Destination Confirmed

Yesterday I found out my region and team for the Fall Invisible Children Tour and it is: Middle America! So on the map that is from Oklahoma and Arkansas up to Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada. A lot of territory to cover! I am super excited and was ridiculously grinning all day yesterday after I found out. My team seems to be really rad - we've only been conversing a bit over facebook, but I have good feelings all around. (Don't you love the sudden diversion from the feelings of past entries?)

Limbo

It's an odd feeling which has clouded over me the last few weeks, becoming more dense with each passing day. Friend by friend, I have been left here in Greensboro feeling very alone and somewhat empty. It's still so strange to be the one left behind, when my whole life I have been the one leaving. Perhaps this drabness, this lack of community is just pushing me onto my next adventure. Right, so, my next adventure. It's less than two weeks away and the nerves are setting in. What with my new found introverted-ness and my fear of failure, especially at relationships, I'm feeling anxious about beginning this job. I'm feeling ready about the prospects of being indirectly part of a social movement which can possibly bring peace and prosperity to a region of the world which hasn't know peace for 20 plus years.

Buuuut. Here's the math. Present=drab. Future=Excitement. Drab-->Excitement=Limbo.

And in the midst of it all I am leaving Greensboro: my beautiful little apartment, my coffee shops and thrift stores, and the best cheeseburger I've ever had. Granted, Greensboro isn't what it once was for me, it's lost its familiarity and comfort in some senses, but it still has been the base for much of my growth and struggles in the last 4 years. I'm not the same girl whose parents unloaded her things into her dorm room 4 years ago, although I still look a lot like her*. It's hard to move on, to not know if I'll ever return here, to close one chapter, but not know what will be included in the next.

Feelings, shmeelings. The advice I so desperately want to give other people when I hear them whine sometimes, I need to give myself. Suck it up and get over it. This is a thing we call life.

*Side story: On my way home from VA Monday, I stopped to get gas and as I was paying, the attendant asked if I was ready for school to start. I said, "Well, actually I've graduated!" He said, "Oh, I though you were in the 11th grade or something like that." I flashed a big grin and said, "Oh, haha. No, I've actually just graduated from college." He seemed kind of shocked and said something about how he had thought I was 18. I told him I was 22 and as I was walking out he said something about how it's a good thing to look so young. I think I'll agree when I'm 40.

Picture, Words

Today a girl I knew in high school had this as her facebook status: "You should only feel ugly when you can no longer see Christ in the mirror." There are so many issues I have with this trite little Christian-ism. One, can I not be beautiful without Christ? Aren't we all made in the image of God, thereby making us all beautiful no matter the status of our 'salvation'? I am still something beautiful without Christ and so are those in corners of Siberia, Iraq, and New York City. Two, this provides unreachable expectations from Christianity. Believing in Jesus does not remove doubt, self-hatred, or even 'sin' from life. To say that it will is unreasonable and provides this idea of "perfection" that comes with Christianity. Third, this status comes from a person who believes that I have to be a member of her denomination in order to participate in heaven. So it isn't even Christ that is being talked about. It's a certain Christ, with a certain church, and a certain doctrine.

Excuse me while I just add another brick to my wall.