twelve candles
Okay. In celebration of my half-birthday which is a few days away on Nov. 26, maybe I should take a moment to look at the first half of Chapter 23 and see where I am currently. As you can see, for clarification there has been some minor adjustments made to the map from my opening statements.

In the beginning I was finishing up college in Denton, TX (Black X) and had decided to join the Peace Corps after graduation. Graduation of course was contingent on my completion of an internship, which I had not yet secured in April. Nevertheless I believed (as it did turn out to be) that I would complete this internship over the Summer in Grand Cayman (blue arrow). For the Peace Corps I had requested being located in Africa or Eastern Europe (red arrows). However shortly after I had applied I received word that I had been assigned to potentially be sent to the Caribbean (blue arrow again). Summer ended and I graduated in August, returning home to the U.S at the end of that month. Ever since then I have been living in Fort Worth with the expectation that I would be leaving for the Peace Corps at then end of January. Starting at the end of October I received word that I would not be leaving for the Peace Corps in January as expected, and that my only option would be to wait and see if the Caribbean program would be open again at the next time of departure, which would be June or July. Feeling as if that were a long time to put my life on hold for a possibility, when there are so many important others out there, I began looking for other options. Within a few weeks my direction had changed dramatically, and I was discovered and subsequently was offered and accepted an AmeriCorps* VISTA position in Rhode Island, starting...when else but the end of January. So instead of leaving for the far off reaches of the world next year I find myself leaving for a completely unexpected destination, Providence Rhode Island (yellow arrow). (Note...for those of you out there still asking me where Rhode Island is, c'mon folks. Learn your geography! But because Josh loves you, here's a start). I know nothing about Providence, I know no one there. My only experience with the city is turning my head right to glance at it as I passed by once on I-95S from Boston to NYC...and maybe an episode or two of that show Providence with the CSI-NY girl and Honeycutt from M*A*S*H*. But then again, I knew no one or nothing about any of the places I applied to go to for the Peace Corps. So they're not too far apart from one another.

Now, as for this blog, it's definitely not been what I thought it would be. There has been a lot of rambling, complaining, and observations that I have endlessly commented about on this strange year of mine. And that being said, it hasn't all been my best side that has shown. Still as I sit here on the floor of my house typing and bouncing a raquetball off the wall (sorry Mom), Green Day blaring in the other room, I am still trying to figure out where I am headed. Having a geographical destination makes a world of a difference (no pun intended). But unfortunately as I pain to admit it, geography is more than just a location on a map. And as for all this talk about maps, they come in more than just what cartographers prescribe to us. I find that they come in the form of the people you meet, the books you read, the media you watch or listen to, the God/Spirit we chose or chose not to acknowledge. Our directions stem from these different map forms. I knock on people for not knowing their geography, but the same people I say these things about know more than I do when it comes to life directions stemming from elsewhere.

So I'm halfway through year 23 of my life. What do I know? The answer is far overshadowed by what I don't know. However, I am realizing everyday that I know a lot more than I acknowledge to myself. As I prepare to start out on a totally new adventure in my life I am realizing that over the past few years as I have learned so much I have also forgotten much of what I know from growing up. Lately I've been making New Years resolutions with myself everyday.

Over the course of this year I became an X-Files junkie. It started when my afternoon dinner hour just happened to coincide with the time that the show was being shown in reruns and soon carried over to late nights coming home from work and being brain dead (so to speak) and watching marathons on TNT. Since the beginning of the year I've just about seen every episode of the show. So what is the truth? Well that's for us all to find out on our own. Nevertheless we must always remember, no matter what chapter of life we find ourselves in, that the truth is out there. All we have to do is keep searching everywhere, in everything we do, and never lose hope.

(thanks to Google and Peter Janes for help figuring out my half-birthday. Figure out yours here.)  ¶ 11/16/2005 02:27:00 PM