Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Metamorphosis

Once again I find myself at a crossroads. Some might call it a full-blown mid-life crisis, but I like to think it’s a bit more complicated than that. Perhaps I’m just deluding myself. Yet, when I reflect on the past two or three years I see a gradual change in myself. And when I reflect on my life as a whole, I see a recurring cycle of change and growth.

I’ve never been one who is overly fond of routine. I get bored easily and I’m always open to new adventures. At times I’ve even been known to make drastic changes just because I feared I was getting into a rut in life. Plus, there’s a sort of perverse thrill in keeping my family and friends on their toes, always wondering what my latest hobby or hairstyle will be!

This time around, though, I think the change is deeper. For the last several years I’ve been on a quest to find myself. No, not in a starry-eyed college kid backpacking across Europe kind of way. I want to discover what I’m truly good at, what I really believe about politics and religion, whether I can make a career out of doing something that I love. Instead of always swaying this way and that on a whim, I want to finally be grounded in the real me and feel confident in being myself.

So now we come to the subject of this blog. Writing is one of my biggest passions in life. As my writing is often infused with my state of mind, this blog as a whole seems to have multiple personalities. I find politics and culture fascinating, so I began by writing about that. After a while, that seemed to be bringing me down so I tried something uplifting. I started writing short devotions. Then circumstances in my personal life became incredibly consuming, and I didn’t have the same amount of time or emotional energy to write for a season. Now I’m back, but I find myself wanting to head in a new direction. Nothing too drastic because my intent for this blog is still to benefit others as well as myself. I’ve no interest in writing a blog devoted entirely to navel gazing. (Regardless of what this particular entry might suggest!)

Where will I go from here? In terms of this blog, I’ll still be focused on life’s lessons. But now I’ll try to draw on a variety of sources. I will soon be traveling to Israel, and I look forward to the ways in which my experiences there will change me and help me grow. As always, I’ll process these changes through writing, and I hope others will want to come along for the ride, even if it’s only to see how many times I change the color of my hair!