Dream Geography

Growing up, my family moved six times before I graduated from high school (among four different states and regions of the U.S. as well as another country). It is an average of every three years. The first four moves happened almost in a blur: I was ages 2, 4, 5, and 6. Then, we stayed put for seven years, which is still my record for living consecutively in one place. Move #5 happened the summer between finishing middle school and starting high school. It was also the move that involved the most culture shock for me: from urban/suburban/metropolitan/diverse Montgomery Co., MD, right outside of Washington, D.C. to a small North Carolina mill town. We lived there two years and during that time, all my dreams took place back in MD. Then, in the fall of my junior year of high school, we moved again and the setting of my dreams changed from MD to that mill town. Following the mobility of my childhood, I kept moving as a young adult: college in St. Louis, semester abroad in Spain, grad school in Philly, back to NC, then serving in Nicaragua, before back to NC again where I have now stayed put. Perhaps needless to say, the locations in my dreams have been all over the place, sometimes even back in MD.

Recently, however, they've become current. Often in my dreams these days are the kids of Unidos por Cristo. When I left teaching in 2006, I also subconsciously stopped investing myself in kids. I had a hard time learning the names of kids I didn't know. I subbed for an elementary Sunday school class and had trouble involving myself in it. I didn't realize til 2009 what I had done: I was afraid of investing myself in kids and then leaving them again like I did in Philly and in NC and in Nicaragua. Either my heart needed a break, or my head just decided it was safer not to get involved in kids' lives. Things have improved since I made that discovery and I have wholeheartedly enjoyed getting to know and playing with the kids at Unidos por Cristo. They are great kids and I love them and can name every single one of them and something about what's going on in each one's life.

I announced yesterday at church that I would not be appointed to return to Unidos por Cristo for another year but rather will begin serving at another church come July 3. My plan, to my husband's dismay, is to have a gift for each child on my last Sunday. I will miss them.