Legacy

It's about 1:00am on Sunday night.

I had some pop about three hours ago. Big mistake, I'll be up all night probably.

So I bought the Gungor album and am sitting totally awake in a dark dorm room with new music playing through my headphones as my roommates sleep soundly. For those of you who ask; the Gungor album is pretty good so far, a good use of my gift card I got for Christmas. Thank you to whoever got that for me.

I have been haunted lately.

I had a conversation with a friend a few days ago while eating Chipotle that has caused this haunting. It went something like this:
FRIEND: "so what are you doing with the rest of your night?"
ME: "oh you know, changing the world." (said sarcastically, I actually had nothing to do)
FRIEND: "oh, and how would you do that?" (in a semi-serious manner)
ME: "um...(caught off guard)...I dunno...water. I would build wells...you know...people need water."

Graduation is a mere fifty-four days away.

When people ask me what it is like being a senior in college and if I am excited to graduate I usually reply by saying, "It's a little scary, but it's also exciting." It's true, the future is scary, but it is also exciting. New things in life can be exciting.

I have had a lot of thoughts about my future, you know, finding a job, that sort of thing.
I have also had a lot of thoughts about my past, and what I am leaving behind.

It is an emotional roller coaster; being a senior and all. Much more than I anticipated. I mean, I was a senior once already, how different can it be? I've had this great experience of committing four years of my life to learning a specific area and how to implement that into the real world. So it's exciting to look ahead at my potential in my future job market. It is also sad looking back at all the great memories I have had here at college and thinking about them leads to a small empty feeling and me almost crying.

It's like I'm not quite satisfied yet.

And there's more to it. Questions that pester me. What am I actually leaving behind? Have I changed at all? Has my community changed at all? Is my college experience to "normal" or to consistent? Have I just gone with the flow? What have I actually done in my time here? What kind of legacy am I leaving? Is it counter-intuitive?

That is the questions that have bugged me fifty-four days from graduation. Instead of letting them pass by or forget about them, I decided to confront them.

Head on.

And resulting from those questions I have come to a conclusion:

I want to change the world.
I want to do that by building a well.

Better yet, I want my community to change the world and I want us to do that by building a well. I want a community somewhere in the world to have fresh, clean water. I've gone all my life never having to travel far to get clean water, but there are people out there that have to travel hours back and forth, each day, just to get water that isn't even all that clean.

Now, for awhile I thought I was going crazy. I mean, who does this? Who tries to raise $5,000 so close to graduating? So I emailed my RA team, asking them if I was going crazy or if this was actually something worth pursuing.

They told me I should go for it and offered their suggestions and help.
The Holy Spirit must be real and must have a sense of humor. I thought for sure I was going nuts.

So now I am not only questioning my future and finding a job, but I am also putting into question my past and what I have done, or what I have to show, in my four years of college.

Later in life, when someone asks me about my college experience I would like to smile and tell them, "I had a great college experience. I met some great people and together we built a well for a community that now has access to clean water."

Ok, now I'm tearing up, stupid Gungor instrumental ending, why do you do this to me?