wandering (pt 1)

"where are you going?"

"oh nowhere; just wandering"

"can i help you with something?"

"no thanks; i'm just wandering."

a week ago exactly, i turned nineteen. two weeks ago (minus a couple days, but who's counting?) i got a driver's license. a month ago, i was employed by child evangelism fellowship, wrapping up my last few days as a summer intern. five months ago, i was leaving cef headquarters, a cmi graduate. nine months ago, i was leaving home for cmi.

so much has happened in the past year. i'm in the process of changing churches. i'm trying to find a job. a couple friends and i are thinking about moving out once we're all on our feet, which will hopefully not be long. and here i sit. just wandering.

all throughout my adolescent years, there were milestones. i went to zambia, and god opened my heart to missions. i went to china, and god opened my heart for those who've never heard. he told me to go to romania, and i did, and it was amazing, if not in quite the way i expected. god led me to cmi, and back home, and to a summer intership with cef...

and now i'm just...lost. wandering through the beginning stages of adulthood, trying to remember all the pieces of advice that were given me, trying to remember how exactly i've seen people do this thing called life, trying to figure out where i'm supposed to be. and i'm waiting. waiting for a sign from heaven, i suppose, a disembodied finger to float down from above and write my instructions in angular english, tilted and supernatural, on a wall. i'm waiting for something to happen, something that will confirm what i'm supposed to do.

earlier this year, while at cyia, i felt that god was leading me to move four hours east to another city. i was going to be an intern there, and work within the cef framework, with the eventual aim of...well, i still wasn't sure, but it involved overseas service with cef and possibly directorships and teacher training gigs and being somebody who went and did things instead of just sitting still and waiting for life to run into her.

well, that whole plan fell through, as my own plans so often do. i didn't feel peace about it at first, and then other things happened, things that had been festering for a long while, things that could have called my entire ministry into question, through nothing i'd actually done. i had to do hard things and say hard things and generally be pretty damn ruthless and it hurt. i had to give up dreams of a future i'd been holding close for a long time, a future equal parts hopeless and beautiful, a future i would have gladly given much up for. a future that i'd already partly given up, because i knew there was no future in it at the beginning of this year. a future i'd been hanging onto with both hands, trying to preserve.

but i gave it up, because i had to.

and now i'm sitting here, at the cusp of, like, real adulthood, and i'm staring at all these other twenty-somethings who are bumbling through life, searching for the free food and the job that will Make Them Something, and i realize i'm just another cog in a dysfunctional machine that's slowly spinning into the sun, into an uncertain universal doom that will eventually claim all men, launching us off into eternity, into the hands of a loving god or a perfect judge.

and that's sort of depressing. and i'm still no closer to figuring out what the heck i'm going to do. maybe i'll end up just wandering through life. i hope not.

- Kyla Denae

just think about it

children.

that's the part that gives me pause, every time i consider statistics about this issue. every time i read something new about human trafficking, or watch a new video, or do extra searching around, ferreting out information from the holes it likes to hide in on the internet.

50% of people trafficked yearly are children, some as young as five years old.

and it makes me think. it makes me think about the kids i see every day, the ones i teach, the ones i've met travelling overseas.

and i wonder...

what do these statistics mean? what is the chance that some of these kids are going to show up at the end of their hope, and are going to end up doing something that will change their lives forever? what are their chances of growing up without being touched by these things? and if it doesn't hurt them, if they go through life capable of avoiding these things, if they grow up normally, what about the others, those ones who don't make it?

how many young women, today, are going to find themselves reduced to a hundred-dollar transaction, a piece of flesh to be carted into the united states or to another part of southeast asia, or into a hundred other places where they can be lost, lost to hope and justice and love.

sometimes, here in america, we think we're safe, that we won't be touched by these things--but we will, and we are. it happens even here, though perhaps not in the same clear-cut way that it might happen in africa or southeast asia. after all, we're civilized.



the world has a responsibility; all of it. i have a responsibility--to do what i can, whatever that may be (at the moment, that includes simply blogging about this issue ~o~). organizations like the exodus road can only do so much without people backing them, governmental offices such as unicef can only reach where the law extends, and even then they need people...people who will know and tell what they know. because in the end, as alex said:

- Kyla Denae

i hate being sick

i despise it. with all of my soul. unfortunately, however, hating being sick is not enough to keep actually getting sick away.

strep throat has been circulating in my house for the past two months. everybody's gotten it at least twice--and i'm pretty sure i'm among them, even though i've only been treated for it once since my body is stupid and doesn't like to show symptoms. so it's been interesting...have you ever had three sick kids under seven, all at the same time? it's not fun.

there is always a silver lining however

at least

that's what i've been told

it generally seems to hold true

even if the silver lining is a bit odd

the silver lining to this indefinite state of sickness is that i've actually been getting writing done. and i got extraordinarily pumped. about two projects at once. i told you the silver lining was a bit odd.

with this excess of inspiration running through my system, i chose to start not one, but two rewrites. two months before nanowrimo. so at the moment, i'm rewriting caste and royalty, two incredibly different projects that i'm pretty sure wouldn't even pass crossover compatibility tests (well, maybe...i mean, jo and gwyn would get along great, and arthur and loki would have a tentative sort of peace, so...maybe). but ah well.

the life of a writer never did run smooth.

so yes. i hate being sick. but at least it does come with fun things like inspiration. and crazy ideas.

- Kyla Denae