152 days

It's been 5 months to the day since I left the old city of Jerusalem and boarded a plane flying into the West. Coincidentally, Wesmont's Istambul semester team is embarking on that exact same journey from Jerusalem to Los Angeles today. I read Keaton Hudson's latest blog entry "ITS OVER" today and he describes the almost identical feeling I had the night I left Jerusalem. It was a simply surreal emotion, and it still is.

How has it been 5 months since I left? I can still hear the daily calls to prayer and smell the incense burning in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher like I was there yesterday. A part of me feels like I never truly left while the other part of me doubts it ever happened. Did I really spend almost 5 months in Europe then another month in Israel/Palestine? How did I do that? Why? There are days I cannot seem to bring myself to admit that it happened because in doing so I have to characterize it in the past tense. It did happen, emphasis on the did, done, finished, gone. Admitting the fact that I was in the Holy Land is simultaneously admitting my guilt in leaving. Guilt - that's an interesting way to put it... I consider myself culpable in my leaving as if it was a crime. But I remember that feeling, and I pray that I never forget it, as I was the very last student standing on the curb outside the city walls wile the rest of my peers were already on the bus that would eventually drag me to the airport. I stood there alone, unbeknownst to anyone around me, struggling with a violent internal battle: every fiber in my being was urging me to run - stay in Jerusalem and never look back, but responsibility convinced me to get on that wretched bus and leave. Did I really leave thought? I think about Jerusalem every day. The moment I close my eyes I can see the old city walls. I can hear the shouting, laughing, singing and crying in Hebrew and in Arabic. The chaos and commotion of the city that I can only relive in my dreams calms and drives me. Maybe it's because I'd give anything to be back, or maybe it's because I'd give anything to not be here. Either way, I lust for Jerusalem. I am the first to admit that I do not remotely comprehend the longing the Jews had for Jerusalem during the exile, but I can't help but feel a connection with them at this moment.   

The fact that I have never been able to fully accept that I'm back in California must be a result of my yearning to be somewhere else. Could my constant temptation to dream of being back in Jerusalem simply be a product of my desire to be anywhere but here? I can't put my finger on the reason why I don't want to be in this place. I have an amazing life in this state. I have a family that loves me and cares for me more than anything else. I am surrounded by wonderful friends while I attend one of the most prestigious Christian colleges in the country. Hell, just the fact that I live next the beach with constantly perfect weather should be enough of a reason for me to want to be here shouldn't it!? Why then do I crave the narrow stone streets in my memory. Why do I crave a landlocked city in the middle of the desert/wilderness? Why do I crave a place that is continually scarred by conflict and violence? Why do I crave what I haven't laid eyes upon in 152 days. These aren't rhetorical questions... WHY? 

As I sit here on my couch I'm wondering what the heck I'm doing with my life? It's almost midnight, I have an Old Testament final in the morning and all I can do is sit and write this. As I do, I'm suffering yet another violent internal battle: all I want to do is flee, drop everything and run far away from here leaving all worries and responsibilities in my dust. I'm a twenty year old without a career or family of my own holding me down, why shouldn't I escape - vanish to another part of the globe where no one can find me and remind me of what I gave up. I don't know where I'd go, but I bet you could guess where my first choice destination would be. Then I'm reminded by that annoyingly responsible side of me what that flight would entail. Would I really choose to be a college drop out? With what money am I planning this great evasion? Why would I desert everything I have for emptiness? I am in a constant wrestling match between my childish desire to be free from responsibility and my irritatingly strong adherence to my education and future. 

While I've been writing this I have slowly come to admit what I have known all along. The (ir)rationality for my freaking out and dreaming about disappearing is because of the fact that in three days I will be half way done with college. I've just declared my major and started applying for internships that will start to concretely shape the course of my foreseeable future. This is not something I need to be having a mental breakdown about, and yet it's happening. Why do I worry so much about this? The truth is that I really don't know. I guess I'm just scared...

I actually do need to go to bed now. It's past 1am and I'm going to pay for this in the morning. Per usual I'm excited to fall asleep and momentarily escape these challenges in blissful dreams. I wonder where my imagination is going to take me tonight: