>in THIS world, that is. it is 12:17 am, and i have been asleep briefly tonight once already, but now i am fully awake. i am three days away from having ten days off of work, and i am still not sure what i am going to do with the time. i was introducing a friend to www.sidestep.com last night, a wonderful travel price comparison web site, and i checked a fare to mexico city for this coming saturday, and much to my surprise, i found that it only cost $265 from houston. only $390 from little shreveport, louisiana. oh, how i would love to go. but there is the dilemma of where to stay. a friend offered me his family’s place, but they are engulfed in the passing of his grandmother, so it no longer feels like the right thing to do to take him up on his offer. but how nice it would be. i would be able to experience Holy Week first-hand, something i have always wanted to do, being a Spanish speaker and teacher of the language and all.

i have been overwhelmed lately by the realization that so many of us here on earth work so hard and expend so much energy trying to manage our lives and our problems and those of others that we seldom stop to admit that we are simply not in charge of it all. we (and i include myself very definitely in this subject pronoun) make ourselves crazy with the trying to figure it all out and the wondering if we did the right thing. we are focusing on decision-making in our small group study in the student ministry at church, and every week, i feel like i am the most attentive student. or at least that i should be. and i am the discussion leader! it is amazing the way that God works to present us with opportunities to exercise what he has taught us.

i am praying about my work and some very special friends and family members who are in need of direction as well. i am praying about what is my next professional move. graduate school? moving to Mexico? moving to a bigger city? getting involved in parent education? sitting still? moving on? see, here i am doing it! but the good news is that i am allowing it all to come to me gradually. i have no set deadlines, and i have no intention of barreling through to the wrong decision like i did about this time last year. i ran into a friend last weekend who was really stressed about her work, and we stood in the grocery store sharing stories, only to find out that we both have the same issues and some almost-identical personal concerns. why don’t we talk about it more often? why don’t we share our weaknesses? and our successes? do friends not have the right to burden their friends with their problems anymore? isn’t that what we are here for? to support? and to listen? and to advise? i think so. i hope that i am that kind of friend. i love having that kind of friend. sometimes, i do not even need anything more than a little quality time with a trusted friend. it is amazing how helpful just a few hours can be for me. or for someone else if i salvage the time to spend with them. it is truly ironic to me that in a world where we can make phone calls for free over the internet to communist countries, where we can type instant messages with someone halfway around the world and we can have instantaneous communication in various forms with friends and loved ones and even strangers, that we seem to be becoming more and more reclusive in our actual one-on-one human face-to-face contact. why is that? is the distance a comfort to us? a buffer of sorts that keeps us from getting too emotionally close to someone while being physically close to them as well? are we becoming far too comfortable with our parallel lives? comforted by sharing the extremely personal in an even more extremely impersonal manner? i believe it may be true.