I'm in it

ربما ننفق كل العمر كي نثقب ثغرة..ليمر النور للأجيال مرة

(Translate: Sometimes we may spend a whole lifetime digging a tiny hole, so that Light may pass to the coming generations if just for once)

I took a picture of a picture today. I love this picture that I took back in 2006 and i love the boys in it. The taller boy is Terrance and the littler one is Hussen. This was taken while in school at the orphanage in South Africa in 2006 when i was 20 yrs old on my first ever trip abroad alone...and turned out to be the trip that changed my life path completely. I wanted to be a kindergarden teacher my whole life up until that trip. I came back from this summer and knew I wanted to work abroad and help people in conflict. I've been working towards that new goal ever since.

Now, I'm here in the Middle East for the first time and learning Arabic so I can be capable of reaching people in conflict on a deeper level...through their own language. I have so many days here where I start to wonder why am I here and why am I dedicating so much time to Arabic, when I really love working and living in Africa. I don't know. There are a few Arabic speaking countries in Africa but not many...so this would lead me to believe that if i really keep up my Arabic and spend all of this exhaustive time and energy on the language then my future is in the Middle East??

Again, I don't know. I've been debating my future here a lot and trying to find the "hidden meaning" and the "real purpose" and the "answer" to it all...and I don't know. Since 2006, since that trip, I started to follow my gut whole heartedly. I take my next big steps in life like Peace Corps, my master's degrees, Jordan, Arabic, etc. with a solid attempt of using logic and reasonable calculations for what will help me in the future career wise and such...but ultimately I do these things because while I never understand why, they feel like the right thing to do. So far, I feel like they have been the right things to do and that I have made good choices. However, those choices are often followed by weird periods of confusion misunderstandings with myself about why I am where I ended up. Classic phases of "existential crises," as a few of my friends and I like to dramatically call them.

Its normal as I know, but I started to thinking about why this feel different and why I feel like this and it finally dawned on me that it's overwhelming this time in a different way because I'm in it. I'm in it now. Since 2006, I made my big life decisions based off the idealized vision in my head of what it would look like to start my career abroad helping people. I envisioned this world that seemed so perfectly fulfilling and rewarding as I swooped in a saved the WOLRD! haha BUT honestly, the pretty vision wasn't far off...little less of a God complex but not by much probably.

I realized that I'm now in it. I'm now living and starting that career abroad. NO more steps to be taken or school options to fall back on. No more financial aid soon to help ensure I can pay the rent. I'm in it. I'm working at Mercy Corps for Syrian refugees and while I am learning things and in many ways its great...its both everything and nothing that I thought it would be. Parts of it are better then I thought and parts are more disappointing then I thought were possible. Its reality and the reality is often never what you dreamed it would be. I still want to do what I do and what I'm trying to do. I still think of those kids from 2006 and how they unknowingly changed me forever and convinced me to fight for them even if they don't need fighting for anymore...they helped me realize that if its not them, then it will be some other kids that need help.

I still want to do this, but its a very devastating and powerful realization for me the last few days to acknowledge the reality of it and have to admit that I don't entirely know how to go about it al or what is the right thing...and I don't have as big of a safety net like school or financial aid or the need to go find another internship to fulfill a requirement and figure my life out later....I'm in it.