A planner with a plan

I finally feel settled and at peace. I don't know why it has taken me so long...well actually I do but we will get to that in a bit. You are probably reading this thinking to yourself what is that girl talking about. Here it is. I wanted to come on a mission trip. I wanted to come on a LONG TERM mission trip...ever since going to the Dominican Republic with the church when I was in high school. So I am in England now with Radical Journey having the experience of a lifetime. But...and there is always a but...the decision to come NOW and not earlier or later was because I had no idea what to do with myself...and the timing was perfect. I finished school literally just a few weeks before going to Chicago for orientation...and I actually OFFICIALLY graduated after I was already here in England. Yup, that's right...I graduated from my Indiana university while I was in a different country (only me... right mom?).

That degree was hard earned...and I don't mean I just worked hard (which I did also), the actual 'doing' was hard...there were days my parents had to talk to me about why I couldn't quit, how I was so close, I just had to finish...there was even those days where I didn't feel like going to class and instead of letting my parents know how tired I was, I would head out to the library in town and just sit there for hours - I was always careful not to lie about where I had been when I came home which was tricky because I didn't want to disappoint my parents but I needed those days away from school sometimes...there were more of those days than there should have been. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy what I was studying... that's not it at all. I am perpetually curious about just about anything and the classes I got to take peaked my curiosity. It was that I was lost. I couldn't see the purpose in what I was doing.

My degree can open all sorts of doors to all sorts of occupations or further schooling but by the end I didn't know what I wanted to do. My mind changed more than a few times about where my future was headed and for a planner that is just not a good feeling. I was floundering. What next?...I asked myself that question more than a few times...as did my parents...and my family...and my friends...and their families...and pretty much anyone that I knew and happened to run into. It's very likely that a lot of these people think I'm doing different things with my life because my direction changed often enough I told lots of people different possibilities, what I was considering...you know the usual. But I just wasn't sure...which is one of the reasons I had applied to Radical Journey so early during my last year of school. I was sure I wanted to do mission work and because I had no idea what I was going to do with myself after I graduated it was perfect. A perfect opportunity to do something I had been wanting to do for quite some time and also give myself time to figure out my future.

And I love it here - absolutely love it, but I had continued to feel off balance, unsettled. Not in the work I have been doing here...that I have no problem with and I love. I felt unsettled every time I thought about my future after the completion of my term here. What was I going to do next?...what came after this?... What was I going to do with my life?...I had lots of ideas but no plans. A planner without plans is not a good thing. They worry and worry and worry. I'm young but I felt too old not to have a plan, not to know what I was going to do with myself. But finally, FINALLY I have an idea, a direction, a plan. And as quickly as I decided the general direction I wanted my life to go, I felt settled. A weight lifted off my shoulders. I became a planner with a plan...you know...like how it's supposed to work. Suddenly the end of my time here in England is no longer looming in the distance, a symbol of the end of certainty for me. Nope...no longer. Its still a symbol but it symbolizes something much different now...its a beginning now, not an end. Its a transition from one stage in my life to the next. Don't get me wrong..my future is still pretty wobbly. It's going to be hard work and a lot of it...waiting, hoping and work. But it's a start...a direction...and having that direction has brought me a sense of peace. Something to work towards.

It lets me feel settled...finally.