Recently, I've realized how many things I'm doing. Juggling Kairos Ops, praise band, Interhigh, ministry, friends (also important!), classes and studying, my part-time job, and, now this year, looking for internships - well, there's just a lot. Balancing relationships and work and class and responsibilities, knowing how to keep afloat, keep the finances stable, and keep yourself fed and rested, and then find time to exercise (which I have not done yet...). Golly gee wizz, life is complicated.
There is always the possibility of those vague shimmers of that individualistic dream, one that is free, unbounded, not obligated - one in which you answer to yourself and only yourself and your desires. Wherever the wind takes you, whatever your heart desires. And in our modern day society, how praised that kind of life is. It's encouraged, even. That life, as opposed to the planted, rooted, boring, complicated life of the responsible.
Ultimately though, I found something more important to me than myself. More important than building myself up, more important than following and fulfilling all the whims of the heart. I found people to love, to care for, and people who love and care for me. What can I say? I'm a sucker for these people.
Richness, I see now, can only be reaped after you've sown and watered for a bit. You just scatter seeds but don't stick around long enough to see them grow. And then what? No strawberries. If you get my metaphor.
That means that if I plan on sticking around longer, I need to know how to balance. It's an increasing sign of maturity, to be obligated and commit and fulfill those obligations, whether they are to other people or to your job or to school, what not. And I want to reach that level of maturity, of richness really. I want to be a rich person, and that can only happen through my ability to do a lot and yet enjoy all those things, not break down, not give up, but inexorably though perhaps not perfectly, bind myself down, to, and for.
A part of me will always want to just go with the flow and toss everything away for freedom. But I need to remember that I can't live my life always wondering if it's better over there.
That feeling, I realize, is because we all seek the ultimate "over there": paradiso, utopia, up there... you know, heaven. God has placed eternity in our hearts and we will always long for the over there. But the over there is not here on earth. It's there. Way up there.
But a piece of that over there can be found in the people who I commit my life to, the people who commit their lives to me, in this community of farmers and fighters, shepherds and soldiers. I see a glimmer of that over there in the people I decide I love.
Somehow, if something takes me away from here, I hope that I will hold onto here, rather than forget and let go. And become a person of multiple connections, like a web that stretches beyond space and time - deeply, strongly, and beautifully.
For now, though, I need to stop wasting time, stop stalling time and try to pretend I have all the time in the world. I'm twenty-freaking-one now and there are people depending on me, relying on me. I'm a sucker for these people. There's no way I plan on letting them down.
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