Flying a little.

Community. Here we go again.

I feel like this is a subject that I have so often written about. So often dwelled upon. So often dreamed about. And it is quite often that I have experienced community within an arm's reach of Invisible Children's tight grasp. It's always beautiful.

As I have mentioned in the past, it is a community that I have come home to not once, not twice, but many times. The first summer was an experiment in social skills and stretching boundaries. I found love like I had never experienced before. The second summer, damn it, my family began taking shape. Coming back as a roadie, my brothers and sisters took form, and within my team, I have three friends who I will never let go of. They are my rocks and I will forever be changed because of them.

This time, I am on the outside. I am not a roadie, I am not staff. I am not even a consistent volunteer. Instead, I am one who has been a part of this community in the past, and simply now, a friend. But it is with this group that I have found something that seems so rare these days: true friends. They are family, yes, but they are friends foremost.

We sit and talk. We have long conversations, whether it be over white russians, beers, tofurkey, pie, or the traditional cup of coffee, they are beautiful. I have found laughter and joy, been a shoulder and needed one myself, and have been brought out of myself once again.

Community.

The past few days, I have been dwelling on the idea of being created for community. Let's begin here. I don't have a job. And what I do for recreation is during the day, while the world is at work, I sit at home and search for jobs. Often for hours at a time. Social networks seem enticing but not in the least fulfilling, as they are the connection to the world that revolves without my presence. As I am reunited with my roommates, friends, whoever, I become alive again.

I am created for community. You are created for community.

It's funny how things fall into place. As I have been dwelling on this, I have been also remembering the community I came from in Uganda. And oh, it was wonderful. And man, do I miss those beauties. But I am also looking toward the future. As the intentional community we all dreamed of in San Diego is falling apart quicker than I could have ever imagined, what is being revealed underneath is suddenly taking form in something very different but equally as beautiful. And real.

Now I am faced with the eternal question: Do I stay or do I go?

Nothing in San Diego has worked out for me. In the past six months since being here, I have held one job, and working at Blockbuster for that month was hardly what I want to do with the rest of my life. Let alone for another week. Uganda fell into my life, and I am eternally grateful. For the first time in perhaps a year, I feel as if I have some direction, some idea in the shape of a dream to chase. The only thing left for me in San Diego is my friends. My group of dreamers. My precious idealists who have changed me forever. Who I want to stay with forever.

The world is calling me away. The appeal of another part of the country, another job, something that I actually want to do. And it's killing me. Because all I want .. is my community. Is that enough to keep me in this place? Should it be enough?

Or am I now designated to bring this light somewhere else?

There are no easy answers in this world. I am discovering that more and more and more. And as beautiful and intriguing as that is, the answers seem to break my heart at the same time.

I never thought it would be so difficult to leave a place. But I guess .. I guess when a place, when these people, have made me into who I will be forever .. they stick with you.

I am becoming myself. I have never felt so strongly about this as I do now. I thought I grew so much on the road, and that is the truth. But the six months after that intense period have shaped me even more than I could have imagined.

I need His light to be my guide. I think I forget what that looks like ... He is becoming more and more the epitomy of Love to me. And if all my doors lead to Love .. well, I think that is the Freedom we are called towards.

Ladies and gentlemen,
it's time to fly.
No. No.
It's time to soar.

kristinelaine.

to have faith is to have wings.
[j.m. barrie]