2 years and counting...

i've been home for 2 years now. well, "home". i came back for the holidays in 2005 because both my sisters with boyfriends would be here for thanksgiving. my dad thought it would be nice to have all 3 of us home, so he bought my plane ticket home, but didn't know when to buy it going back for. it ended up that i used it a year later to go back to oklahoma for rachel's wedding upon returning from europe. so "home for the holidays" and now i've been here 2 years.

in a lot of ways i feel like nothing has changed and i've just been stuck here, forced to eek out an existence that is NOTHING like i had hoped, dreamed, or planned. or was in my mindset of living at all. hmmm... i hadn't really planned to stop and "take stock", but here i am, anyway...

i know that i'm not the same. my heart is a lot colder and more selfish in a lot of ways. i've been living alone, in a lot of ways, and i certainly don't have roommates of a normal sense. i'm probably much more cynical, pessimistic and jaded. i don't trust easily. it's hard for me to get excited for friends sometimes, because i'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. i guess that's partially because a lot situations and people have turned out not to be as i thought they were. sometimes that is because sin comes in and takes root, and sometimes it is because that is just the will of God. which is/was shattering because i thought things WERE the will of God that turned out so much differently than my comprehension could imagine. i understand, logically, that it's all for good in the end, but i don't understand it. at least not this side of heaven, not yet.

if i had known i'd be living at home for 2 years+, i don't think i would have come. if i had known a year ago i'd still be here now, i'd have tried a lot harder to leave. i was just certain that i would get one of the jobs i applied for that i was so excited about, then so crushed when i didn't get them (months down the road).

i know i've changed in good ways. my understanding of the world and my place in it is better, i think. i'm more socially aware, more culturally aware, and i know myself better. i've been to 11 more countries, 2 others again, and seen 7 more states. my circle of friends is almost entirely new. i've kept up some old friendships and more a few more on my journeys. i have health care now.

i have more/different hopes and dreams, too, which includes a lot more travel and seminary. even looking at it now, i'm not excited to spend another 9 months here. (have i mentioned how i don't like va beach that much?!) i've depressed myself again thinking of all this stuff, but then again, i was a bit glum when i even turned my computer on.

i guess i'm still hoping for something to change, but realizing i'm in for another marathon. better hang on for the long haul.



on another note, i intended to mention in my last post that i opened the gifts michelle and lee got me. a got 2 pairs of really good hiking socks and a water purifier system to use in the back country, so that'a pretty sweet. and something i probably would have thought she were crazy to get me 2 years ago, but now i think is awesome.

on yet another note, i ran into an old friend at church today, helena. i met helena at house church in oklahoma. she attended college in a town about an hour from where i lived, but came with a friend who was high school friends with a girl in our house church. she is also originally from va beach, and ended up attending the same church and house church i went to while at OU. now she is in grad school here in town in the same program as jenny, a friend of mine from high school that i go to church with now. so helena came to church with jenny today. small world, eh? i love this stuff!