Leaving

I am a few minutes from stepping into the van, sitting for two hours staring at two large packets of Biblical information, and arriving at the place where I will both play and pray for the next 60 days or so.  How do I feel right now?  Not like much.  I feel calm, normal, and in between a diva and a bum. (Diva because I just washed and braided my hair last night and took out the braids this morning. My hair looks FABULOUS!!! Bum because it's hot and it's summer and I'm still at home.)  This happens to me every time I'm about to embark on something big.  I feel normal and usually don't realize what's going on until 3/4 of the way into whatever I'm doing.  (Totally happened to me when I studied abroad in Ireland.  It was like 2 weeks before I was about to head back home when I was sitting on the bus and my eyes lighted up.  I almost blurted out to the entire busload of Irish-accented people: "Ohmigosh guys!  I'm totally in Ireland right now!  Isn't this awesome???" Yeah.  It was a good thing I didn't do that.)  I might repeat that episode again.  Hopefully, I'll blurt this out sooner: "I'M IN OCEAN CITY GUYS!"

Well, anyway.  I'll get there when I get there.  Right now, my brain is convinced that living in Ocean City for a summer is nice dream and life here as a bum in my house is reality.  Well, I guess that's how most things go.  They don't become real until you do them.

What will I find this summer?  My mom asked me why I was doing this program.  For everything else in my life (ie: homeschooling, Arcadia, Ireland, Jordan, etc.) my answer has always been, "Because I want to..." Oddly enough, this is the first time ever that I don't have an answer.  Do I want to go? Sure.  But is that the sole reason why I'm doing this? No.  As I soul search and talk to Jesus, I am reminded that there's a reason for everything.  Even the most random occurrences. And as I search my heart, I can hear a little voice whisper to me: "Because you need to...".  Need to what?  That's what I guess I'll find out.  Without a plan or a destination in mind, I'm freefalling into something I don't know, but can sense.  As the musician I am, I know how to follow the notes written on the pages of thin air even though I don't know how it will turn out.  Like a driver cruising country roads at midnight, I can only see 10 feet in front of me and the yellow line on the pavement.  I know how to follow the yellow line.  I have a vague sense of my destination.  But I don't know what it looks like or what the next step is.  I do know how to follow the GPS though and the yellow line on the pavement.  That's what I'm doing now.  I know this sounds crazy, but that's all I can say.

As of right now, however, I am still here, sitting on the couch, staring at a screen on my lap, and listening to the occasional complaints from my mother to "Hurry up!  We've gotta go before it's too late!"