new beginnings or just a continuation

After 2 years, I've left the world of volunteering. It was a sad day when I moved to my family's house for 2 weeks in mid August. I then moved to Cleveland to live in community with 2 former volunteers. I'm searching for a job...and am hopefully close to securing one.

Their pairs have been lost in the move.

Living in Cleveland has been a plan for a while. I thought I would end up here last year, but decided to go for the second year of volunteering. It's right now to be up here. I love the area that I'm living in and the community that I'm starting to build. I'm realizing or reaffirming that I am made for community living. It's right for me. I don't know how long I'm going to be up here or where my next step is, but I'm ready to find out.

Coffee on our balcony. I think this is my first morning in the apartment.

Sunset over Lake Erie. Definitely the best part of living here.

Living on Lake Erie is great. I love the sunsets and afternoon frisbee games in the park. Moving here, I left the farmland...the cows, long walking trails through the woods, and some of my favorite people in the world. It's been an adjustment, but I still know that I have a home back there.

It's an adjustment because I miss this place every day.

I'm still here...In the process of moving & transitioning.

the interim

You are in this time of the interim

Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;

The way forward is still concealed from you...

What is being transfigured here is your mind,

And it is difficult and slow to become new.

The more faithfully you can endure here,

The more refined your heart will become

For your arrival in the new dawn.

-John O'Donohue