I've started writing at least like five posts since I've gotten home from Basileia, but every time I start, I realize that I'm trying to write about three barely related topics at the same time. Too much is going on in my head and not enough is going on around me. I'm frustrated by how little gets done at home, but how impossible it is to have time to do what I know needs to be done.
I'm supposed to be "working for my parents" this summer. As in, I do work around the house(s) for them and they'll pay me for it. We agreed to do this for the summer because they need my help with moving out of two houses and into one (which means consolidating a lot of stuff, emptying the Chenango house, fixing up/painting in the new house, and fixing up/painting in the LI house so we can eventually sell it), and because they recognize that I could've gotten a job to resuscitate my bank accounts but instead I'm helping them out.
So I'm supposed to be getting tasks and projects to complete over the course of the summer, but so far it's only been shredding very old pay stubs and bills with my mom and finishing 5-minutes jobs for my dad. Not only is this frustrating because the jobs are tedious and make me feel unaccomplished at the end of the day, but it's frustrating because I'm tied down and confined to the house while these tedious and unfulfilling jobs are assigned to me. The highlight of my time back at home has been assembling and mounting a new ceiling fan for our dining room, but even that was slow-moving.
I need projects! I need work. I need something for my hands and feet to do while my mind is going crazy. I can't relax at night if I feel like I haven't accomplished anything during the day. And, so far, this summer has me feeling anything but accomplished.
I know that this'll change. My mom keeps telling me that when I get upstate, there'll be plenty for me to work on. I'm somewhat worried that I'll be spending a lot of time up there this summer instead of home relaxing, but I'd rather spend the majority of my summer there, getting things done, than here, feeling useless all the time.
I'm also going to Wildwood (NJ) with the high schoolers from my youth group and the other Youth for Christ affiliated youth groups on LI for the last week of June. I'm excited to go because I've gone on the trip as a student three times and I know how much fun it is to basically live on the beach for a week. But I think it'll be a great experience as a leader, too. I'm looking forward to seeing how I can relate to these kids and help them in getting to know God better. I think it'll be refreshing to see how these kids experience and relate with God and aspects of Christianity, compared my interactions with God over the past year.
I have high hopes for the trip, and I don't think I'll be disappointed. I think preparing myself for coming back home afterward will be what determines whether what I learn on the trip will actually stay true in my life or not.
