dancing through life

deep breath.
where do I even begin?
first, to clear my mind: I hate slow wi-fi. it makes skyping really hard. I feel terrible for spending so much money, but then again I knew this was coming and have been preparing for it for over a year. I miss my family, and it's only been 10 days. I just need hugs. being a grown-up and scheduling flights, train rides, and hotels for weekend trips is NOT fun, only tough. I also miss my home church and really need to just worship with reckless abandon like I can there and at Passion... people in London don't worship like that and I feel so restrained. I need more clothing (no really. I have one shirt here that is warm enough & suitable for church.) I feel like I should be spending more time out in the city exploring but I already feel like my brain is going to EXPLODE from all the new things going on around me.
so anyway, in the midst of all these weird, totally new stresses, here I am in London, England. falling in love with this city. falling in love with God in a new way. falling in love with life in a new way. I really really like it.
I can't help but be scared, though, that this is the climax of my life. I feel like surely it could never get better than this. nothing could top it, not even being in love. because for some reason, I'm thinking that being in love with the True Love, more so than I've ever been before, tops any worldly love I'll ever experience. Because maybe the creator and definition of Love himself knows how to do it better than humans do.
so anyway. I have this feeling like these three months are gonna be the best it ever gets. and God has to keep reminding me "The best is yet to come," even after I've gone back to boring old Alabama. There is beauty to be found in every place, every situation, every person. It's just not as hard to find it in London as it is in Alabama, probably because I'm so tired of Alabama that I forget to look for it and instead only see the mundane, plain, and boring.
This reminds me of a quote by Socrates we were told of during Art History on friday: "The unexamined life is not a life worth living." Obviously true, at first glance. But when I just typed that last paragraph and reminded me of this. Life before WAS dull and boring in comparison with life in London, not necessarily because it's such a new and exciting adventure (although that is part of it), but because life in London forces me to examine life. It forces me to think new thoughts and develop new convictions and ask new questions. It makes me learn new words, meet new people, examine new emotions. So then isn't that why life here feels like it's so much more worth living than life in Alabama was? Because I'm actually examining it every minute of every day? Whoa. I think that just blew my mind.
This also reminds me of Stephen Schwartz and his GENIUS musical, Wicked. One of the songs, Dancing Through Life, contains the line "Stop struggling with strife and learn to live the unexamined life!" Then it goes on to talk about taking the easy way out in every circumstance, and sloughing off responsibilities and how life is "better" that way... but the character singing, Fiyero, ends up growing out of his immaturity and changing his mind about everything he says in that song, and even falls in love with a different girl because he realizes that the unexamined life is NOT worth living after all. He comes to realize that fighting for what you care about, finding nuggets of truth in life's lessons, and struggling to understand life's curveballs makes life more vivid and enjoyable in the long run.
I feel like I'm just coming to this realization too. While I didn't exactly slough off responsibility before, I definitely didn't enjoy struggling to understand life's curveballs. I didn't enjoy examining life at all, and I am beginning to learn to. I'm sure it's a long, winding road. But I've discovered that those are the most fun roads to explore.