Re-entry in Texas Life

So I was coming back to Texas and I was waiting in the Sea-tac for my plane. I had just had to sneak out mid-sermon from Bethany and come rushing down I-5 to make the plane. Kefi and Mom had agreed to go to church with me so that they could see more of me and see me fly off and I just just minutes before left them watching me as a passed through security. And I will admit it, I was very sad at this moment. Break had been perfect, I had seen almost everyone that I needed to, I had spent tons of time with my family and I had gotten to eat my father's cooking for days on end including his famous lasanga, and I wasn't looking forward to returning to the place I am living this year. The place were these people and that food are absent. So I called Camille.

I called Camille also because we were going to meet inside the airport for an hour before I left and after Camille flew back in, but I had read my ticket wrong and planned based on my layover's time. So essentially I had to tell her not to search the airport for me when she arrived in Seattle. So while on the phone with her she asked me how I was feeling about it and I confessed that I was sad, and then she told me that she had felt the same way as she left Wisconsin, and then at her layover in Chicago she had felt much better and started looking forward to coming back to Seattle again. I found this to be a comforting perspective and as I flew into Denver, I realized that I felt similarly. There is something about that in between place that makes you feel that you want to be in your destination starting what is beginning there. So upon coming back to Texas I was ready to get life started to here again.

Life here has considerably more responsibilities, including car maintenance. Before I had left Nancy (my host mom) had called and told me that my car was refusing the start. It was unlikely that it would be something so easy as the battery dying and needing a jump because Daniel and Sarah had replaced that last summer. So I tried starting my car for myself and it turning out that many of the lights were coming on, but it was still refusing to start. So I had an adult moment (which are still rare because I only just graduated) and I called an autoshop, who gave me the name of a tow truck. The man came and I handed him my key chain and my most expensive possession, and they hauled my car to an autoshop that I had never seen and strangers that I didn't know the names of. It was a surreal moment to be sure. But amidst that situation I found that I had more friends than I realized. Nancy was flying out to Cabo San Lucas on Monday (the day I was figuring all this out) and would not be able to take me to the shop to pick up my car. In anticipation of this I had called Laura who lives just a short drive from me and asked if she would take me there when they called me back. Unfortunately when that moment came she wasn't near her phone and did not answer. It was getting late and I needed my car so I could drive to work the next morning, so I called my friend Dee Dee and she was completely willing to drive over and take me to the shop.

Since then I have been furiously trying to win our family's competition, planning for the coming semester, and building on the base of people that I know here. It has taken me a while to balance my work and my life here, but it is improving incredibly. I have spent time with non-student friends at least four times a week since I came back (which is a miracle). Dee Dee and I have plans to try and find dance classes to take together (we are currently looking at hip-hop and salsa) and also potentially taking Spanish as a second language. I feel like John and I have been working amazingly well together since the Intern retreat. I have started to be consistent about my quiet times going through the book my church gave me for graduation on the 12 spiritual disciplines. The truth of the matter is that I do miss home, but the other part of that truth is that I don't have to dislike Texas to honor how much I loved life in Seattle.

Pray for me as I figure out what I am doing next year. I am pretty sure that I won't stay in Texas, but that means that I am now starting to job hunt again, which in this economy is not something I look forward to. Love.