Where It's At

Where I'm at is in Sarah Berry's "dorm" room in the old familiar Arkadelphia.

I say "dorm" because seriously? Whoa. This is no dorm. This is like luxury hotel. With leather couches provided by the school. And legitimate cherry wood. And two full bathrooms. It's seriously making me rethink not moving to Eagle Village. But that's just me coveting, so let's move on, shall we? But whoa.

Down the hall from Sarah resides one of my best childhood friends, Rachel. We have one of those relationships you can't really describe adequately because it's just that ... complicated's not the word. Old doesn't do it justice either. Maybe transcending? It's weird because as time moves on, I'm finding that type of relationship with my high school friends, too. Like we're moved on and the friendship transends that. I still can't believe enough time has passed for us all to be in these new phases.

Phases like not having to ask your mom if your friend can spend the night. Phases when your friend has to get up to go teach real classes so you just chill on her bed in the morning. Phases when you take your girlfriends out to lunch in your own car with your own money on your own time that you manage yourself. Phases like talking about your boyfriend and potential engagement (don't worry Deirge and Katie, I won't be in these weddings... maybe the house party) and post grad plans and mission work and permanently life altering choices. Phases when you can eat a whole bowl of goldfish and some leftover valentine's day candy for breakfast (p.s., Sarah, or should I say "Mrs." Berry, Logan and Spiderman wished you a spiderific valentines day before I ate the m&ms that were attached to said note) without anyone saying anything (except for the scale, but who talks to him anyway? I definitely don't talk to inanimate objects).

Just a good phase. And I love sharing it with the people who knew and chose to be friends with me even in the blunt cut bangs phase of life or the television obsessed days. The days when I kissed walls while playing house (that's for you, college ladies). Henceforth, in any relationship I have, I can keep these sorts of details to myself (and would probably do better doing so), but these ladies lived through it and are still around. There just is a depth there that can't be denied.

And that's just the silly depth. Nevermind the baptisms and the mission trips and the fallouts and the distance. Which brings me to what I have been thinking about really, and that is why I haven't been here. It isn't just prompted by a desire to live in these dorms, though that is what elicited the playful "why didn't I go here's" last night (they have a THEATRE to watch their weekly shows, I mean, come on!). It came up in a short conversation with Sarah's roommate, Emily, who said "do you realize that we would have been best friends?"

She is not kidding. We really would have been. Girl is hilarious.

I look around this room at pictures of Sarah's friends, many of them my friends, of all the people who would have been close. I think of all the people I was acquaintances with in high school who could have become good friends. I see Jeremy across the hall, and though I never considered dating him in high school, he represents a whole class of guys with character and class that simply do not exist in abundance at Mary Wash. I just lay here and feel how comfortable I could have been, simulaneously knowing how hard it would have been to be motivated schoolastically. Maybe I use that as the excuse when really I just know that this isn't where I was supposed to be. Even as I sit and know it would have been fun.

This probably sounds all woe is me, and it is written stream of consciousness, so I apologize. It may come across as if I see myself as some huge martyr for the cause of following God's will because look at all the comfort I gave up. Look at the boys I could have had. Look at the nice cherry doors and molding I could have lived with. (Okay maybe that last one didn't cross your mind, but it sure did cross mine). Aren't I sooo good because I chose God above all those things?

I'm mocking myself. I'm also mocking the people who believe I really think that about myself.

Because as attractive as it sounds to have all of this, the people and the surroundings and the Christian educational influence, none of it was that appealing at the time I was applying. It didn't feel like I was giving up much when I packed up and headed north. But being in the middle of this room by myself, imagining myself here, I'm beginning to realize what a huge God thing it was to not feel the lack of all of this at the time. And it's not woe is me, I am so grateful. This morning I thank God for leading me as he did, not allowing me to focus on what could have been here because it just really was not what should have been. It's nice to know that even now, as my eyes are opened to the abundance around me now. This is where it's at. This place is tripped with all things appealing.

*not Sarah's dorm building

But it's not where I'm at, and that fact doesn't come at the cost of abundance.

I am abundantly blessed where I'm at. And that is a terrible sentence because it ends with a preposition. I'm giving myself creative license, as if I have the right.

I didn't not go to Ouachita because I think I'm better or more adventurous or smarter or Godlier. I didn't go to Ouachita because it wasn't where I was supposed to be. It was made clear to me then and I can't have regrets about it now, especially knowing what was waiting for me on the other side.

Katie left this in my comments yesterday and I wanted to address it:

"There is still so much to love. But mostly, there is still the main thing when these things are absent from my life. For me, that is God."

I'm still struggling with where God is in "these things," because I know God is there, too, and I don't have to strip those things away to find God.

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If it sounds like I feel like God is the absence of the things that make me comfortable or the things I left behind at home, let me clarify. I meant that God is the main thing. Not that God is the absence of things in my life. He is here. At Ouachita. At home. He is in the day to day. I see him there. I didn't feel like I needed to strip my Arkansas-ness away to find him.

I did need to get away to see God outside of where I'm comfortable. I wanted to see him outside of my day to day in Little Rock, because I saw him so clearly there. I see when I come home that he is in "these things" I let go of, if but for during the school year and in between breaks. I let go of the Ouachita experience, but he is still here. And I went on to the Virginia experience and he's there, too. Teaching me there in the day to day things. But day to day there is different than day to day here, and I needed to know that God would bridge that difference.

I don't only find God in the absence of home. I just rejoice in him because he is there, too. And I don't feel like I've given a lot up or that I live in sacrifice because I went where I felt called. It is neither a woe is me or holy is me. I just want to be where God's at. (another terrible sentence) (and I put the parentheses outside of the period) That very well could have been smack in the center of Little Rock, or better yet (ha!) Arkadelphia. It just wasn't for me.

I didn't have to strip myself of "these things" back home (and I hardly have, what with phones and texts and the internets and what not) to find God. I just so want to know that if I was stripped of all of this, God would be there too.

I want to believe that where he is is where it's at.

Right now, lunch with Rachel and Kiley is where it's at, so I'm over and out.