“Actually friend, maybe we go another week instead?”
I laid in bed last night as I postponed my plans for today afternoon, half-thinking if I should do the same for another appointment this morning with another friend.
I got lost last night.
I was supposed to meet a friend at the bus stop outside the train station. From there, we would head to his church together on the same bus route.
There it is - 737.
I stepped onto the bus, only to realise that it was heading towards the opposite direction of the route number instead. I got off at the next stop and my friend had to make an extra trip to meet me where I was. “I’m so sorry’s”, “Thank you”s and “I feel so bad”s were all I could say while we waited for the next bus, which was scheduled to arrive only twenty minutes from then. We ended up walking into service about an hour late.
My first time getting lost here was last Wednesday.
Much like last night, I took the bus that had the correct route number but was heading towards the opposite direction instead. I hopped off as soon as I realised that my blue pin on Google maps was going further and further away from where I needed to go. Seeing as I could take the train home from where I was, I stepped into the carriage, only to find out that I was going even further down the opposite direction. Again, I got off at the next stop and took the next train (that headed towards the right direction) and made my way safely back home.
I got lost again earlier this Thursday.
This time, I was on the right train, heading towards the right direction. But I wasn't paying attention to the scheduled service disruption which led me to a few stations further down another line instead. I managed to change a couple of train routes to undo my mistake and made it in time to see a friend graduate.
Retelling these stories, I share them as part and parcel of being in a new city, “What an adventure!” and that everything is okay as long as I’ve got my phone, mobile data and Google maps - all of which is true.
But for all these times I've gone in the wrong direction, whether it's stepping onto the wrong bus or the wrong train, or randomly walking and making enough distance until my blue pin actually detects where I really am - half of me is certain that I’ll get to where I need to be eventually while the other half of me is only certain that I have no idea what I’m doing.
Sometimes life really leaves me feeling this way.
There are times when I’m confident that this is where God has intended for me to be, while other times I feel like I’m adrift at sea (overseas, for that matter). Some days, I make the most of my time in the city by hopping from place to place, meeting old friends and making new ones; and some days I retreat into my safe space of home-cooked food and close to zero human interaction, aside from the handful of friendly small talks with my flatmates.
I don’t know.
I don’t know what it is.
Maybe it’s finally hit me that this is my final semester of my degree and that job hunting is going to have to be my priority soon. And yet, just like when I frantically zoom in and out of Google maps, I still don’t have a solid answer as to where I am going and what I want to do for a living.
Maybe it’s the five months I’ve spent getting used to being by myself that has made going out and socialising with others somehow mentally, emotionally and physically draining in ways that it has never been before, so much so that being at Campus CRAVE that one night for merely less than an hour gave me anxiety.
What’s happening to me?
I look at myself like how I would stare at the blue pin on my phone, wondering where this is going to take me as I continue on, hoping it’s not too late if I ever realise that I’m slightly off track from who and where I'm supposed to be.
Maybe it’s the close-to-two-hour journey that it took for me to get home after dinner last night, of which my friend accompanied me for the first half of the bus ride to help make sure I find my way back home.
Maybe I know that this is where God wants me to be right now. Maybe I know that God knows where I’m going to be in the next few months and years to come. Maybe I know that the journey in getting there is going to be long, gruelling and oftentimes confusing, but that He will see me through as He always has for the many seasons of my life thus far. Maybe I know that even in these moments of feeling lost and unanchored, He has never and will never leave me, this also embodied by the people who have helped in keeping me grounded. Maybe I know that I have treasures in jars of clay and that I fix my eyes on eternity instead of what are only light and momentary troubles. Maybe I know to not lose heart because He’s not done with me yet.
Maybe I do.
Now, I know I do.
When I started writing this at three in the morning last night on my Notes app, with my head resting on a face towel placed on my pillow to collect all my tears and all my snot (because even during a mental breakdown I try to be environmentally conscious about it), I didn't know how this was going to end.
And so as every season has come and gone, just as how this thought post has started and ended, may I ever be reminded of the call that He has upon my life and of His grace and mercy that has carried my little blue pin through the winds and waves of this life that He has won for me.
