2003-10-26 - 8:34 p.m.
There comes a year you can no longer take your losses with the excuse, “I am young.” Meaning that I could travel across the country this summer, accept an eight-week volunteer position mostly at my own cost, then come back to Michigan for a small wage, and call it good. I saw a lot, I learned a lot, and met a couple really great people along the way. The only person bothered by this is me.
Then someone enters the arena and you have got to pause, reconsider your steps, and ask yourself how your decisions will affect him or her.
Camp is no longer an option, and Australia is fast becoming a mirage. Not because I can not do these things, but it would be unwise for me to do so, and jeopardize a thing I consider important to the rest of my life.
In the long run, is it more important that I am the Program Director of a camp that truly does touch the lives of several kids each summer, at the expense of my savings that will directly or indirectly be spent on my own children? Steven will find himself a PD, so it is not like the camp will fall to pieces without my cooperation. To go is utterly selfish (and a self-inflicted wound as you reminded me last night).
Travelling abroad for whatever purpose inadvertently changes a person. Not only is this time spent apart from him, it is an adventure that could never be explained that he could understand the changes wrought. A ticket to Australia, I fear, would be a ticket out of his life and heart forever, an exchange I am not willing to anticipate.
