Hope
Since about March I have been looking into aid work, relief work, or long-term volunteering positions. It feels like I've been looking forever, and despite the dizzying array or positions and organizations, nothing has worked out. They all need someone with training, or with a degree, or they won't let me talk about my religion, or whatever. An opportunity came up in Sudan that looked so promising that I was actually starting to plan to leave, but since then the atmosphere has changed, and now there is too much upheavel for me to go and not be at immediate risk to life-and-limb.
This has gone on so long that I have re-signed the lease on my apartment, and am stuck here til at least next June, and so I know I won't be going anywhere anytime soon. It's disheartening. Part of me wants to just quit and chase something else. But I still feel called to pursue this while I'm young and my responsibilites are light and the ties that hold me down are few.
However, while I've been doing all this looking, I've kind of put my life on hold. I have been waiting for months, trying not to settle into a rhythm or set down roots or begin anything too permanent, doing little more than the-day-to-work-a-day, so I could be ready to leave whenever the opportunity arose. In so doing I have been making myself miserable, which would be ok if I was actually going somewhere, but since I'm not, I've just gone through half a year without really letting myself live and have nothing to show for it. Well, now I know I have at least til next summer before I'm going anywhere, so there's no reason to keep myself from getting into the things I want or am interested in. (I am still hampered by my living conditions, mostly the fact that in a two-bedroom apartment rented by three people the only place I have for my own things and my own influence is my bedroom, which is not enough room, but also just by ordinary apartment things, such as not being able to grow any real plants, because there's just nowhere to plant them.) But there are things I could go after despite this, that I've decided to follow up. I've bought a book on yoga, and a book on herbalism, both subjects I've wanted to learn about for a long time. I'm supposed to be able to get my mom and dad's bow so I can take up archery again, but they have yet to deliver. I'm trying to find a class or tutor to teach me Russian, and of all the random things, I really like the idea of learning about midwifing and natural-birth. I am also remembering how much I love nature, and while the weather is still sufferable, I am trying to get out and explore it.
I still desperately want to get a volunteering position, and the amount of work I have done, am doing, and will continue to do without any valid results is deeply disheartening. But it has all been so much harder to bear without any other deeper pleasures to soften it. Already the efforts I've put into these interests that I had been ignoring has helped me, and I hope I will be able to pursue and come to flourish in these. (Especially herbalism. It's fascinating, and I think will help me move into the more natural and nature-based life I've always wanted. Now if only I could have a garden.) Plus, its been my experience that in this twisted, perverse world, the harder I look for something the farther it gets from me; it's only when I stop chasing it, and start looking at other things that what I want finally arrives.
This has gone on so long that I have re-signed the lease on my apartment, and am stuck here til at least next June, and so I know I won't be going anywhere anytime soon. It's disheartening. Part of me wants to just quit and chase something else. But I still feel called to pursue this while I'm young and my responsibilites are light and the ties that hold me down are few.
However, while I've been doing all this looking, I've kind of put my life on hold. I have been waiting for months, trying not to settle into a rhythm or set down roots or begin anything too permanent, doing little more than the-day-to-work-a-day, so I could be ready to leave whenever the opportunity arose. In so doing I have been making myself miserable, which would be ok if I was actually going somewhere, but since I'm not, I've just gone through half a year without really letting myself live and have nothing to show for it. Well, now I know I have at least til next summer before I'm going anywhere, so there's no reason to keep myself from getting into the things I want or am interested in. (I am still hampered by my living conditions, mostly the fact that in a two-bedroom apartment rented by three people the only place I have for my own things and my own influence is my bedroom, which is not enough room, but also just by ordinary apartment things, such as not being able to grow any real plants, because there's just nowhere to plant them.) But there are things I could go after despite this, that I've decided to follow up. I've bought a book on yoga, and a book on herbalism, both subjects I've wanted to learn about for a long time. I'm supposed to be able to get my mom and dad's bow so I can take up archery again, but they have yet to deliver. I'm trying to find a class or tutor to teach me Russian, and of all the random things, I really like the idea of learning about midwifing and natural-birth. I am also remembering how much I love nature, and while the weather is still sufferable, I am trying to get out and explore it.
I still desperately want to get a volunteering position, and the amount of work I have done, am doing, and will continue to do without any valid results is deeply disheartening. But it has all been so much harder to bear without any other deeper pleasures to soften it. Already the efforts I've put into these interests that I had been ignoring has helped me, and I hope I will be able to pursue and come to flourish in these. (Especially herbalism. It's fascinating, and I think will help me move into the more natural and nature-based life I've always wanted. Now if only I could have a garden.) Plus, its been my experience that in this twisted, perverse world, the harder I look for something the farther it gets from me; it's only when I stop chasing it, and start looking at other things that what I want finally arrives.