This morning it was raining when I got to work, and since I was a few minutes early, I laid my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes.
I always love the sound of rain on the roof, but this morning it reminded me of Mexico.
I remembered the sound of the rain on our car roof that first night on the road as we drove towards San Francisco with Ben, Kenji, and Matt singing "Tipsy" in the backseat and being so hyper and excited that we probably could have driven all night.
I remembered the sound of the rain on the tent roof in Técate as Megan and I huddled together amid the rapidly rising waters.
I remembered the sound of the rain on the van roof as all the girls slept sitting up after we got flooded out of our tent.
I remembered the sound of the rain on the shingled roof at our building site as we drug 2x4's through the mud.
I remembered being surrounded by friends. I remembered being freezing cold and wet - the whole week. I remembered laughing. I remembered being outrageously dirty and smelling like campfire. I remembered being really, really, indescribably happy.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Monday, September 05, 2011
I Do Not Like This Sam-I-Am
I don't know what's wrong with me.
Maybe it's all the new pictures albums popping up on Facebook showcasing moments of fun, laughter, spontaneity - each picture capturing a moment, a memory. Maybe it's thinking about my hall girls and seeing them not as the baby freshmen and sophomores I met a year ago, but as the confident sophomores and juniors who are stepping into positions of leadership on campus and preparing to invest in the lives of dozens more babies. Maybe it's the moments I spent tonight reading through my friend Kerstyn's blog, and finding myself with a pit in my stomach as I read about her summer spent counseling at camp and living with her roommates in Boise - and I wanted to cry because the vast majority of my friends are in Salem, having adventures and making memories without me.
Selfish and petty maybe, but true.
Especially now that school has started, I would do almost anything to be able to go back to Salem. I spent some time online tonight looking for jobs down there, but to no avail. I miss having roommates and inviting friends over to watch a movie or make dinner. I miss spontaneous late night beach trips on the weekends and going to WalMart at midnight and seeing at least four people I know. I miss running at the sports center with Miranda and watching the oh-so-attractive Davidson boys play basketball on the gym floor below. I miss being able to go to Gov Cup before work and be alone and journal and read until life made sense again.
I'm having a hard time putting into words what I so desperately miss about living in Oregon, but I know at the core that I miss the community I had there. This is really hard to explain to people, because I do have a few friends here like Danny and Sean and Britton and Christina, but I don't have my solid girlfriends like my roommates who would let me cry about life without trying to fix it; or my guys that would make us coffee and drive to the beach with me at midnight. I don't have my hall girls to sit around and talk about boys with, or the people like Pam and Jason who would let me sit on their couch and unwind every week.
We've already established on this blog what an extrovert and people-person I am, and without these significant relationships, I'm going crazy. I'm ridiculously jealous of other college graduates who are living on their own with roommates who they get to share day-to-day life with.
But like I said, no one understands this. They tell me I need to be grateful that I'm living at home and saving money, that I have a good job, that I have ministry opportunities at church, that I can go down to Salem on the weekends, and that I'm young and single and have all the opportunities in the world in front of me. And I am grateful for all those things - very grateful, and I thank God for them. But I feel like I'm not living. I feel like I'm just existing - a very lonely existence at that. Is this really what "real life" is? Because if it is, I sure I don't like it.
Mood: Sad
Music: Mumford & Sons
Maybe it's all the new pictures albums popping up on Facebook showcasing moments of fun, laughter, spontaneity - each picture capturing a moment, a memory. Maybe it's thinking about my hall girls and seeing them not as the baby freshmen and sophomores I met a year ago, but as the confident sophomores and juniors who are stepping into positions of leadership on campus and preparing to invest in the lives of dozens more babies. Maybe it's the moments I spent tonight reading through my friend Kerstyn's blog, and finding myself with a pit in my stomach as I read about her summer spent counseling at camp and living with her roommates in Boise - and I wanted to cry because the vast majority of my friends are in Salem, having adventures and making memories without me.
Selfish and petty maybe, but true.
Especially now that school has started, I would do almost anything to be able to go back to Salem. I spent some time online tonight looking for jobs down there, but to no avail. I miss having roommates and inviting friends over to watch a movie or make dinner. I miss spontaneous late night beach trips on the weekends and going to WalMart at midnight and seeing at least four people I know. I miss running at the sports center with Miranda and watching the oh-so-attractive Davidson boys play basketball on the gym floor below. I miss being able to go to Gov Cup before work and be alone and journal and read until life made sense again.
I'm having a hard time putting into words what I so desperately miss about living in Oregon, but I know at the core that I miss the community I had there. This is really hard to explain to people, because I do have a few friends here like Danny and Sean and Britton and Christina, but I don't have my solid girlfriends like my roommates who would let me cry about life without trying to fix it; or my guys that would make us coffee and drive to the beach with me at midnight. I don't have my hall girls to sit around and talk about boys with, or the people like Pam and Jason who would let me sit on their couch and unwind every week.
We've already established on this blog what an extrovert and people-person I am, and without these significant relationships, I'm going crazy. I'm ridiculously jealous of other college graduates who are living on their own with roommates who they get to share day-to-day life with.
But like I said, no one understands this. They tell me I need to be grateful that I'm living at home and saving money, that I have a good job, that I have ministry opportunities at church, that I can go down to Salem on the weekends, and that I'm young and single and have all the opportunities in the world in front of me. And I am grateful for all those things - very grateful, and I thank God for them. But I feel like I'm not living. I feel like I'm just existing - a very lonely existence at that. Is this really what "real life" is? Because if it is, I sure I don't like it.
Mood: Sad
Music: Mumford & Sons
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