PERSPECTIVE SHIFT

            Yesterday, I sat in the bleachers of my cousin’s baseball game next to my Leanie, Aunt Kim, and Uncle Chris. After the game, we headed to church, dinner, and up Cowls Mountain for a night hike with flashlights. Despite the fear of nighttime creepy crawlies we were excited to make it to the top and see the 360° view of the city.

            It isn’t often that anything can be seen with such perspective. It reminded me of flying away from the ground on a plane and watching the people get smaller, and the world shrink. With the change in perspective, you remember that the world isn’t as big as it seems when you are wrapped up in it. Lately, I’ve been wrapped up in myself. It has been hard coming home after seeing something so new—eye opening. I miss the kids and I think of coloring or sitting on the beach with them all with an envy that takes over the fun I could have with my family and friends here at home.

            There was a Greenbay Packers hat that the boys would share down on the river. It had a big hole in one side of it and their hair would stick out. But, they were proud of their hat and on the day that it was their turn, they coveted it.  When I think of the things that I have, I would like to say that I covet the things that are important and refuse the materialism of the society in the moments that it counts. The truth of the matter is, I find myself with more want than I ought to, and less gratefulness as well.

            I am working with my cousins to organize a baseball hat drive with their baseball teams so that we can send baseball hats down to the River and maybe they can be proud of more than one hat that they all share.  I get to skype the boys weekly and it is refreshing to see that our enthusiasm for each others company hasn’t faded.

            After being gone for a year at school, and coming home it is shocking to see what an effect time and distance paired together have on relationships. In some areas of my life it has been a beautiful thing. In others, there is a void where there never was and loneliness is accompaniment. Like the peak of the mountain and seeing the whole city decorated with lights, so is the perspective change from Jaco to San Diego. I would like to make it easy, to say that everything is the same, to go back to the way things were, and rest happily in the comforts of the usual, the mundane. I would like to say the world has changed and my uncomfortable feeling is just a result of the change. However, I know the truth of the matter is that I am the one that is different. The difference I have found in myself is solely a measure of growth and the 360° perspective being a change that will luckily be difficult to escape.