Lost in the transition....

It’s rather funny to imagine that this semester is only a few days away. I feel that I am more than ready to tackle the problems and joys ahead of me in the coming weeks, yet part of me wishes that I could be done with it all. I love learning; there is this electricity in a classroom for me that I don’t get anywhere else. I love my major, the terms, discoveries, and sense it all seems to make to me. It seems as if school has always been my escape from my reality. Even in High School a project could pull me away from the insanity that is common among hormonal teens. College is a freedom far more amazing however and in its tight grip I find many moments of intense happiness. I am starting to see the end of my academic career looming and I am concerned that I’m not ready to be taken from educational bottle. What will I do when I walk on that stage and have my degree and it is all over? Should I go to grad school? Should I just start my life and look for a job? Should I explore the world? There are a million options, but the hourglass is running out of sand.

In another part of my life I find myself searching for answers. I am not sure if I am asking the right questions, but I will get there. Who do I want to be? What do I want to find? What do I expect from others? A friend confronted me the other day in a phone call. She asked why I wasn’t dating and why I didn’t date the men who asked me out. I couldn’t give her any answer that seemed to grasp it all. I feel so young, yet I know what I deserve, and in refusing to settle for second best I’ve chosen to wait for a very long time to really date. Many of the students that I graduated HS with have gotten married and even have children, but I’m certain I’m not ready for that yet. I can’t explain why I don’t date the guys who ask me out other than this feeling I have about them. Some of them are nice enough, if not really great guys. I’ve seen many men come and go from my life these past few years, all of them wanting something from me that I’m unwilling to give. I’m anything but average in the college world. I’m what I call and uber prude. Perhaps I’m deluded to assume that I will get my own fairytale, I don’t expect castles and knights in shinning armor, but I do expect to be considered, loved, respected, and if nothing else understood. Until I find Mr. Right I see no sense in dating every Joe that comes along to pass the time. So in this conversation I just told her, I haven’t met anyone who moves me and is interested.

I’ve been seeking God lately, seeking what he really wants from me. I’ve been hiding from church and the pain it has personally caused me, and hiding from God in the process. I’m not sure what this new adventure with him will show me, I’m not even sure if I’ll be pleased when its done, but I have to take it. I need to know so many things, so my hunt for a church will begin once my transportation becomes available. My hunt for God has already started, and its amazing how he ends up in the small things.

I will begin to chronicle my adventures with getting my chance to study abroad. I want to go to AUS and I intend on doing everything in my power to make it happen. The world awaits me and for to long I’ve not allowed myself to answer its call. As soon as school starts I’m going to talk to the Study Abroad Office and see what I have to do to make this a possibility for next fall. In a year I could be in AUS studying Sociology, how amazing would that be?

So to end a long drawn out entry about nothing, a quote!
“For happiness she required women to walk with. To walk in the city arm in arm with a woman friend (as her mother had with aunts and cousins so many years ago) was just plain essential. Oh! Those long walks and intimate talks, better than standing alone on the most admirable mountain or in the handsomest forest or hay-blown field (all of which were certainly splendid occupations for the wind-starved soul). More important even (though maybe less sweet because of age) than the old walks with boys she’d walked with as a girl...” –Grace Paley