He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Written June 6. Posted late.

You know that feeling you get while driving on the highway, whether it be in the driver’s seat or riding in a Car Jaune, that whatever song you’re listening to right that moment could be undoubtedly perfect for the soundtrack to the movie your life WOULD be, if only someone would make the intelligent move of writing a screenplay of it?
Problem is that most people have lives that simply aren’t epic enough to make movies out of our lives… or at least not good ones. Still, we humor ourselves thinking that this particular song and that particular combination of colors would make a perfect backdrop for our ever interesting, deeply profound emotions and actions.
Eighteen days in a country with widespread poverty and slimly spread luxuries like electricity, running water (let alone hot water or water pressure), and I find that riding on a well-paved highway listening to my ipod brings me back to a set of emotions and a feeling of sentimentality that I simply didn’t have time or situation for while I was in Madagascar. I’d forgotten the moving effect of a well-placed key change or the longing energy of a little harmonica accompaniment.
I’ve said it before, and I can’t but hold to it: this is the most epic six months of my life. I’m writing this and hour before sundown in the middle of a very empty campus, reflecting on May’s Malagasy adventure and yesterday’s trip to Piton de la Fournaise. What? You’d like to know if I’ve ever hiked up to the edge of a volcano’s crater? Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. Because I can’t just leave the adventure at that, I depart tomorrow for Mauritius – a little African island nation slightly northeast of Reunion, for a week of some of the world’s best beaches. I’m excited, but I admit my fear of finding the week as something less than incredible in contrast with what I’ve seen so far. Long story short, I don’t see how the Mascareins could have anything better to show me. Still, I wait to see.
So you’d think that months of this incredible life, hiking, beaching, diving, traveling, learning, parlant francais, etc. would have molded me into this incredible woman of the world who understands everything and everyone, ready to embrace a vagabond lifestyle, abandoning the little world she once knew. Or at least that’s what I half-expected. At some point I suppose I thought that this semester abroad would teach me to genuinely be content, teach me that the world is both huge and tiny, to prepare me for some glamorous life abroad doing world-changing things. I though I'd find for myself a new me.
You say you’re looking for someone who’s never weak but always strong.
But it ain’t me, babe…

Maybe someday I’ll wake up and realize that I am the person I want to be… or at least a little closer to it. On paper, I am exactly the 21-year-old that middle school Me wanted to be. I suppose that’s a good sign. Still, I wonder if I’ve forgotten to keep listening at some point, or forgotten how to listen. I’ve regressed.

But if there's one thing I know for sure, it's this: God is still God, and nothing I do or see or think or fail to do or see or think will ever change that.