What next?

I love writing lists.  Sad, but true. 

For this trip to Rwanda, I have all the bits of information and paper stored neatly in a file, with lots of lists.  A big one of all the stuff I still need to do.  A list of the injections I still need.  A list of things I want to make/ bake for the fundraiser that I'm having soon.  Another one for the things I want to get done today or this week...  Yup, I like my lists!

So I'm thinking a lot about what next, particularly as I finish both my jobs at the end of this week.  I'm looking at all the things I need to do in the time I have left before going away.  But I'm also thinking about what comes after that, once I get home from Rwanda.  That might be getting a bit ahead of myself, but I can't really help but think about it.  Some of the other girls that I'm going with will be going onto uni after coming home.  It will be 2 years in July since I graduated and I still don't have a clue about what next!  Is that a bad thing?  Not necessarily, but it does bother me.  Some people thrive on the excitement of the unknown.  Given my opening sentence, I think it's fairly obvious that I like to have a plan.  I would like to know how the rest of 2012, and beyond, will work out.  To know that I don't have to depend long term on the generosity of my parents letting me stay with them.  To have the confidence in myself that I'm capable of getting a 'proper job' (as in one that gives me financial independence and has prospects).  To think that I might get married and have a family some day.  To know that it will be ok.  That I will be ok.

I guess life isn't always like that though.  Certainly for me, over the past 8 or 9 years, the plans that I made often didn't work out how I thought they would.  My life now is definitely not what I thought it would when I was a teenager (and planning my 20s!).  But on the plus side, I do know (roughly) what I'm doing for the next four months.  I might be scared about it, but I also get the feeling that it's going to be an amazing opportunity.  And that it's part of 'the plan'.

"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."  Jeremiah 29 v11