musings

Yesterday I worked for 10 hours. I was supposed to have the day off.

Today I worked a scheduled five hour shift at the restaurant. I was offered two sub jobs for today alone that I was forced to turn down because of the scheduled shift at the restaurant.

It's all good, though, because I am coming to truly love my job at the restaurant. Not "love" in the sense that I've found my calling, my "Vocare" (thanks NW). But "love" in the sense that I am learning so much about myself and other people and about the ways that God has blessed me. I'm humbled, putting my college degree to good use as a waitress at a truck stop. I have the opportunity to meet and befriend people who don't run in the Christian or academic circles. People that I am coming to love. It's a whole different crowd, but it's so good for me.

I'm going to hopefully be going away to grad school in a few months. But I don't ever want to forget these people I have come to appreciate in the last couple weeks. I don't want to forget the high school senior working to provide for her family because her mom has stage three cancer. I don't want to forget the 21 year old mother of three who was so quick to offer her acceptance and friendship to me. I don't want to forget any of these people who are so different from my college-educated acquaintances...these people are so real, and so much loved by God.

Working at the restaurant and answering the questions of people who know me but whom I don't know at all (typical small town), I realize how much I want grad school. I realize, while telling them that I am hoping to go back to school, how much I am indeed hoping for that. I realize how much of a privilege it would be to have the opportunity to not need to work at a place like that restaurant for the rest of my life. How rare and special the opportunity for higher education truly is.

I have been transported into another world since graduation from NW. Here I don't think as much or as deeply as I used to. Here life is simple and down to earth. And I need that to remind me of the paradox that is me: I LOVE where I come from, and I LOVE where I hope to go. Both make me "me." I am both a country girl and an aspiring historian. I love both reading cheesy Christian fiction novels and researching complex historical topics.

I miss studying history so much, but I am so grateful for this opportunity to stop and remember who I am at my roots before I, in many ways, leave my roots behind in a few short months.