What am I doing?
A sunset at the end of the road—Minnesota.
I am writing this in a Word document. It is my comfort zone—much better than a glaringly white page blinking at me, pulling at the ever-present string: What am I doing?
This question has resiliently sounded again and again in my mind the past few weeks. I am a week out from crossing the world to live in a foreign country for a year or two. Even the timing is ambiguous. As exotic as this sounds, a good part of it is unglamorous. It is unglamorous to receive emails saying that jobs that I had applied for were filled, only offered part time, or that it was simply too soon to be applying. It is unglamorous to not have a job pinned down as a recent grad flying thousands of miles away. It is unglamorous to try to buy all the things you might need that you can’t get there, all while on a limited budget, and then cram it into a checked bag and a carry on. It is unglamorous to try six different pairs of running shoes that hopefully won’t give you blisters and try to return them before you leave—a completely hypothetical scenario, certainly. It is unglamorous to figure out how to buy a car in a different currency, on reliable websites, without getting scammed. Oh, and then there is the driving on the other side of the road. What am I doing?
And then there are the bigger questions, of course. I am missing out on family Christmases, on seeing the first couple years of my newborn nephew’s life. I am letting go of seeing grandparents and loved ones who are getting older—am I willing to give up a year or two with them? And what about my ‘career’? Is taking one to two gap years before grad school wise? I look at my peers who have salaried jobs or grad school classes and my heart is pricked with a touch of envy at their security. What am I doing?
Of course, these types of questions are fears that line much of life—my situation is merely putting words to what most people face at one point or another at the crossroads of any decision. That big move we were dreaming about is not as fun as it might sound. And the home inspection is tiresome and unboxing the endless cardboard even more so. I realize that I am privileged to be in my position, and I guess what I am trying to communicate is that it is not as magnificent as what we might initially consider. This is where most of life is lived, right? That’s what others have said—life is lived in the in-between stages, and it is the unseen processes and the figuring out that contribute to the big life changes that are seen from the outside.
And so that is what I am trying to do on this corner of the internet. Writing about the in-between spaces with the stories that widen my eyes a bit or pull on my arm to be shared. Taking note of the moments in-between to trace the goodness of those around me, the truth that saves me, and the beauty that makes our hearts beat. A female Ring-necked pheasant just ran across the back yard, so if that isn’t an invitation and affirmation to take notice of our surroundings, then I don’t know what is.
I also know that not everyone gets to do this—drop everything and travel across the world for a year or two. So, I want to share this experience with you. I have had a lot of people ask me to keep in contact and social media does not always fit that bill. To cultivate a more meaningful dialogue, I am giving updates here. I have missed the once continuous guidelines of writing assignments, and so this is the child of those longings. To illuminate the dark space between us and embrace the hope that makes our hearts glad.[1]
[1] “Romans 12:12a.” In First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament, 292. IVP, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2021.