Packing (again), and Plans

It is early August, and I am packing up belongings and clothes. Four years in a row I have boxed and bagged and suitcased my life and bundled it all off to Moscow - and this is the fifth. It feels the same, yet all different, too.

Four years ago I was moving away from home for the first time. I was headed for my first real classroom experiences, having been home schooled. I was going from country living at the end of a dirt county road where I'd been all my life to spending long days in town - a town larger than anything around here for 30 miles. The next three years, the moves were easier, and adjustments simple.

This time, I'm not headed back to school, but to work. I will be part of the same church, and have some of the same roommates, and go to the same grocery stores and haunt the same coffee shop, but this is no longer me being a kid in college. This is me with my own bills. This is me as the college graduate in a house full of younger students. This is me deciding how to spend my evenings (because now they exist, and not just as a five-hour time slot to finish homework for the next day). This is me being a grown-up with real responsibilities in the real world.

Two days from now, I'll be settling into a new house, and starting to put my ideas into practice. Budgets. Schedules. Work. More job searching. Grocery shopping. Housework. Friendships. Decorating. Meal preparation. Connecting with the community. Two days from now, I'll be putting myself to the test. Much has been given me; will I give back in a worthy manner? The world waits for me to discover and shape and beautify it; will I love it as earnestly and gladly as I should?

I anticipate it all. This will be me living, and the grace of God alive in me.