Ndakasimba kana makasimbawo

Honest and Manuel, well you know, they're at school now
Given the chance that their father's never seen
To see whats beyond Section 17.
And in ten years, when you look back at your boys,
well you know they've grown way taller
than the tallest sugar cane in the field.

So I'm watching Dispatch Zimbabwe and it's taking me back to one hell of an awesome night. Brings me back to the emotions I felt that night and in the months surrounding it. That night I knew what I wanted. Among other things, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I thought.

But it turns out, I'm still trying to figure out... what is it that I want to do? It's not really that I don't know at all. It's that I don't know how to accomplish it, how to make a living (however meager) doing what I want to do. And how to do what I want to do, but still maintain my social support system? Is that impossible? So far... it seems yes.

More deeply than ever before, I find myself lost for answers to questions like "Who Am I?" and "What Do I Like?" and "What Do I Want To Do?" and "Where Do I Want To Be?" and "What Are My Priorities?" and "What Do I Believe In?" Some of them are questions that it makes sense to still be searching for answers for. Others seem like questions that should have obvious answers, but right now, nothing is obvious to me. I don't know who I am or what I'm doing or where I'm going. Ad says, "discover the beauty in losing yourself to be found." Bryn says "stop looking for answers and just be." But I can't shake the feeling of discomfort that I have as a result of suddenly knowing *nothing.*

I want to play with children all my life. I love my daycare and feel like I could be happy there forever. But at the same exact time, I feel like I'd be cheating myself out of all my goals and wishes to do development work. I want to go to Africa. But why do I want to go to Africa? Because I care... why do I care? Do I care because I jumped on a caring-about-Africa bandwagon? Do I care because some college guys made a good movie about Africa? Do I care because Elias makes me tap my feet and sing along? Do I care because I'm just a fantastic wonderful person who wants to make other people's lives better? Can't be that, or else I'd be in a tent in Africa just doing it, instead of wondering about making a living and maintaining my social support system. I want to take pictures for a living. I spend lots of time getting friends to model for me. Or trying to. Apparently the new trend is to hate pictures of oneself. But how can I want to take pictures for a living if working at Sears Portrait Studio as a photographer made me hurt so much? What was it about Sears that was so awful? I feel like so much of the time I was in the camera room taking pictures, I was happy and smiling, yet when I think of the place, I am consumed with this overarching dread. Why can't I define the source of the soul-eating that happens at Sears?

Why? Who? Where? What? How?

I know I'm only 22 and having a lot of questions still left to answer is normal. I'm not really asking for answers, either. I'm just hoping that taking the time to write this all down will help me work through it all. Meh.

Andrew made me.

I called Andrew out on a distinct lack of posts in his "I'm having fun in Spain!" journal, and his response was I haven't updated in a while either. This is true. So here's the superficial update:


I work and work and work. Most exciting things that have happened to me are I started at Gregg's again and Keith talked me into yet another bank account (that's 2 total, bringing me to a total of 4 bank accounts).


Three dear friends of mine have inspired me to finally start thinking again and stop just moving through life like a robot. Hopefully this time it sticks.

* CAUTION * INTROSPECTION IN PROCESS * CAUTION * INTROSPECTION IN PROCESS * CAUTION * INTROSPECTION IN PROCESS * CAUTION*

5 months since graduation, but the learning never stops.

As a general recap of my college career:

• Begin URI as a journalism major.
• Become afraid of the rigidity of the curriculum and gen eds being too specific, switch to English major.
• realize I'm totally noncommittal.
  
• Realize there's not much I can do with an English major, add Elementary Education.
• Realize I only really like the little little kids, switch to Early Childhood Education.
• Realize that the ECE major is really a double major in and of itself, drop English to a minor.
• Decide I don't really want to teach, drop the Education portion of the ECE double major: Education/HDF.
• See Invisible Children and become passionate about children affected by the war in Northern Uganda.
• Meet Bryn and realize that International Development is a thing and that I am really passionate about that.
• Add minor in International Development.
• Realize I have potential in the field of photography.
• Travel to Italy for a photography course.
• Realize I am a total pushover and pull a 180.
• Start non-profit chapter with friends and learn how difficult it is.
• And learn how awesome it is.
• Decide to work in International Development.
• Apply to a million jobs in ID and community development, including totally sweet IC job that I'm sure was meant to be.
  
• Graduate.

And since then:

• Travel to Newfoundland
• Learn a lot about self and priorities.
  
• End up practically running a camp I was supposed to just be a counselor at.
• Learn a lot about improvisation and leadership.
• Learn how to get my way.
• Learn my limits.
• Learn that the totally sweet IC job wasn't meant to be.
  
• Search for a job in Canada.
• Realize I am still way noncommittal.
  
• Apply for a job at a sweet Early Learning Center.
• Travel to Canada
• Cook up plan to travel the world
• Decide to actually go ahead with plan
• Settle for subbing at above mentioned Early Learning Center, to earn money for above mentioned trip.
• Learn a lot more about my age preferences and confidence in the classroom
  
• Realize I really did want to teach.

Damn it all.

I am still alive.

Oh how long it has been. All the events of the past few months (graduation being the first of a long series of them) created a Meg that had no functioning brain. Sure, it reminded my lungs to accept oxygen and reject carbon dioxide and it told my heart to pump the blood through my body, but that's about as far as it went- it turned itself off otherwise as a defense mechanism. If it didn't think, I didn't have to face all the instability of my life. Which means that in the past couple of weeks, with my brain booting up again, I've been overloading on everything.
I turned to my surefire-jumpstart mode; I jerked myself out of my home environment and dropped myself down in another country. And I put myself in the same apartment as the one other person in this hemisphere who most frequently, in many ways outside of the physical, is in the same place as me. And I am opening up again. And though in some ways it is painful, it is a sweet release, and I feel alive again. So hooray for that, and I promise to be back soon with everything that comes of it all.

for the love of all things good, somebody turn off my brain

Last time I wrote, I was concerned about how selective my critical thinking was.

Now I can't turn it off.

I am questioning everything. Over and over and through and through, I am tearing apart every element of my life, past present and future. It's potentially getting to unhealthy levels.

My application for the Roadie Position with Invisible Children should be arriving in San Diego any day now, and the only way I can describe the feeling is this: Remember when you were a kid and you broke a rule while your parents were out? You'd sit there and know- you were safe until they come home, but as soon as they did... it was over. You'd have to face the wrath. It was that feeling of anticipation- knowing that for a certain amount of time, you didn't have to worry, because there was nothing that could be done one way or another. You didn't have to get all worried, because nothing was going to change what was about to happen... and still, you felt a certain uncalm. The end was near, in some way. That's how I feel about this application. Until they get it, I can totally get this job. But once they get it, they have the power to turn me down. I'm not saying that I think they definitely will or that I don't think I stand a chance... it's more that I want this more than anything-- and the fact that I have no power over it anymore scares the heck out of me. I'm vulnerable and exposed. And waiting. Waiting for a verdict that I feel somehow, someway... has already been released, and I just get to wait. It seems cruel when I think about it that way.

a little venting, if you will allow it

O Future, why must you be so annoyingly upon me?

With so much time to think about it (i.e. having related real-life experiences and internships as well as more opportunity for meaningful conversation about my goals, instead of just classroom time, homework, and day-to-day chatter) I realize I'm really no further along in deciding what happens to me in September of this year than I was years ago. This frustrates me to no end.

Sure, I believe that everything is grace and that things will work out if I let them, but I'm still somehow not ready to let go a bit and relax and trust that what I want to come to me will. I think I'm also a bit afraid that once I manage to do so, if I do, I won't recognize the opportunity when it comes. I certainly didn't recognize my Girl Scout internship for all that it is at the time when I signed on to it. For me it was just a way to get the final requirement for graduation and I also happened to like working with kids and thought working in the inner city would be a good growth experience for me. But there were so many things I didn't think about- enough that had it not been for the necessity of having an internship, I'm quite sure I would have passed it up. What other opportunities have I passed up? Might I pass up simply from not being able to think as critically as I am able? Why is my critical thinking so selective these days?

The more I think about it, the more I concede to the Peace Corps being a great option for me, but maybe not right now. There's a large companionship piece that would be missing for me. Three months, fine. But two years I worry might break me, at least at this point in my life. I'd need some sort of companionship. Being so far away from everything and everyone I know would create such a huge emptiness in me. Perhaps Peace Corps would be a better option post-marriage... then you have to go together. Of course, that assumes not only that the man I end up married to has these key interests in common with me (which is not too much of a stretch) but also that he would be okay with/eager to spend a couple years abroad doing development work (which is maybe more of a stretch).

It's not that I don't think I'd build relationships while overseas, I nearly certainly would--but any that did arise would be limited in many ways. First the time limitation- in two years, it ends... at least in terms of the concrete. But I don't think that would be the biggest problem for me- it has been something I can work through with *relative* ease in the past. I think the biggest issues would be the differences in... everything. History. Future. Knowing all the things I have, all the opportunities before me, all the wonderful experiences in my past. While somebody in the developed world would have that same general base, someone from the underdeveloped world would have something different on so many levels. I am fully aware that every human being has a different lens through which they see the world, but certainly lenses among people who have had similar experiences must have some similarity... and in keeping with that, lenses among people who've had totally different experiences must be totally different. Everybody who I'd be interacting with would be on a different page than me.

Yet that's too general a statement. Certainly we'd be on the same page in some instances- perhaps in our goals for my stay, or our desires for their community. We'd at least be in the same chapter, likely. Maybe not in specific goals or desires, but certainly in general ones, such as a better life... in whatever way it may be that I have the ability to make it so.

A better life. What an awful term. Even that is so subjective. My definition of a better life is likely unique to me. Almost definitely. The world is large and I'm sure there are some people who will come close if not hit right on the same as mine, but again... the people who do would likely be people who are very much like me. What do I know about what anybody else wants or needs... especially if I sometimes have trouble defining those things for myself? That's why the two year Peace Corps stint is so much better than a few months. And even two years is entirely too short to make any real difference, I feel.

Aaarrrgh, somehow that is the only word that I can use to fully express this. I can't articulate any of this the way I'd like to and I don't know what to do about it.

So maybe I'm not going to work for IC after all. (Do not be deceived. I will probably work with IC for as long as IC exists.) The Peace Corps has always been an option in the back of my mind, but upon evaluating and reevaluating and actually being serious about my options for post-college life, it is definitely the most potentially rewarding option. It's a 27 month commitment, and I don't get to decide where I go (although I do get to state my preference)... so it's clearly the most terrifying option... but as a good friend consistently reminds me, you're never truly living unless you're in a state of discomfort. And it's so true. Upon realizing that, I knew what it was I had to do. I'm not going to spend thousands to go to the place of my choosing for a little while to do a very specific, directed, repeated, generic job that I choose based on my own wants. That gives me very little to live and to learn... and even less to help. Peace Corps it is... wish me luck!

"Don't get too involved with IC. It will ruin your life.... but in the best possible way."

Laren said that at the conference, and it is probably the truest thing I've ever heard. I can't get away from it lately, because we've been away from school so there's been a lot less IC/S4S stuff to be doing, and I'm going through withdrawal. I've spent two years being involved and six months being totally immersed in it, and now I'm just dying to get started again. I'm applying for a fall GO internship and also the next roadie group, I've got big plans for the underground-army national-event (now accepting volunteers for help... this is going to be a huge job), there's so much to be done with the IIS project, I've got so many screenings I want to do, there's the benefit concert, the roadies are coming back in March!.... and in this exact moment in time, there's nothing concrete I can do about any of this. raaahr!

I'm officially out of the running for the HERO awards. It was disappointing at first, but it shouldn't be. I am, after all, officially a bronze HERO, which makes me one of IC's top 100- and that's really freakin' cool. Sure, I don't get a plaque, or a free trip to DC, or a free trip to Uganda, but top 100 isn't bad.... it's not bad at all.