Springing Forward

I am aware that I am a weeks late to coincide with the time change of springing forward, but there have been a confluence of events in my life that seem to be throwing me forward into something that I thought I was ready for. Now I'm not so sure. 

I graduate university this year. For the past four years I have sweated, I have worked, I have worried and I have stressed over requirements for a degree that will now allow me to go back to school. For awhile I really did love what I was studying. Now I kind of wish that I decided to complete a history degree or a theology degree. The completion of my mostly useless degree in the field of music history that I no longer love means that I have to find something else to do. I have some idea of what I want to do. Actually I have more than that. I have a complex seven year plan for my life that I hope I will be able to fulfill. 

I'm getting married. There is nothing more exciting in my life right now than that thought. There is also nothing more terrifying. After getting married I will be moving to Saskatchewan. That move will represent a drastically different way of life than what I have become accustomed to. I will most likely be living in a small rural town or village somewhere in the vastness that is the middle of this country, with its endless views and stunning sunsets. I have never lived in a place like this in my life. I have lived in the suburbs where no one knows the names of their neighbors and everything is available 24 hours a day. In rural Saskatchewan everyone knows everything about everything. 

I get to live in my community for a year. I have never lived there for longer than four months and I have no idea what living there for a year will be like. There are always a lot of changes when I get back and I'm not sure how I will deal with the changes when I get back to my other home. Another problem is that I am not sure how I will deal with leaving. I have been a part of the community for the past four years and at the end of every summer when I have to go back to university, I have found it harder and harder to leave those who I love and those who love me behind. It makes it easier when I know that I can go back to visit whenever I want to, but when I move to the prairies, visiting won't be as simple. 

Beyond the major things, there are many little things that are changing in my life that I am not yet sure if I like. Simple things like leaving the apartment that I have lived in for the past two years and made into a home and leaving the chapel community that I have grown a part of over four years. I will no longer have as much space to myself as I used to, nor will I have the same role in worship that used to. I don't know if I will be able to create the same space for myself over the course of the year, but I know that I am going to try. 

Many of my colleagues who are also graduating this year have no idea where they are going once they are granted their degree. I am lucky in the respect that I do. That does not mean that any of the many major changes in my life are any less frightening because I have a road map. I'm not very good at reading maps. I am beginning a great new section of my life without knowing how it will end. I suppose that is really part of the adventure!