This is part 3 of a 5 part blog series leading up to my one year anniversary of being back in the states. While this anniversary might not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, as I've gotten closer to that date I've realized that I have a better idea of what picture is being formed through the puzzle pieces of the moments and months leading up to it. While I still don't have a complete picture, and I don't expect to get one this side of paradise, it's been fun to see this part come together. I hope you're enjoying the journey, too. (to read the previous posts click here: 1 or here: 2).
As I get closer to the present with these blogs it gets harder to write about them in a way that feels as meaningful or as clear. So hopefully this post isn't just a random rambling, or a strange summarization.
Working in Anaheim and living in/near Orange County meant that I was nearer to a community of people and a place which had held a part of my heart the whole time I was away in Scotland. There's this town called Fullerton. It was the first town I lived in, it was also a place where God showed me what it looks like to truly be a church family. There are places therein that are imbued with great, fun, hard, painful, wonderful, life-giving, and heart-rending memories. Being within easy living distance again meant one thing to me: being able to jump back in. So I did. Or I tried to. I found that as I had changed in the course of the year and a half that I had been away, so had the people and places. And getting to know friends after a period of separation can, in some ways, be a lot like making new friends. I'm so glad I chose renew as my word this year, because in the harder moments it was a good reminder to choose to keep going, being, doing. Because community isn't just a matter of showing up - although that's a big part of it...
On the work front, the manager who hired me was expecting her first baby, and therefore I was expecting some changes as things got closer to her due date. Little did I realize then, just how much would change over the course of the months. We went from a staff of 4 at the little shop I work in to a staff of 2 by the time Summer rolled around, and I went from being a sales associate to the sales associate and sorta-buyer. While the months between then and now sort of blend and merge into one long week in some ways, there are certainly little bright spots in the terrain that deserve mentioning. Such as the fact that I got my face on the front page of the business section of the OC Register, or that bright and shiny day when I found out a coffee shop serving Stumptown coffee would be coming to the street. Little announcements like that made me hope that I would be around the street long enough to be able to enjoy places like that, and to be able to see this whole endeavor really take off; while at the same time still keeping a foot out the door searching, waiting, and hoping for the perfect next step...
The whole while, even after getting this job, and going through some of these changes therein, I was living for the beginning of May because that was when I'd be able to apply to a job that sounded tailor-made for me. It was a job that would let me help students who - like myself - wished to go study in the British Isles. Unlike so many of the fantastic sounding opportunities that came before I actually got an interview this time around. However, just like so many of jobs that had come before that sounded oh-so-just-right for me, it turned out to be not for me.
There's definitely more that happened in these months, and while I usually enjoy processing things here with you, reader, these are things that need to wait for another time to be processed. So I'll leave you here, on this 3rd day of September, at the end of May with this journey in my year back in the states.
to read part 2 click here part 4 click here
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