On the flip-side of the transition coin, I am really interested in what this time is about. I am intrigued by the coming months, and especially year of course.
This past sunday, the sermon was about generosity and giving, but in more than just the monetary form. Jeff (my pastor) talked about volunteering and trying different means of doing so, as a way to find your calling.
I don't necessarily feel like that was my experience at Mercy, but I learned a lot. And for a time of giving a lot of my time away, I felt really filled up. That was spring into summer.
Now I feel like it's a time to get filled up, without giving so much of myself. That sounds selfish, haha. But I almost feel like that's what it's about: me. For once. I mean, everyone slips into selfishness, I'm not saying I'm exempt from that, but rather I fight it and worry that I might be without realizing it. And that this is a time for me to grow.
Strange that I have such lofty feels about the time leading up to my trip.
My trip! I also got really excited for that; I've been getting really excited for it! I'm looking forward to Paris, of course, but really the whole thing. No matter how the experience is, and how "big" of an impact I make on anything or anyone, I know that for me it is going to be a life-changing experience. I was getting excited to see new things to photograph. To have new stories to tell. To have a new time in my life to look back on with that disgusting nostalgia I have for every time in my life.
I'm interested to see if this is what I'm cut out for, in two veins. You know, there's the whole gritty, dirty, difficult, traveler's diarrhea, being stared at, being vulnerable, praying for people, serving people when "out of water"...so much of that aspect. I'm pretty easy-going, so in reality the biggest thing I know will be hard for me is spiders. I digress.
Then there's the story-telling part. The seeing and bringing it back with me. Getting to tell people (if I can) what it's like in Vietnam now! Photographing other parts of the world. Meeting people. I get horribly attached to people as it is, I know I'll be leaving my heart all over the world...and crying a lot. Oh man, I'm gonna cry a lot. Haha, again, I digress.
There's so much to intrigue, I feel like this is way more my thing than going to school, getting a desk job, trying to reach the ambiguous top of some achievement ladder. To live and see, and be with people!
This energizes me; "learning" and education, do not. Onward.
