I am an introspective person. I spend a great deal of time in thought (for better or worse). I enjoy looking back on my life and seeing how particular circumstances have affected my path and how decisions have shaped my life. On the flip side of that I also spend a great deal of time considering my current situation and wondering how that will influence my future.
I am nostalgic. Guilty as charged! Take me away!
Although I do not feel that I am nostalgic in the typical sense. I move often so I do not get sentimental about possessions (I like to travel light) or even places that I have lived. Home is wherever you are and what you can fit in a suitcase and the trunk of your station-wagon. What I get attached to are the people. I’m all about the humans (bout the humans).
To quote Mumford and Sons:
“In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
And where you invest your love, you invest your life”
Material things mean little to me but I will give just about anything for experiences with people. Designer handbag? No thanks I’m good. Climb a mountain with 5 of my dearest friends? Sign me up! Sore feet, sweat and all! Time is the currency of relationships and I value memories of time spent with people above my most precious belongings.
When I moved here to Orlando it was the first chance I had since college to spend more than 9 months in one place. I had gotten used to the gypsy life of short term friendships limited to the people I worked with. Not that those times and people meant any less to me but it became easy to hold them at arms length and not really be vulnerable. After all, in a couple months I’d leave and never see them again right?
Orlando was a whole new ball game. I stumbled across this incredible church with a massive youth/college age ministry and before I knew it had been swept up into fellowship with some of the most incredible humans the world has ever known. And when I got the news that I would be returning to Orlando Shakespeare for a second season I knew that it would no longer be possible to hide behind the short term contract friendship model I had become accustomed to. These people had become a part of my world. They had pushed me forward in my giftings and talents as well as pushing new abilities out of me that I barely knew I had. I have grown so much in my faith and who I am as a person over the course of my time here.
Shortly after returning to Orlando this past August after being away at summer theatre was when I made the decision to go on the World Race. The life that I had set up here that had begun to feel permanent suddenly had a countdown on it. The experience of the past months has reminded me a lot of my senior year of college. The comparison of those two seasons of life is uncanny. Both times spent were/are the final months of a season and coming to grips with the fact that life would/will soon be moving forward in a whole new way. The idea of moving out of familiarity to ambiguity, developed relationships to strangers, from comfort to culture shock. All of it exciting and scary at the same time.
The mistake I made when confronted with these sets of circumstances when leaving college is that I spent all of my time dwelling on the fact that I was leaving. These people that I had spent three years doing life and investing in with would stay behind and I would move on. The trials, and at times emotional turmoil, were a real part of my life. All I could think about graduation and how I would leave all of my friends and never see them again ever in my life at all ever. I focused on it so much that I spend most of that year being sad. Every where I looked I was reminded of the impending doom of adulthood. I lost sight of what was right in front of me and the time I still had left. I acted like I was already gone months before I even left.
Graduation was miserable. I hated the whole thing. You walk across the stage and you’re so concentrated on not tripping on the stairs or your own feet or the trolls that are surely under the stairs and people keep handing you stuff then its “smile for the camera!” and boom! Its over. Before I knew it my car was packed and I was headed off to my first job out of college at a summer camp in New York. Life carried on and so did I. God was faithful and brought me through each new phase.
In this time of preparation for the Race I have tried to be intentional about how I spend my time and energy. I refuse to be sad or think about the fact that I’ll be leaving my friends and family behind for 11 months. I know that there are still so many things that God has for me here before I leave and I don’t want to miss out on a single one of them. There are conversations left to have, students to pour into, costumes to make, people to meet, places to go! Why would I be sad right now when there is still so much to do?
Ecclesiastes 3 (paraphrased)
“To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.“
Right now is a time to build up , a time to laugh, and a time to dance. And yes, I will be sad to leave (so sad), and yes there will likely be tears (so many tears). But in the meantime I am going to take advantage of every opportunity God places in front of me. He knows the plan from beginning to end and all the little pieces that fit in the middle. He knows where the decisions will carry me and how this time will shape my path in the future. I know that there are things left to do here that will prepare me for my months abroad and I don’t want to miss out on any of it by loosing sight of where I am while I am there.
