Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated. Alot has happened, and yet not much has happened. Mostly, my thoughts have been consumed with preparing with excitement to go to seminary, and then our preperations going down the drain as seminary slipped out of my grasp…*sigh*
Let me start at the beginning. It started when we found out that we wouldn’t be able to live in on-campus housing because it was full for this year, and we weren’t high enough up on the list to get in. Okay, so that was a set back, so no big deal, or so we thought. We based our budget on our incomes part-time, because I already knew I would be working remotely with my current job, and because looking around at the jobs up there, we knew Calvin would make at the very least what he is making now. We went up at the end of June apartment hunting. What a tremendous blow. We found nothing we could afford, nothing that could even barely meet our needs. On-campus housing would have been tight on that budget, but it is much cheaper and includes utitilities, (plus you have to figure the convenience - and the savings in gas!) and we could have done it fine. Off-campus? Forget it. Not on that budget. Calvin would have had to found a much higher paying job. Not an impossible feat in the computer world, and certainly not up there - but we don’t have the time now for him to find one. It’s too late.
So in the end, basically because we didn’t get on campus housing, we can’t afford to go this year. We can’t afford to live off-campus. It’s absurdly expensive. To try to do it would be absurdly foolish. I was crushed - I cried for hours on end. We left a day early after looking at some 15 apartments. I retained some hope that maybe one of the jobs he applied for would turn up something, but to no avail. Now, the last minute has come, and it is final. We are deferring until next year.
I know, what a baby, right? It’s only a year, after all, and I’m young still. I keep telling myself that. Only a year, only a year, like a mantra in my head. I run all the explanations around and around - come now - how bad is it really? You have more time to save up money. It’s not the end of the world. Worse things could happen to you. Worse things have happened to many other people, especially recently, in your own town! And you sit here blubbering on about having to wait one more year. It’s not like you’re never going. And then there are the spiritual explanations. Perhaps God has something in store for you this year. Something he means for you to do. Someone to help. Or something for you to learn. Or maybe you just need to learn to be content, and patient.
But all the logical, spiritual reasoning in the world doesn’t keep the hot frustration out of my heart. At least, not yet. I already felt stuck, frusterated, wandering in some sort of inbetween state of nothingness in my life. But at least I had something near, soon - it was in my grasp…it fell between my fingers like sand. I know I’m being dramatic. But that’s what it feels like, and I think that’s why it feels so horrible…because it was so close…and then it slipped away. And I don’t mind my job. I like it, for what it is. But it is pointless, pointless, pointless! Nothingness, I’m floating in this state of nothingness…worse, I feel like I’m chained to nothingness. I want to get on with my life…DO something, do what I know my heart really wants to do…It is frusterating beyond belief. At times I just want to scream.
Perhaps it would help if I had something to grasp during this time, some anchor…I wish I had a church body to connect to, to throw myself into, to make a difference in. I grit my teeth in frusteration there as well. I will try my best, we are going to get involved in…that church that we go to, as best as we can for a year. *wry smile* Even now, as I think about church, other issues rise inside of me. That is for another blog entry. Perhaps that is why I am here, for another year. Perhaps…perhaps.
Only a year. Only a year. Only. A. Year. Just keep swimming just keep swimming just keep swimming just keep swimming……
