Specifically, the lack of garish text coloration. Could I be, how you say, "maturing?" (In some ways, yes I am. Today I went to a meeting that I had meticulously entered into my digital calendar. In other ways, I'm not. Last week I didn't go to a meeting that I had meticulously entered into my calendar. Whoops.)
The other small change is that I no longer have to include a disclaimer at the top of my blog posts, protecting the U.S. Department of State from fallout due to the outlandish things I may say. On the downside, this means I am no longer a pseudo-government-employee simultaneously battling and reinforcing U.S. colonialism via rogue guitar-playing (which some call "teaching English"). But on the upside, I can go back to blaming everything I say on the Department of State, as I was wont to do before quote, air-quote, "legal obligation" end air-quote, end quote, required me to disclaim myself. (tl;dr my Fulbright year is over)
For me, the biggest change is that I am back in the United States and have no foreseeable plans to travel abroad. About a year ago, this was very unsettling to me.
Reaching the point where our social timeline ends (post-bachelor's-degree, for many) used to scare me. The first 25(ish) years of our lives are generally planned out for us: graduate elementary school, graduate middle and high school, graduate college, get job.......
After that, you have to decide for yourself and set your own goals. And I am Really Not Good at either of those things.
Here's a little comic from my senior year of college, when I began to grapple with this idea.
At one point, my life plan was:
1. Graduate college
2. Marry hott do0d
3. Adopt cat
4. Die
(College roommate will confirm this list is accurate)
And, well....
1.
2. (conspicuous lack of marriage to hott do0d, possibly to be addressed in later blog post)
3.
The "Death" part was a joke at the time, but now I am beginning to recognize that I believed it in a sort of melancholy way. I never thought about the "rest" of my life, the "stuff in between" college and death. Which is CRAZY because that is literally most of life.
That strange lack of foresight is probably part of why my first year out of college was so difficult. I had no goals. I had no direction. And I couldn't just make myself have it.
So I just took one step forward at a time, towards whatever seemed right.
This led me to a year working as a security guard in a homeless shelter, then to Mexico, then back to the U.S., and now to a local nonprofit. And thankfully along the way I developed a stronger sense of what some might describe as a "calling." I didn't just have a calling (although some people seem to be born with one, which freaks me out). There has never been a "career" that interested me. Doing one thing for my whole life seemed TERRIBLE. And it still does. So instead of equating "calling" with "job," I now understand it to mean "thing I am really really passionate about and would do whether or not I was getting paid."
This last year of working at a nonprofit on the West Side of Grand Rapids (#WestSideBestSide) has confirmed that I am gifted in community building, in hospitality, and in love. Intentionally practicing those things is my "calling" in this phase of my life (and maybe for the whole thing. We'll see.) It brings me crazy joy to do so. And, conveniently for my blogging habits, practicing Intentional Community is fun to both write and read about.
So, in closing, this is my new platform for braindumps about radical hospitality, homelessness, dumpster diving, urban gardening, housing cooperatives, and anything else I may be able to tangentially relate to the topic of "Community." Hang around.
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