Somehow when I wasn’t paying attention, we have reached the last quarter of our fellowship. And as with any chapter coming to a close in the near future, the little bug called ‘anxiety’ come buzzing in our ear… the ‘NOW WHAT?!?!?’ factor comes creeping in.
It’s easy to get caught up in the ‘what next?’ and begin pouring over applications and cover letters for that next step. It’s very easy to start going into ‘count-down’ mode and start trying to squeeze everything in we still want to do in the remaining months. It’s even easier to feel frozen, no longer thinking about the present but not wanting to deal with the thought of the future. However that anxiety bug comes buzzing, you can generally feel its sting.
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Fortunately for me, a major life event happened that gave me the chance to take a step back from daily life to fly to Oregon, U.S.A.: my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, and I became an aunt for the first time.
As I went through the inexplicable emotions, joys and challenges of learning what caring for a newborn baby meant, it re-centered me on what’s truly important in the end.
Yes, my career still matters to me. Yes, I want to do as much good as I can in the world. And yes, I know my next steps after GHC will play an important role in my ability to do so… But if I end up with a lot more time than I was hoping for before I arrive at my next step, if I get rejected from what I had hoped for, if I commit to something I’m unsure about, if I’m scared to move forward from the life I’ve grown to love, and if I exit this fellowship with more questions than answers …well, maybe it’s not the worst thing that could happen.
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A few nights ago, I sat on my sister’s couch around 2AM with the baby in one arm and my thoughts in the other. As I rocked her to sleep and watched her facial expressions as she dreamed, my mind also wandered. I remembered stepping onto the Yale campus on my first day of GHC training, and I remembered stepping into the office in Rwanda only a couple weeks ago, 8,000 miles away. I smiled, realizing how different I was before this year, how full of life the last nine months have been, and how they have shaped who I now hope to become in the future.
As I shifted back to reality and gazed down at her one-week-old face, I thought to myself,
‘Man, she’s got her whole life ahead of her….and hey, so do I.”
