A week has gone by since returning to the East Coast from California..and it's gone very differently from how I envisioned it would go. During this unexpected week of downtime (what's that?!), I've been reflecting on how we can plan all we want but if the plans are not meant to be, they are simply not going to happen (yet). I was gently reminded of this last night as I drove home from a belated Cinco de Mayo dinner with a couple I just love. It doesn't feel all that long ago that we sat around their kitchen table celebrating another Cinco de Mayo when we discussed my recent decision to leave LIU and go to NC for school. We had hoped Lauren would inherit my West York caseload the following year and joked about how Trevor could come down to NC and go to races with my brother, a die hard Nascar fan. I always enjoy my time with this sweet couple I call Barbie and Ken but last night was sweet for another reason. Lauren and Trevor are expecting their first child this fall!!! Their plans to have a family are finally becoming reality, albeit a few years later than planned, but it is happening for them! As they listened to me vent about my frustration over feeling stuck right now, they reminded me of their struggles to experience their current happiness. As I drove home last night, I felt a renewed sense of hope.
Today, I was able to attend mass at my old church in East York for the first time in a couple years. On the way to mass, I felt myself being drawn into the worry and anxiety I've been feeling over "getting it all done" in my rapidly dwindling time in PA. I return to NC in a little over 3 weeks and I have yet to do anything dissertation study-wise up here. I keep reminding myself that I was able to conduct my 8 pilot study interviews & transcribe them during 4 days of non-stop work so with a lot of late nights and working around the clock, while not the ideal, I could do the same again for my dissertation data collection. These thoughts swirled around in my mind as I crossed town to go to St. Joe's...
My plans: recruit participants for the study on Wednesday, April 24th.
What happened: nothing yet.
My plans: try to schedule interviews starting on Friday, May 3rd.
What happened: nothing yet.
My plans: go visit my parents as soon as interviews have been conducted then return to York during the end of my stay in PA.
What happened: still in York.
My plans: begin making HUGE revisions to my proposal based on the chart I created last week.
What happened: nothing yet.
My plans: try to visit with as many friends as possible.
What happened: I am hesitant to make plans in case I get the permission from my committee I'm waiting on to start conducting interviews since the dissertation data collection takes top priority right now.
The screeching brakes, as a fall-out from the disastrous April 24th propsoal meeting, have resulted in a complete stop in the dissertation process.
The fact of the matter is I had no Plan B. I put too much faith/optimistic hope into believing that things would go as I had envisioned while home due to endless preparation and hard work. In hindsight, I should have packed my materials for the other research projects I have put on hold as I could have been working on all these things over the last week. I'm trying to view this "down" time as a blessing in disguise, as Lord knows there is not much of that these days, but this lack of moving forward is driving me nuts when there are so many things that need to get done...I'm ready to hit the road running, or to push the gas pedal, once I hear from my committee. I'm now down to 8 days left of collecting data so fingers crossed I hear something soon!
It was with this mindset that I entered my old church this afternoon. I prayed for guidance and hoped I would feel a sense of peace over all of the worry and doubt I've been experiencing this week through my disappointment with a future job prospect, feeling as if my dissertation plans have been stalled, and wishing for more committee support. It was a bit surreal being back in this church I had begun attending in 2007 with an ex boyfriend. This was the church we had talked about getting married in someday. I began my volunteering through the church ministry programs at this church and was a regular adorer during Thursday Adoration. I also had my first face to face confession, as an adult, in the beautiful confession room with a visiting Irish priest and love the style of this sort of church as well as the homilies given by the Capuchian Friars who run the church. For these reasons, St. Joe's is one of my top three favorite churches!
As I prayed over my impatience and uncertainty and reflected on how nothing is going the way I had hoped in all aspects of life right now, I tried to turn it all over to God. I imagined laying all of this down on the altar in front of me and just releasing it. Just before mass began, I hoped to hear some sort of reassuring message.
I received what I needed to hear when I read these words from Matthew 28:20: Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, alleluia/Go and teach all nations, says the Lord; I am with you always, until the end of the world.
Fr. Louis then proceeded to talk about the word, "up", during his homily and how we use that word by saying, "time to get up" and how things will get better or "look up" by the grace of God. We trust God is here.
Goodness, it doesn't get any simpler or plainer than that. Even in times of struggle, God is present and things will improve...it might not happen in the next five minutes or tomorrow, but gradually, things will get better. I am so glad I drove the half hour across town to go to mass at St. Joseph's instead of choosing to attend mass at the church that is three minutes from Ashley's house so that I could hear this message this afternoon.
The Communion hymn, "Eye Has Not Seen" by Marty Haugen was a nice reminder of this as well:
When pain and sorrow weigh us down, be near to us, O Lord, forgive the weakness of our faith, and bear us up within your peaceful word.
Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has ready for those who love him; Spirit of love, come, give us the mind of Jesus, teach us the wisdom of God.
Our lives are but a single breath, we flower and we fade, yet all our days are in your hands, so we return in love what love has made.
On the way home from mass, I heard on the radio about a devastating tanker fire that has occurred on a major highway, underneath another major highway, in Harrisburg. Fortunately, no one was killed or seriously injured in this tanker fire but major portions of 81/22 have been shut down in both directions and the government has released workers early from work in the capitol buildings. A cause has not been determined as of 3:30pm today. According to the live press conference I'm watching right now, structures of the highways need to be rebuilt due this damage. 81 will remain closed throughout the weekend. Traffic is being redirected to 581, which is currently backed up due to construction and of course the influx of traffic. There is no timetable for when 81 will be reopened and as of 4pm this afternoon, the turnpike is suspending tolls. WOW!!! These are the roads I traveled when commuting from York to Harrisburg for work and when I commuted to Kutztown for my Master's degree.
I'm thankful I'm down here in York and out of the way of all this chaos but I can't help but think of all those folks who were and are stuck in traffic on 81/22 today. Thinking of all those plans that have been delayed or postponed due to this unexpected fire reminds me yet again that even with good intentions and the best laid plans, life still happens of it's own accord. I had a bumper sticker on my first car that I put on the back window on September 10, 2001 that said, "People plan, God laughs...just wing it". Never would I have imagined what would happen the next morning on September 11th that would impact everyone's plans that day...and please don't misunderstand me in thinking I feel that God "laughed" at what happened or at any bad news for any of us. I'm just trying to illustrate how, I personally, need to work on realizing (and embracing) when plans don't come to fruition when I want them to as God's will is what should prevail.
I've been trying to make the most of this downtime through trying to embrace the art of being patient, organizing my pictures from the last several months, trying to get caught up on emails, and of course blogging. I'm thinking that I'll restart my job search since the York College gig is not looking as promising as I had hoped. Yes, I regret not being able to get started on writing my revisions of the proposal and not being able to transcribe the interviews I thought I would already have completed by now but I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if I can't see why right now. In the meantime, please send kind thoughts and prayers to the first responders and personnel dealing with the issues that have come out of the tanker fire as well as to the folks sitting in traffic (the news just said that school buses who are transporting children home from school will be delayed by at least 45 minutes) and to those dealing with trying to attend graduation events and fulfil plans and so forth along 81 over the weekend into early next week.
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