Friday, April 27, 2007

Last one ever. This is weird. I'll admit to a certain nostalgia settling over me, but in the moment, it's hard to own it. I see its vague shadow on the horizon, but it's not fully realized yet, probably because we're so busy with tying up all the loose ends that have to be tied. Things are going well in that department, though, so the stress level, although expectedly elevated, is not as high as it could be. Ask me on Sunday, though.

That's pretty much what today consisted of: packing boxes and cleaning house. I purchased and installed the new door handle today--looks good. Although it's a pretty easy process, a friend came by while I was working on it, and he was wowed by my expertise. Easily impressed, then, are we?

It turns out that they don't actually make the type of door handle/lock that I broke, so we had to go with a substitute. The type we have on both our front and side doors right now is the push-in kind (more like what you'd see in a bathroom than anything, only more sturdy), but they wisely don't make that kind for exterior doors. The replacement looks fine, though, and I only hope the landlords will be satisfied with the fix.

Besides fixing a door and packing a bunch of boxes, there were other things of note. The boy had lots of time to play outside today. We initially went out at 8:45, with the intention of leaving to walk to the hardware store at 9:00. The neighbour kids were out as well, though, and so the time was better spent playing with them. It's pretty funny to watch the boy play with other kids. For the first time, I actually thought it would be pretty neat to have more than one child, which is a big, bold statement for me.

The one kid, a three-year-old boy, was really getting under my boy's skin, though. It was that situation where every toy that our boy wanted to play with was suddenly the coolest toy around. This led to a little bit of frustration, but our boy is pretty resilient, so it didn't bother him too much. Until he got really tired--that's when he just got pissed off.

We also had an interesting moment while I was working on the lock. The neighbour kids were very interested in what was going on (the boy and a five-year-old girl), and were watching the lock installation carefully. When I needed to get another tool out of the shed, they of course wanted to come and check the shed out, so they trundled off after me. Our boy was standing there watching the whole thing, and suddenly broke out in an angry cry that we rarely see. Turns out he was jealous of the time I was spending with these other kids. Pretty interesting stuff. Once I got back to him and gave him sole attention, he was fine. Apparently, he's very protective of me.

After his morning nap and lunch, I headed off to the college to help set up for the weekend. What a gong show. It's amazing they can actually pull this off, and they could probably save themselves a lot of trouble if, say, the lines of responsibility were more clearly drawn. As it turned out, I had to talk to three different people to get an answer to a relatively simple question, and even then, I'm not sure I got the right person. So tomorrow at 9:00, I have to go back and see what else I need to do.

A really funny thing happened in the course of setting up, though. We were setting up 1000 chairs (there were only five of us--do the math), and trying to figure out if we'd need to angle the sections and how much in order to give people good viewing (how's that for a run-on sentence, by the way? The rules of grammar are all officially suspended this evening). The guy in charge of set-up was working all this out, telling us where he wanted things, when suddenly, he looked at his watch and said, "Coffee," at which point all his employees literally stopped what they were doing and walked out. Leaving three of us (another person had joined at this point) to pick our jaws up off the floor. He just left, without telling us what he wanted us to do, or even really doing anything.

I didn't think this was union shop, so I asked. The answer: "No, but they take their breaks very seriously." Apparently. Once 3:00 rolls around, a break must be taken, or else the delicate machinery that keeps the college running will grind to a halt. Do I want to mess with that? No. Far be it from me to, say, ask for some parting directions. But he didn't say a word--he just walked out. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to people taking coffee breaks. I think they're great and necessary, and hey, if your contract says that a half-hour coffee break goes at 3:00, then I think you should take it. I just think that holding so strictly to the clock that you must leave the premises as soon as the second hand reaches the 12 is silly. At least respect the rest of us enough to explain why you're about to disappear, and perhaps give us an idea as to what we can do in the meantime. Seriously.

After that fiasco, I came home and hung around for a bit with the boy before dinner. After dinner, it was to the park (with a big slide) and then the usual routine of bed. Manic cleaning after dinner (oven, walls, windows, etc), and now some down-time. Nice.

Since this is the last posting for a while (and the last one ever in Three Hills), I thought I'd leave you with some parting reflections, neatly categorized for your reading pleasure.

Things I learned while I lived here:
1. There still exists a place in Canada where people don't lock their doors because they have no need to.
2. I am more materialistic than I'd like to think.
3. It's not necessary to have 100 channels of TV--two fuzzy ones will do just fine.
4. Although I come from the most beautiful part of the planet, beauty can also be found in other areas, and for other reasons.
5. I can survive without my motorcycle.
6. I can survive without being 10 minutes from Wal-Mart.
7. It's possible to have authentic relationships with people, even if you'll only know them for a few months.
8. Hard water sucks.

Things I'll miss when I leave:
1. Overhearing conversations in the grocery store that are meaningful and deep.
2. The simplicity of life that forces me to slow down and take a breath.
3. The friends I made here, almost in spite of myself.
4. Watching trucks travel down long dirt roads, leaving a trail of dust behind them.
5. Driving through a field, and not feeling guilty about it.
6. Getting a friendly greeting from perfect strangers as we walk through town.

Reasons why I'll be glad to go home:
1. No snow in April.
2. Humidity.
3. My motorcycle.
4. Not having to drive for an hour to find a grocery store other than IGA.
5. Customer service.
6. Water that doesn't leave you feeling more dirty after you shower than before.
7. Finally feeling at home in church again.
8. Having my degree.

This academic year has been one of the most challenging and most eye-opening of my life. What I've learned in my own studies has been equally matched by what we've learned as a family. Although I can quantify the things I've learned as a student, I can't quantify those life lessons quite so well. But what this experience has taught us as a family most of all is that it is possible to do things that seem difficult at first, if God is in them.

When the wife first pitched the idea of moving to Three Hills to finish my degree back in August, I initially wrote it off as silly. The first things that came to mind were reasons why we couldn't do it--why we couldn't leave our townhouse, why we couldn't leave our families behind, why we couldn't just up and move, why it was too short notice. Think up an excuse, and I probably gave it. Yet there was something that made all of those objections fall away, and what was left was a simple question: will you go? We had given God a challenge, almost dared Him to open up a way for us to go, and He did. Now it was up to us.

Before we came out here, I was programmed to failure. I felt like I was no good. I had lost a pretty promising ministry job under dubious circumstances, which hurt more than I wanted to admit, I didn't have my degree, I didn't have any job prospects at all--I was floundering. And I was taking my family with me. But in this year, God has changed my heart to the point where I feel like I'm a totally different person now than when I left. My attitude has changed, my behaviour has changed, my outlook on life has changed. I've grown substantially as a person in all my spheres of responsibility: husband, father, son, man of God. And I'm better off for it.

When we drive out of town on Monday, I hope we don't leave everything we've learned back here. That, I suppose, is one of the reasons for even doing this blog. As I consider everything we've been through and how I've chronicled it, I realize that this blog can serve as a beacon to me to remind me of the journey, and to bring back to my mind the lessons I've learned, we've learned as a family. No life experience is without its use. Although you sometimes have to look a little bit harder for that use, it's always there. This, too, has been useful. And we don't regret it at all, as much as I've complained about the weather.

And that, my friends, is the conclusion of this chapter of the story. Grad weekend now officially begins, and when we drive away on Monday, I will have the thing I've long yearned-after. I'll also have so much more.

Thanks for being a part of this journey with me. I've appreciated your interaction and continued readership. I hope that a week without the blog won't make you forget about it. I have plans for its future, and those plans will be revealed on May 7. I hope to see you then.