dear diary.

So, I'm 

Sort of.

I feel something akin to someone standing on the edge of a pool and dipping one toe in the water to make sure it's...palatable. The thing is, all of my friends are in there swimming. It's warm, and everyone looks to be having themselves a grand old time. I want to want to dive in head first. Yet for some reason I'm reluctant to jump back in as if by doing so I will wash off all of the memories and experiences I'm wearing on my sleeve. A sleeve which, by the way, is shall we say just a wee bit last season. I feel sheepish that I didn't leave it behind in the mountain of donations given to the branch in Jinja. For some deluded reason I thought it was cute at the time and that I might need something to wear when I got home, but now looking in the mirror on a daily basis (which is an adjustment in and of itself) I am reminded that oversized and horizontally striped polos from DI aren't a good look on anyone. I have yet to unpack my room, and it took me nearly a week to turn my phone back on. Objectively I know that by reconnecting with my "old" life I am by no means neglecting my summer in Uganda. But I guess a part of me is afraid to plug back into the social network and professional pipeline completely and by so doing disconnect from everything Africa. I'm just trying to process exactly what it is that I don't want to lose so that I can be sure not to let it get lost in the shuffle. And I've got a lot of shuffling to do. I need to find a job, grad program, hobby, purpose, SOMETHING. I need a plan, and for the first time in my carefully coordinated life, I don't have one. Which is scary and liberating all at the same time. I can feel overwhelmed by all the options or I can feel free. I can feel dejected by the rejection or grateful that I didn't take the logical next step on the track that never really felt right. Sure I have a lot of decisions to make, but I make decisions everyday, and with time, I will make these big ones too. I'm still not sure what I am going to do with my life, but I probably won't understand that completely until it's over. So for now, for today, I've decided to stop worrying about how I'm going to make sure I don't lose the meaning and lessons I learned this summer, because I'm pretty sure the only way they can truly be lost is if they are wasted on someone who never does anything of value ever again. Not to say this is the direction I'm heading, there is value in catching up on Mad Men, reading Hunger Games and rediscovering dairy in every one of its purest processed forms. I'm just sayin. The only way experience has any real value is if it is parlayed into progress. And the only way I'm going to progress is by simply putting one foot in front of the other. By jumping in.

So I was considering starting a new blog, since I am obviously no longer in Lugazi. But I decided to keep this one. At least for a while. Who knows, maybe when I finally reach some new plateau of personal achievement I will have something worthy of a new blog title. For now I think somehow this will keep me connected to a place where I discovered and rediscovered everything meaningful in life and serve as a reminder to live and work and love with as much passion and commitment as I did this summer.

I think I have officially committed a cardinal sin of the blog world, as I feel this entry is more of a journal entry merely moonlighting as a blog post. I guess there aren't really rules, but I do feel slightly hypocritical as I have done my fair share of blog stocking mocking, but hey, maybe this is my first big jump back into the real world, err, the online world, which ironically is kind of like the new real world. That's deep, which hurts my head. But everyone else IS doing it now. Next stop, twitter. Ok, I'm not really there yet. I am so obviously not an early adopter. So sue me, I crave nostalgia. If you are rolling your eyes at this, it's ok. And if I've made fun of your blog, I'm sorry. That's just bad manners, and karma, ma'bad. Seriously.

So to bring some cohesion to my ramblings, I will leave you with this little nugget, nay pearl, of wisdom from someone far wiser than I.

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
                                    --Mahandas Ghandi