Tonight we went to yet another birthday party. These aren’t birthday parties like I’ve ever experienced. First of all, they’re less of a party and more of a church service with confetti and “happy birthday” written everywhere. People- tons of people, family and friends and neighbors and random strangers passing by- walk in, sit down, listen to some worship music and then an incredibly long sermon followed by an equally long prayer. Once it’s all over, the baby is brought forward and blessed.
That’s right: the baby. This is the typical birthday party for a one year old.
During the nice long service, I sat in quiet contemplation. I don’t think it’s fair to say I was zoning out, as the service was in another language, Hindi or Tamil or Kanata, I can’t honestly say. But as the melodious sounds flowed throughout the room, punctured by the occasional amen or hallelujah, I allowed my mind to wander down paths I often avoid, because they bring me face to face with questions I often can’t comfortably answer.
Life is an opportunity cost (thank you, Professor Hawtrey, for solidifying that one in my mind during econ with examples of ice cream and ‘happies’). To do something is to miss doing something else. For example, to be here in India is to miss being a big kid in Fairfax or a typical college student in Holland. But to leave early, to quit or follow another call, to go back to life in an office or a studio or even a dorm would be to miss finishing what I started here.
Before I left, one of my best friends from Hope sat me down, looked me square in the eye, and fed me some words that were hard to hear and probably harder to say:
“Natalie, you’re the kind of friend who would drop everything and drive across the country if you heard there was something wrong. You have no problem staying up all night when I’m upset, even if you have an exam first thing in the morning that of course you haven’t studied for. You’ll bend over backwards to come to my rescue, but here’s the thing: I don’t just need you in times of crises. I need you here in the everyday, when I come home from class or when we’re baking cookies or in early morning walks to breakfast. Yes, it’s nice to know that you’ll come running to dry my eyes, but what I really want is for you to be my friend when things are good, too.”
One of the biggest opportunity costs to being here on this Race is missing out on the friendships that I could be deepening to survive the separation that graduation will bring. There are girls in Michigan right now, sitting around tables in the Kletz, burning yet another batch of cinnamon rolls, spending late evenings deciding on family traits and bids that I desperately love but who I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to be friends with again because I wasn’t patient enough to put in the time when I had it. There are professors and faculty members and wonderful people in the community who were diligently pouring into me and who, in my leaving so soon, said goodbye and meant it- not in a mean way, but in an incomplete kind of way.
Right now, I want nothing more than to be up there, braving the deep snows that define Michigan winters, complaining about papers and dining hall disasters and freshmen who don’t know their place. But I also know that if I were at Hope, I’d be feeling guilty about being there, about spending so much money for a degree I know I won’t use and for being in a place where I feel like I’m not helping anyone. I don’t really believe in regrets- I think we make the decisions we make and then we can learn from them, but once they’re made there’s nothing to be gained from living in the past.
Tonight, that theory is really being challenged.
I want to go home right now, but I also wonder that if I were to go home, would I feel this way about the Race? Would it be left incomplete, would I have to force myself not to regret the decision? Would I be missing out on relationships that I could be deepening because I was so anxious to move onto the next big thing?
I don’t know. I don’t have the answer. I don’t know what this year- or even this WEEK will bring. All I can do is remain faithful in the small things and hope God comes through in the big things.
It’s funny, He’s pretty good about doing that.
