Almost there.

As I sit here and write this, I am in LAX with only about one third of my trip completed. It is now approximately 1:30pm Hawai’i time, and I have been awake since 4:00am in order to catch my 6:45am flight from Hawai’i to Los Angeles. I will not reach my final destination at Oxford University for, at minimum, another fourteen hours. How strange. The fact that I will be spending the next five months studying at Oxford and traveling Europe seems like some distant dream to me. I feel as if I should not be sitting here at Gate 74, waiting for my flight to Heathrow, but should instead be walking down to baggage claim where Sarah, or Aaron, or maybe Sean will drive up to welcome me with open arms and bring me to APU.

My decision to go to Oxford was sudden and quite last-minute. I missed the application due date by weeks and was not even remotely considering going to England this semester. But I guess we all know, to some extent, that things do not typically turn out the way we plan them.

I find it sort of strange that I do not feel more excited, or nervous, or scared, or something right now. In fact, I haven’t really felt any emotion about the upcoming semester for the past month or two I have known I was going. Because I studied abroad last semester, living in South Central LA with a host family for four months, I was unable to attend any meetings or be introduced to other students who are also going. I do not know where I am living. I do not know anyone there. I do not know what classes (tutorials) I will be taking. I do not even know what college within Oxford University I will be a part of.

Everything feels surreal. I feel like I am in some strange in-between state in my life right now. I am at a point where I am still trying to process and comprehend all of the intense, life-changing, difficult things I experienced and learned last semester in inner city L.A. Yet, for the past three weeks in Hawai’i I also felt unsettled and out of place. Because my college experience has been so unusual and I find myself constantly moving from one place or “home” to another, it has become increasingly difficult for me to see any place I occupy as anything other than something temporary. From Azusa to Los Angeles to Hawaii to Yosemite to London, I am constantly moving from one temporary place to another. And though my life has been radically changed by each of these experiences, it has become more difficult for me to feel emotional about or invested into these new experiences and places because I subconsciously find myself thinking of them simply as temporary things. But maybe this is a good thing. After all, I suppose it is necessary to see the temporary nature of things on this earth in order to begin to see things from an eternal or heavenly perspective.

However, my prayer as I begin this new part of my life in Europe is that I will somehow manage to be wholly present during my experiences there. I pray I will take advantage of every opportunity and experience Europe to its fullest. I am absolutely certain this is where God wants me to be this semester. There were far too many miracles that occurred in order to get me here for that to be untrue. So, here I am, off on another plane, to another continent, to begin another adventure.