Congratulations are in order for Mr. and Mrs. shiau_d! It's so hard to believe that he's married...MITKCF 01's are dropping like flies. 4 of them in this year alone!
Got back from the wedding last night, it was really nice to see shiau_d so happy and...grown up. Classic IV statistic, they met at Urbana when they were serving on staff at completely different campuses but assigned to the same task. Crazy, huh? His parting words to students? "Join staff and go to Urbana!" Haha...
So the night before the wedding, the happy couple graciously hosted a BBQ for hundreds (I'm not joking) at Kathy's parents' house in NJ. When the invitation said "the driveway only fits 12 cars, so please park in the high school nearby unless you have families with small children" - I should known that they'd either live in a nice neighborhood, or like, a farm.
After parking the car, walking to the house was an exercise in self-restraint. From what, you ask? Good question. It's not like I was going to run up to the houses and go inside. But as I walked along the street, I couldn't help but admire the nice, new, huge-mungous houses and their beautifully landscaped lawns.
Seriously, I know we're not supposed to want comfort and luxury...but really nice, newly developed houses just make me happy. I think it's because it reminded me so much of home. My parents' house is neither huge nor extravagent, but it does have a lawn and central heating/AC in a cul-de-sac where children can ride bikes down the street. Perhaps I'm getting older, or all these weddings are indicating that life moves forward and it's time to settle down...but especially in contrast to the space atrocity that is Manhattan living, and the ridiculous cost of my pre-war apartment in all its 350 sq ft glory - the suburbs of NJ weren't looking half bad.
(thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not covet...)
Whenever I meet people and they find out I'm from California, they always ask me whether I intend to move back, or why I'm here in NY. Huh. Good question.
I think there's always a tugging in my heart to return, and I've been saying since day 2 of my freshman year (even before I experienced my first Boston winter) that I was moving back to the good old Bay Area right after I graduated. But clearly, 8 years later...I'm still here. (Holy cow, 8 years??)
As much as I love to plan and would have loved to have kept doing so, I've kind of given up on detailed long-term planning. (For now...). The flow charts have been put on hold. (Ack, my beautiful, color-coded flow charts!) As I sit and run my fan in my AC-less apt on a humid sticky NY summer day, trying to remember what I have to do at my oftentimes inane job tomorrow...it's pretty clear that God doesn't always give us the life that we thought we wanted. But I do think that He gives us the lives that He wants, in a Jeremiah 29 sort of way.
So whose fault is it if I can't tell the difference between what I want and what He wants?
Sometimes when I'm teaching class and I want to pre-empt any crying and wimpy-ness and excuses, I'll ask the kids "whose fault is it if you get kicked in the face?" The ones who are regularly in my sparring class know they've got about 5 seconds to shout out "mine, for not blocking it!" The hard part of teaching is getting the kids is to stop them from making excuses and passing blame on each other - to not feel mean or think they're mean for doing things like kicking each other in the face. Getting them to understand that in doing so, they're helping their teammates get better at defending, while in the safety of supervision and in working with their friends.
Perhaps a strange analogy, but a useful one to me for seeing how I pass blame or make excuses. I think sometimes God does that - throws a kick to the face when you're really not paying attention to the match at hand. Maybe it's meant to be helpful. Maybe if you're not looking at the subtleties, that's the only way He can get your attention.
If there is a theme to my post-college life thus far, it's been seeing the value of learning to listen rather than driving to the point of needing to have doors closed to make choices obvious. Doesn't mean I've actually gotten good at that listening itself - clearly the desires of my heart are what they are. But I think that as we move closer to God, those desires actually do change to mesh, and the differences slowly become more recognize-able. (Yes, I make up words left and right).
So back to the question of how long I plan to be in NY or the East Coast...I guess I don't know. I have a gut feeling I'll find my way back someday, but if not today or ever, then there must be a compelling reason, and it must be good. Perhaps it would be more productive to focus on those reasons are that guide the choices, rather than the choices themselves.
Funny how some things just make you think...haha, how did I get all this from envying some really nice houses in the boonies of Jersey?
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