Acceleration

May 13th, 2007

Kayla and the kids are down in Spokane this weekend, so I have the rare opportunity to sit at the keyboard alone, listening to the Vienna Boys Choir, thinking my own thoughts in an empty, dark house. It's a rare privilege.

I never realized how solitary a person I am until I got married and we had our first child. The need for peace and solitude was suddenly urgent, and I have never really stopped loving that moment when you leave the rest of humanity behind and find yourself alone. To be fair I should say that in the intervening years I have truly learned to like people, in a more genuine sort of way, than I ever did before. I love my family. But it is heavenly to have a piece of quiet once in a while.

Tonight I'm in a reflective, nostalgic sort of mood. I found a few blogs of former missionaries I knew in Russia and have been catching up on their lives (at least the part they commit to writing). There's nothing like the distance of the past to bring out the meaning in the daily meaninglessness of life. I recently saw a film called Everything is Illuminated, based on the book by the same name. The film's title comes from a line in Milan Kundera's novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being: "In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine." That's how I feel tonight. Little rays of the past, all but forgotten, stabbing through the fog of the present to illuminate the way forward.

I once thought I lived a relatively sedate lifestyle. Replete with small adventures, true, but still slow-moving and serene. But in the last year my life has seemed to accelerate, speeding off into a horizon that unfolds so quickly that it is difficult sometimes to see exactly where it is heading. Really it's just little things. They all add up after a while. I've suddenly become involved in a community, which for me is a big deal. I didn't realize the impact moving to a small town would have on me personally, but it has truly made all the difference. I can't be anonymous here. I'm starting to recognize people at the store or walking downtown. I have an identity that is tied to a place... something so rare as to be almost nonexistent in our roaming, faceless culture. I am involved in two different singing groups here in town, as well as the indoor and outdoor soccer leagues. I like visiting the local art gallery and the farmer's market. I'm on first name basis with some of the librarians. All signs of a person beginning to set down roots after a wanderer's life.

I think a large part of this process has been my change in attitude toward my career. When I was fresh out of college, a job was an expendable thing, something easily won and easily exchanged. I had nothing to lose. Now, five years later, my job has become one of the major foundations of my life. (Reading that again, it sounds pitiful, but it's true... look at your own life and you will probably draw a similar conclusion). It's fashionable these days to disparage work, to long for the day when you can sit on the beach and sip Hawaiian punch and not deal with the grind of making a living. But I'd be completely dishonest if I didn't say that my job has become a huge part of my identity. As I've grown in my career, I have also become a much different person. Five years after graduating from college I suddenly find myself in a position where I value my job. I value what my job means to my family and my lifestyle.

I think I may be growing up after all.