The Transition and Its Distractions.

This week I am just beginning to realize how scattered I have felt ever since arriving. I may not have admitted that I was scattered, or even known I was scattered, but now that I finally have a phone line in my office and my computer hooked up to DSL, I know that I have been scattered.

There are lots of things to be distracted by, I suppose: new office, new apartment, new coworkers, new responsibilities, new driver's license, new grocery store, new personal budget, new side of the country, new roommate, new friends, new church, new license plates, new speed limit, new car insurance, new address, new post office, new schedule, blah, blah, blah, you get the point.

The main point is that within the last few days, a few of my close friends used the word "distracted" to define the events in my life right now, and I feel like I've just woken up out of a trance to realize, "Hey! Heather! You just raised support and moved to Washington State to do full-time youth ministry! Remember?!" and I think to myself--"oh....yeah...YEAH! Hey! I'm in Washington! I'm a youth pastor! Hey! I want to be here! Hey! Kids! Jesus! They're why I'm here!"

So, I feel like I have passed some first rite of passage of the cultural flow chart of "how to transition to a new place." I have finally recognized I'm in a new place, that there are things about the new place that are becoming familiar, and that a new place means a new lifestyle and new goals that are not yet routine--meaning: I need to be a bit more consciously aware of how I structure my daily life. So...beginning today, I'm telling the blog community: I set the goal to spend the next few weeks diligently focused on setting goals and gaining a clearer understanding of what it is I am to do here. I'm not saying the distractions are gone; I'm saying I want to stop being distracted.