I continuously find myself drawn to Lake Hood, the world’s largest float plane base. An easy eight-mile bike ride (or, preferably, run), it is a loop route that brings me the solitude of nature that I am often hard-pressed to find while living among concrete and grime. At 8 a.m. on a Monday morning the route is surprisingly unoccupied – a few joggers, cars, folks walking their dogs, and me. This balmy 33-degree morning I hopped onto my bicycle and headed down to pray as I watched the sun come up over the mountains.
I’ve had a lot on my mind lately as I decide what I am doing with my future. When I left last August, my full intent was to go straight to a four-year college after the completion of my year in Service Adventure. I don’t think I can do that. I burned myself out in high school: I had to be perfect at everything I did, and when I wasn’t, when I found myself torn between 17 different activities, I began to hate myself for failing. I am not ready to enter an environment where I can slip right back to striving for perfection. Likewise, my thoughts of going to college for only a semester and then hiking the Appalachian Trail have fallen short as well. Although I received a very nice scholarship offer (combined with a spot on the student newspaper) from Hutchinson Community College, I can’t take it. It would mean moving back to Kansas for at least a year and a half – long enough that I fear I would never have the guts to leave again and come home to Alaska.
I’m not sure when I fell so deeply in love with The Last Frontier. Somewhere between hiking and working at Habitat for Humanity, I suspect. But I do know that I love who I have become while living here and I’m not ready to let her go. Sometimes I feel like I am slipping, falling, but then I realize I am flying. I’ve come so far from the peppy, overly-organized perfectionist. Up here I am different. I don’t have to be perfect and I’m not. I make mistakes every day and I learn from each and every one. When I get frustrated, I turn to prayer instead of anger. I find laughter or a little moment of peace (often both) every day. Most importantly, I’ve truly begun to grasp what matters the most in life: the people with whom I spend it. And even though a lot of those people are back home in Kansas, I’ve begun to find my own little family up here. People who don’t know me as the golden girl I tried so hard to be, but rather, as just Lizzie.
So I think I’ve made my decision. I’m officially moving up here this fall after Service Adventure is done. I have a job as an intern with Habitat until September and although I don’t know where I will work after that, I have full faith that it will all come together. I’m planning on rooming with a friend from church and seriously looking forward to having a dog again. Even with the uncertainties that this plan includes, I feel a lot more in harmony with the decision than I did when I was contemplating college. It has been a difficult journey realizing that maybe it is OK to stay someplace where I am happy and at peace with myself, and that I can trust God to help pull together the details. I’ve been so wrapped up in finding a place to go next and singing, "I will go where you send me, Lord, where you send me, Lord, I will go," that I forgot the second part of the song: "I will stay where you plant me, Lord, where you plant me, Lord, I will grow." Now all that’s left to do is keep my feet on the ground and soak up the sky.
