can I get an amen

For some reason the past 48 hours have been brim full of introspection. Blame it on Teach for America, if nothing else.

It started with my mom asking me to help her with her Sunday School lesson for the week about support systems. I blanked when she asked "so how did you make all those huge changes in your life over the past 2 years? What was your support system?" I mean the obvious answers of great friends and my family came to mind, but more than anything else, it was more based in beings successful in spite of local connections. I wanted to prove to others, and myself, that I could create my own life, friends, living arrangements, and job without a hand to hold that was closer than 1,000 miles away.

Finding a church was no different. Unlike some church-reared, I've been through the experience of being the new kid on the block. It's easier in a sense when you're in high school because all the kids your age are in the same room (whether or not they like you is entirely a different story). But now, adjusting to flying solo in a new church is a whole new kind of awkward. One of the reasons I've kept going back to my church here is that so far, a new person has gone out of his/her way each week to greet me. It hasn't led to being remembered, per say (aggravated by my bouncing between the two services based on how much I feel like sleeping in), and sometimes I wonder if I would get the same reaction if I wasn't sitting alone.

I was going to conquer my ultimate fear of single-church living today by hitting up the all church picnic after the one service; I totally chickened out. And as much as I can blame it on the iffy weather, it was more just the terror of standing in the grass chowing on my burger and not having anyone to talk to.

So to answer you, mom, I guess I'm not as independent as I claim to be.