Tuesday, August 14, 2007

I'm back in black

So, now I live in Gettys. The Getto. Ghetto. Take your pick.
I won't lie, I don't like it. I'm not thrilled about it. In fact, I'd much rather move out.
You know when you were a kid, maybe this applies to you, and you had to apologize for something? And you didn't want to, and you hated the thought of doing it, but deep down you knew it was the right thing to do? You knew that no matter how hard your feelings resisted the idea of what you were about to do, you had to do it anyway and it would be okay?
Yeah, that's NOT AT ALL how I feel about living here. I really, to be totally candid and honest, feel like I'm making the dumbest mistake ever. Not that I base all my best decisions off of feelings, but I've been here for two days, made relationships with the people I work with, and not one aspect of what I'm doing here feels in ANYWAY right at all. Deep down, I still don't want to be here.
My first inclination that I didn't belong here came to me when I realized that I am more of an adult now than ever. I once called this past summer the summer of manhood -- the summer I became a man. I did manual labor, worked with my hands, got myself dirty and did hard work; on the flip side, I was a youth minister and was responsible for so much more than making copies and pushing paper and setting up bulletin boards. Somewhere between those two I grew up.
In Romania, I made the comment to Flory that I was not an adult. I said, "I'm not an adult yet. I'm just 19. When I turn 21, I'll feel more comfortable considering myself an adult. Right now I'm still a kid." She looked at me and said, "Geoff, I hate to break it to you, but you're an adult. You are one." Now, I'm not here to argue maturity, that's not what I do. But I realize that the more serious I start taking myself, the more serious others will take me. And again, not that I necessarily want everybody to take me so seriously, but the more I see myself as a semi-responsible adult and the more others treat me and recognize me as a semi-responsible adult, the more and more I will become an adult. I've long had a problem with the upperclassmen at my fine Universidad acting like kids in the apartments, and then being such high-standing students holding important positions such as Class Chaplains or Jesus Christ in the Easter Pageant. I'm an adult. The more I say it, the more I act it, the more I will be one.
Adults don't play kid games and live in dorms with obnoxious arrogant football players. Chumps do that. Kids do that. I'm neither anymore. I need a place that pushes me to grow up. I need out of this dorm. I need out of this position. This place will hold me back, and I could grow to hate that. No part of my being here feels right, and I want out.
I think this is my official list of grievances. I think this is where I stand on my current living situations. I don't know if I need to move in to McLane, or find an opening in the apartments and scoot out there, but I'm not going to stay in Gettys unless God opens some pretty magnanimous and supernatural doors that lead me to fall in love with this place.
And from where I'm sitting, it's looking like not.

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