Estes Park Day 1

I think I ate too much pizza at Uno’s on Monday night. My stomach did not allow me to enjoy the flight, and I was pretty tired after rising at 4:00 in the morning for a 6:00 flight. I slept through most of The Last Mimzy, which I would have loved to watch. I can’t remember the last time I was so anxious to get off of an airplane. I just wanted to be in Denver already.
As soon as I got in the car with Angie, Amy, and Dirk at the airport, my stomach ache vanished. I was so happy, like I was floating the clouds. We drove back to the Y, stopping at IHOP at the request of Dirk and I. I did the routine check-in stuff before reporting to my boss. Mike, the food service director, is tall and bald, having the typical motorcyclist look. “He has some plans for you,” Susan, the manager, told me. Mike nodded his head. “Do you have a driver’s license?” he asked. I started to pull it out assuming he was asking for a form of identification. He was actually wondering if I would like to be the new delivery guy and work in the kitchen the rest of the time. It sounded like a step up from the dish room. I asked if I could have Sundays and Mondays off because those are the days Angie and Dirk have off. “I don’t see why not,” he said. “Those are our least delivery days.” Words can’t describe how happy I was then.
Being back at the YMCA of the Rockies. I feel as if nothing that happened over the past year matters any longer. Now that I’m back in this paradise (“like the most beautiful place on the planet” as Alan Moore says) and with some special friends, all my disappointments seem irrelevant. As Amy said, this place has an effect on people. That’s not to say that I did not gain a lot and learn a lot at UF this year because I did, but it’s easy to put everything behind me now.
I went to the LT meeting Tuesday night. I think the speaker made me laugh more than any of the others last year. He was not as funny that night, but his message really got me thinking. He encouraged us to find what we’re passion about, experiment with different jobs. There is no rush, he said, because you’re all going to live to be eighty years old anyway. Sometimes God tells you what he wants you to do and sometimes you find out through trial and error, like he did.
I have a feeling my life is going to be a lot like his- trial and error. That is a fairly accurate description of my life so far. I don’t think I’ll have twenty-one jobs, but maybe three or four. I have no idea what I really want to do for the rest of my life. My mom is pressing me to find a good-paying job while my dad says, “Do what you want.” I like my dad’s advice. I know I love Jesus, traveling, the Rockies, writing, and of course my two majors, Spanish and political science. How you make a living with them, I have no clue, but I don’t really need to know right now. At least, I hope not. If I can jump around jobs like this for a few years, delivering coffee or washing dishes, that’s fine by me.