn't even the most current one, but I was behind due to traveling and schoolwork) but the song is really great. I just think the entire episode was really inspiring because there are songs throughout the entire episode and the way the chose the songs to mix with the theme was incredible. There was a mash up of "Unpretty" and "I Feel Pretty" that two girls were singing while the one was going to the doctor about getting plastic surgery. It was a very powerful few minutes to watch actually. The desire that young girls face to be something they think they're supposed to be mixed with the sadness of losing who you really are leaves you a little stunned as an audience. Not that this isn't a message we're seeing more frequently these days, but it was very tactfully done and I was moved by it. Ultimately, the entire episode was very inspiring and I thought it was worth mention here because it isn't often that these messages are portrayed to the masses by people they are actually interested in mimicking.

The next thing I wanted to mention was something that has been running around in the back of my mind...I guess for a few years now actually, and in terms of it being immediately on my mind it comes and goes at select moments. Recently (I think maybe two weeks ago now) was one of those moments, although it was shorter-lived this time than most, probably because I've been so overwhelmed with the end of this semester. Many of you may know that I've played around with the idea of being a missionary for a while. I continuously try to see where God is ultimately leading me and I'm sure I pretend to hear certain things that I don't because I'm human and I don't want my world turned upside down like God calls it to be. Anyway, I've always known I was built to travel--I wouldn't have this built in passion for it, no known allergies, and no fear/dislike/sickness from planes or boats if it wasn't something I was meant to do in my life. Nathan always told us to look at what we had in our hands and not compare ourselves to others--this is one of those things I'm sure is in my hand for a reason. The thing is though, I'm not sure if I'm meant to be flitting off to Africa or elsewhere to start a ministry. I've always felt like more of a speaker, friend, and role-model more so than a minister or pastor. So this has led me to question where I'm supposed to be then. Growing up, while I would have to say my biggest passion has always been travel, the second thing I would say is writing. It has taken many forms throughout my life, but I can't remember not liking to write in some way shape or form: poems, short stories, attempted novels, blogs, and so many more, I love it all. So my thought was maybe there is something I'm supposed to do with writing and use that to travel and speak worldwide. I don't know for sure yet, I'm trying to see where I'm led without letting my personal wants to influence things, but I think that would be a really cool and amazing use of my life. Another thing I've been feeling very strongly about is my age. I'm young, and I think that is something I'm supposed to take advantage of. It started out almost as a gimmick for school--I'm impressive and worth your time because I finished undergrad early--by now I'm 23 and almost done with my PhD. This becomes a really mixed bag though. I am very proud of my accomplishments--but what do I have to be proud about? I need to be pulled down a peg or two sometimes because I let these accomplishments mean too much to me. However, I have gotten a lot of respect and admiration from my accomplishments, and while that can easily fall back into the pride problem, my point here is that it got me thinking. If people have come to respect me and look up to me because of my accomplishments in comparison to my age, shouldn't I be using that to glorify God? I've had a good deal of time to think about this and I'm sure that I'm supposed to use my age to influence people. The question is when? Where? I know each and every day should be used to glorify God and show Him to others, but I truly feel called to be going somewhere and doing it more openly than just acting in accordance with His word. This is where I get stuck and I fear not figuring it out soon enough and then, I'm no longer this young age-meant to influence a certain generation or group. I'm curious though, about this blog specifically. This may be a gateway to something I don't see yet. I couldn't even tell you the reason I started this specific blog, it was a very spur of the moment decision for me. And I've never held a blog quite as regularly as this one. Nor have I gotten as much feedback from seemingly random people about what I've written than I have with this blog. So maybe this is just the first door I need to walk through to get to the ultimate goal. I still don't know, like I said, I'm still looking for direction, but I'm slowly putting pieces together and I know there has to be something going on under the surface here.

It's hard sometimes to keep your eyes on God and trust that what you're hearing is form Him and not a manipulation of many other things in life. But there are certain moments, when you have no doubts, none whatsoever, that you have been blessed and that God was holding you in that moment. There is no way to describe the feeling of peace and excitement that comes with 100% knowing God's touch; this weekend was one of those moments. A great friend of mine, Kayla, ran a marathon yesterday. I know she was really nervous and psyching herself out the whole time: she had completed a marathon years earlier, and when she attempted another, she ultimately dropped out. This has been plaguing her ever since and it has been killing me to watch her torture herself with it. The only thing that could help her overcome was to complete another one: so the gauntlet was thrown and yesterday was her day for personal redemption. I had no doubts that she could do it but I knew she would get into her head and start psyching herself out so I was worried for her. Apparently, around mile 12 she ended up feeling sick, plus having pain, and of course, the mental psyche-out had begun. I could have cried when she ran passed us at one point, I didn't want her to torture herself for something I knew she was more than capable of doing. We caught up with her at another point where I had decided I would run a few blocks with her to see if I could get her spirits up a bit. Worth a shot right? That was where God stepped in. And while I had fleeting moments of knowing He was there (partially because my "Team Kayla" shirt was decked out in scripture, partially because a lot of runners commented about how great the shirt was, and partially for other reasons soon to come), I didn't put too much thought into it until after. To make a long story short, I ran 8 miles, in jeans, after not having done any real athletic activity in about two months. I went with Kayla from mile 17 to 25 and she was definitely in better spirits when I left her than when I joined her. Rhi, Kayla's roommate, caught up with us right at 25 and took her the rest of the way in. There was blessing after blessing in that hour-ish time. And so many things that are a slap in the face that duh! God knows what's going on and has had it planned forever. Case in point (silly as it may sound): I haven't worn sneakers in months, even with the cold Binghamton weather, I've been wearing flip flops because I'm in rebellion against the cold and demanding nice weather. So, any ideas as to why I wore sneakers to that race? In Delaware-a place significantly warmer than Binghamton. Top that off with the fact that I had actually brought my running sneakers instead of my other ones. Small, stupid even, but a pretty big coincidence if you ask me (and I've said before, I don't really believe in coincidences anymore). But like I was saying, God did so many things in that time: I have a recurring hip problem from running on pavement in high school; I have never run 8 consecutive miles in my life; I haven't run at all in about two months; I have a really sore side from Friday, so even walking at times during the weekend hurt a little; I was wearing tight, denim jeans. And yet- the whole time I ran I felt no pain, no discomfort, and all else considered, no exhaustion. God held me so I could jabber on about nonsense and try to distract Kayla and lift her spirits. God lifted her spirits through me-I was used by God-that's so cool! I'll never be so excited about being used by anyone, haha. I called it quits at mile 25 and right as I told Kayla to push on, and felt terrible about sending her off alone, I looked up and bam! There's Rhi, heading right to her to take over where I had to stop. Rhi even said afterward that she never planned to come that far up the course, one thing led to another and it just kind of happened. Not only did Kayla complete her race and completely conquer all of the bad memories from the last one, but she didn't walk once during this race-a brand new accomplishment for her! I'm so, so proud of her for getting through the day. And I'm beyond excited about all of the blessings that were poured on us during that race; retrospectively it's all just so amazing to see how the pieces so perfectly fit together. It was definitely one of those moments I will always look back on and feel God's presence and blessings.

There were a few other things I wanted to bring up in this entry but I think I'll save them for another time since they aren't as in-keeping with the theme I've managed to build here. So I guess I'll just finish this up by saying never doubt that God has you in the palm of His hand; and when you least expect it, He'll show you how much he loves you and let me tell you-it's really overwhelming, but worth every second of pain, anxiety, or sorrow you've dealt with. He is awesome.

Rambling Pensiveness

I've had a lot on my mind lately. I feel like I'm in a state of transitions and I'm not sure what they all mean, let alone what they all are. I guess I'll start with school transitions. I've got two weeks left in my second year of grad school. Honestly, there are a lot of times that I'm surprised I made it this far. Some of you may know the internal struggles I've gone through from just about day 1 since I started. I've had issues being up here in just about every realm of life, yet somehow I've managed to stay in my program (probably out of sheer unwillingness to give up-a blessing and a curse I suppose, but I have no doubts I'm made this way for a reason). Anyway, while finishing my second year may not seem like any big deal, to me it's pretty huge. I only have one semester of classes left after this before working solo on my dissertation. Granted there are still many hurdles before I get to that point, but my class load, the last classes I will ever have to take in my life (that's a wonderful thought!) are mere months from being completed. The real world for me kind of starts there. I will need to manage my own time to complete my dissertation, find funding, and hopefully, find a job while I'm writing or at least set one up for when I graduate. It's weird to me to be in this place. I certainly feel more like an adult than I ever have in my life, but it's still weird to take that step back, look at yourself, and try to figure out how you actually because this real person. I am being ridiculously inarticulate and frankly, cheesy about this, but again I find myself unable to really express what's going on in my head. Along with starting my final semester of classes in a few short months, I will also be living in a new apartment. No, I don't know where yet, but my roommate and I know that living next to our ridiculously loud neighbors is certainly not conducive to schoolwork, let alone dissertation writing. Hopefully, in a few months time, we will be living in a nice place outside of all the noise that is Binghamton, with a backyard to relax in.

In terms of jobs, I have been free of the restaurant a few short weeks and it has been wonderful. However, this also means I will need a new job for the summer to pay the bills. I have a possibility lined up and it would actually be quite ideal if it works out. My main goals for this summer are to get a first draft of my prospectus completed, do some research toward my dissertation, get back in shape, and have some fun time with friends. The job I am hoping pulls through is to work the desk at the gym I currently attend. This job would actually make all of my summer goals more than possible. While sitting at the desk I will have plenty of time to research and write. I will get a free membership to the gym for the summer and it seems like I have some good resources to switch shifts for the few days I want to hang out with my friends. Plus, having this job would obviously allow me to pay for my apartment, car, phone, and all the other materialistic crap that we undoubtably "need" being brought up in the U.S.

That last statement is obviously something else that has been on my mind. I love technology; being brought up in my generation it's hard not to. Yet for all of the "stuff" I have, I've been growing to kind of hate it. As much as I love playing on Facebook and obviously I enjoy writing in my blog and so many other things, I hate being so connected to everything. This is part of what came to pass in Romania. Obviously, no cell phone, very limited internet, nothing going on it that sense. I miss that. I kind of hate my blackberry right now. If I could, I'd get a crappy, first generation cell phone and keep it off unless there was an emergency--you know, the reason why cell phones originally became popular--not to be engulfed by emails, texts, Facebook notifications, tweets, and I don't even know what else. I love Conner, especially since I got the title in the mail (I own my first car, so cool!) but I'm dying to be able to ride my bike to school rather than driving everywhere (and if the stupid weather in Binghamton didn't suck, I could actually do that). Even now as I'm typing this (which like I mentioned, I realize is a bit hypocritical since I'm on a computer, posting a blog and complaining about being too connected) I have to stop to check all of the emails that just came to my phone. If I had my way, I would pick one way to be this connected and say screw the rest. Let me have my blog I'll be just fine traveling, working, and doing whatever else minus the phone, the emails, the texts, Facebook, and the like. Again, I know I'm being hypocritical because I live in the U.S. and I will continue to play on Facebook and text all of my friends, but I'm so annoyed at it all and at myself for enabling it to continue. I joke with a lot of my friends about this but maybe one day I really will just become a hermit and only come out of my little hole to travel before ducking back inside.

Along with these transitions in school and adulthood and the like, I feel like I'm finally transitioning out of my past. While I realize there are billions of people who have had much worse lives than I will ever have, I've had a pretty trying 23 years so far (if you know me well enough you obviously know the big points, if you don't maybe one day I'll decide to talk about some of them here-no guarantees). There have been some events and some people that have been weighing me down for years and as hard as I've tried to move past them, there always seems to be that tether that's able to drag me right back down when I least expect it. But I think being away from PA for a while now has helped me to finally realize what I let myself get sucked into. Ultimately, there is only so much that you can do in life and for me to try to please everyone and pretend like everything is fine will never happen. Acceptance and growth. I'm sure I will upset people in the future and it will seem like I have no regard for people's feelings but at this point I really need to do what's best for me and what I feel I'm called to do. There are people in your life who mean well and ultimately make things worse; if it's insensitive to make the choice not to go under then fine; I'm a jerk. It's something I'll have to live with at this point because I can't keep worrying every single day about things that are in the past. I can't control my past but I can control my future, and I choose to move forward and live a life that will make me as happy as I can be here on earth.

There are still so many other things I've been thinking about. I think if I continued to talk about them all this entry would end up being obscenely long. I don't want to make anyone have to read that much. Which, apparently, is quite a few people: in the last four days I've had more people come up to me and talk to me about my blog than I ever knew even knew of its existence. I'm a little shocked to know that many people actually read this stupid thing (I say stupid because I'm obviously still a bit resentful to technology, hypocritical as I'm being right now). So for all of you who have revealed yourselves as readers (and the others who they must have found out from, who I still don't know who they are) thanks for checking out my random ponderings, ramblings, rants, joys, and so on. It's cool to know that anyone at as is interested in anything I have to say. Which has been another thing on my mind actually, the lack of value of what I have to say in the grand scheme of things, but I'll save that rant for another time. For now, I'll just say that as much as I feel like I've figured out about myself and my life recently, I still feel like I'm ultimately so lost. It's the old, for every door that closes two open in its place thing. There are so many doors open in front of me. While there are some I obviously will be going through, there are so many more that leave me wondering what's next. Maybe I'll never know; it's all part of life, but every now and again I get very pensive and rambling is my only outlet. This entry probably doesn't even make much sense, it has basically been a stream of consciousness anyway. So my apologies for those of you trudging through this thing hoping for some sort of revelation; I don't know if you really got anything out of it at all; I'm not even sure I did, but talking in circles helps me clear my head (ironic as that is). Next time I'll make sure I've got a more straightforward message to convey. As straightforward as anything is in life these days anyway.