Last night I stared up at the Big Dipper standing outside my new apartment building, closed my eyes and willed away the brick middle school building in front of me. It turned into the familiar shadows of tall pine and the dim light coming from the windows of the Stone House in the near distance. I took a deep breath and was filled with a fresh intake of crisp mountain air. My pulse slowed as the frantic sense of east-coast-hurry calmly faded away..
A girl needs a peaceful getaway that's all her head sometimes, ya know?
It's a definite adjustment being home, although it's more of whirlwind than an immediate sense of shock. And I guess it's not so much a readjustment, but rather an integration of two different lives, worlds, people.. of Kathy and Kat, if you will. Bouncing back and forth between the coasts was one thing, easy to keep things separate, but now (there's no more going back this way / this path is overgrown and strewn with thorns - sarah mclachlan) I have to live in one place, as one being, and scared to death that dreams of living life with integrity and morals and purpose and intent will just get over-written, over-looked. I don't want to get caught up - stuck - ever again.
I've been reading more and more into
Teach For America lately, and my heart is all a-flutter and there are silly words like 'fate' and 'destiny' and 'purpose' bouncing around in my head. I thought I might have been interested in it before, but damn. I want so badly to be a mentor, innovative in the way that the teachers I've met in the past year have been and the way a select few were for me as a high school student. Who knew the pull in my gut that led me to the Sierra Friends Center, that told me it was the place I needed to be, would give me a sense of direction that I could finally feel some amount of confidence in? Certainly not me, but I can assure you that I'm entirely grateful.