a few things

At the end of the last academic school year, I was feeling quite fidgety. I felt claustrophobic by expectation and tradition and Adventist conservatism. I wanted to define my own borders and have the space to do so. Yet, only one day after moving to Connecticut, settling into my one bedroom apartment, I wandered the city for hours on foot by morning, only to return to an empty apartment by early afternoon, with nothing to do.

A week passed, and I started work. I liked what I saw, what my organization stood for, even the way these people went about solving problems and interacting with one another. But I missed the community of Adventism, of being part of a group that understood my background. I was invited to a Vineyard church that met on Sunday evenings, that was started by the U.S. Prevention & Advocacy Director and her husband at my work. But instead of attending there, I googled the closest address to an Adventist church, and walked just shy of 2 miles to the outskirts of downtown, in the humid heat of America's east, dripping sweat when I arrived at the entrance of the brick church building. It was mostly filled with elderly people, people smiled to themselves, and even awkwardly in my direction, but never a word was spoken to me. We sang hymns lifelessly in the pews, and I found myself slipping out early to join my fellow interns on a bus trip out to beach. The next week I went to the Vineyard church, and found myself preferring this environment much more, a non-denominational community made up of Yale students who sang contemporary worship music.

My days and nights here are quieter than my rowdy college nights, of collective study groups, and midnight trips to Taco Bell. Of blaring music on drives, and staying out past 2 am. But I realize that this might just be part of growing up, in general. College doesn't last forever. Here, I might go out for a late dinner with a few friends, and then come back home, to fall asleep on a couch to a movie playing in the background. I was talking to a friend earlier about how she is mentally preparing herself to be lonely this coming year, as she is graduated and plans on teaching in a foreign country. And while I could, in no way, compare this experience with that of when I lived a year in Cambodia, it is similar in the way that I took a risk, and went to a new place, to experience something different on my own. I stop and think about my days and nights here. And while they are quieter, and maybe even more lonely, I don't feel unhappy. They aren't in any way less fulfilling, and here, doing what I do, they might be even more so. The things I've learned are quite substantial. I find myself hypersensitive to media, anything making light of exploitation or prostitution or corrupt culture and social justice. But ignorance is NOT bliss. I am happy to know these things, and I think they bring about self-betterment.