Pre-Trip Thoughts

So I am taking off in a few weeks and thought I would share with everyone alittle bit about what is on my mind about my course.

I am in a weird place in life right now, I watch friends get married, people move on to grad school, or even friends return back to their comfortable places in their majors. I sit as people begin their semesters, season, or new stage of life. I sit in anticipation. Part of me feels alittle like a slacker. Not doing much, hanging out, and waiting to spend the next 3 months living and playing in the wilderness. I feel as if this course is not needed for me to finish school, something i am "supposed to do", I think at times that this is merely me postponing the inevitable graduation and adjustment to adult hood. So i wait.

I am nervous to leave the friends, families, and relationships I have built over the past months and years. I am affraid of the circumstances that i will return to after my absence, and am anxious about the departure of those who may have left while i was gone. I fear that some of the friendships and relationships i have built will deminish because of my absence. But yet i desire to go.

I feel in a weird place with the Lord, my relationship is a bit stale, after a experience today i really got a kick in the pants. Something I have been needing for a long time and didnt really want to admit it. I have spent the past month or more trying to control every detail, struggle, hardship or challenge by myself and have suceed (for the most part). Yet I know as this course approaches quickly that there is no way i can rely solely on myself to survive and succeed in the end. I am happy that this enlightenment came during the time it did, any later and it could have been while hanging from a rope.......(not good).

I think about what i am pursuing, many others have jobs, careers, families, lives that seem organized and complete. Yet, i live for the next thrill, adventure, risk, and still dare dream for some of those other parts. I think alot as this course approaches about the possibilities this "should" open up. Questions like "can i really make a living guiding and teaching people in nature" run through my head. Sarcastic remarks from friends and family about me "always playing for a living and not getting serious about life" bounce through my head like a empty room.

I think about how this course will affect my relationship with the Lord, something so important to me. I know it will be a test of my personal relationship with the absence of any fellowship or community i have been a part of for a long time. I wonder if pray time, quiet times and talks about the lord will still be as important to me and as desired as they are now. I know i cannot do it with out him, but will i try to anyways....

I think about the risk of it all. The potential danger that one experiences even in such a controlled setting. I think about life hanging from one anchor, slab, crack, or boulder. I think about the potential wrong turn that sends a freight train of snow down the hill side, cover all in its path. I think about the people at home wondering "what the heck is he up to right now" and at times i wonder who will come with me.

I wonder if i will succeed and live up to expectations of my other course mates and instructors. I wonder if my application and resume stand up to how i can perform in the field. I wonder if i an adequate enough for this field.

I wonder if i have all the gear i need, should i get anything else, should i use their stuff or ruine mine. I wonder if i am physically ready for it, will my knee hold up or blow out the first turn. I wonder if i will fall behind gasping for air as we approach the summit.

I wonder all these things, they fill my mind, they consume my thoughts, they keep me awake, they make me speak and think with peope about new things. and yet after all the thoughts, the fears, the concerns, the inadequacies, the potential death, I think about how i could not do it. How i would be devestated if i had to turn back and not attend.

I think about finding a "real job" and being "responsible" with my life. and yet there is this calling, this guidance from the lord to go after it. To climb higher, go deeper, push harder, than i have before. I think about the person i was years ago and the things i wanted then and the life i wished to have, and then i turn and look myself in the mirror and think "never again" never again will i become the person i was before, and even the person that tries to push back into my life everyonce in awhile. I will no longer submit to the tempations and the desires that are unGodly. I will push into this course will the strength, courage and wisdom of the Lord, and come out better from it.

My thoughts about this trip: AMAZINGNESS, SCARED, CRAP!!!, WOW!!!, UHOH!, GOD BLESS, FULLFILLMENT, PURSUANCE.