Sitting in the O’Hare airport (Chicago, for those less traveled as myself), wishing I could transfer my Istanbul flight to a Dublin flight; a continuation of mountainous glory and a land containing the best spoken English, at least to my own ear.
I have to admit walking and riding the tram to the international terminal made my stomach clench as I recognized that there isn’t any turning back, only moving forward towards known and unknown life settings. Here I sit with an almost, but not yet Master’s degree in International Development and all I can hope for is a calm future on a horse ranch surrounded by my current friends and family and hopefully an additional voice or ten. Why do I now realize that I may have been following a romantic idea, not one that included a boy, but of adventure in unchartered waters Come to find out, most of the waters have had multiple boats spill their oil into the streams that have flowed through even the most unattainable villages.
I’m trying to understand that it really isn’t about me, as Lucado kindly titled a book I glimpsed on a familiar shelf. I am a story, part of a larger story, but only playing a minor part. Most of us, if not all of us, are playing minor roles and the ones we assume to be the leading guy is really the forgettable extra vying for all the attention of the director. But if we are at all honest with ourselves, we are all vying for the spotlight of acknowledgement, success, yes, even us doing “charity work.” There are very few Mother Teresa’s and if there are many there is a reason we only publically known one.
It’s funny, her words keep resounding in my head that I read years ago, acknowledged and forgotten or morphed into one that fitted my own dreams…drum roll of ah ha paraphrase, There are Calcutta’s everywhere, you don’t have to go to India to find them. Who would of thought that I could of have avoided a 30,000 dollar graduate school debt in a degree that screams international in it’s title? I could have avoided missing the last 2 months of my grandmother’s life and had more than 4 days with her before she passed? I could have been less cynical, ok maybe not. But there would not be jetlag in my foreseeable future, only familiar land comfort. Though, would I have arrived at this mindset without the past year and half, probably not.
Here comes your question, now what will this confused and a bit or a lot selfish person find herself doing. I’m flying back to Cairo, to what I’m not sure yet. And it may not become clear until my 3 years are up, or until I look back and question did I make the right decision if I choose to leave early (as in December).
Will my concerns be upon my incomplete and scared resume or my relationship with God that will grow or deplete regardless if I stay or leave. We shall have to wait and see and hopefully instead of the consistency of annoying self-reflection, I will have stories of others that are the lead actors and I, at the moment, are their personal assistant.
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