Alive Again

I spent this past weekend at Awakening, a Catholic retreat for college-aged students looking to revitalize their faith. I had been once already as a retreater, and this time around I was asked to be staffer for the retreat. I expected so much going into this retreat the first time, because I had heard so much from older friends who had already experienced it. This time last year, I felt I had gotten a lot out of it, and I had. I came out of the weekend with a sense of focus, I felt on my faith. I became more interested again in God, and my relationship in him. I felt excited to have a relationship with him, and I sought out ways to extend this relationship. I started going to daily mass, reconciliation, and the Wednesday night Catholic student get-togethers. I thought I had reached the penultimate level of faith life and that I was doing everything I could. I would continue to feel this way for what turned out to be a year, and did not realize differently until this weekend.

The past year, I thought I had as much as I could have from my faith and relationship with God. I spent this time struggling with something very specific, however, and thought that my level of happiness with my situation would never improve. I grew to be happy, as much as I could, with where I was at. "At least I have my faith, my God," I would say. I continued to struggle with myself and continued to praise God for the gifts he had given me, despite my suffering. Eventually, I realized I needed to help myself, to get through this time of struggle. I began working on it, and after a while I saw some progress. I attributed a lot of my improvements to the grace of God, and his everlasting love on me. My struggle was a working progress, with ups and downs, but I always in thanksgiving of the Lord for anything I could get. Recently, my improvements have been very hard to come by and very tough. I started questioning if things would ever be consistent, if things would ever be better longer than just a week at a time. I continued to trust God, nonetheless.

This mindset continued until I realized something, this very past weekend. Going into the Awakening retreat this time around was quite different than my original retreat. The week going into the retreat was a blur, and I don't think I even prepared myself mentally for the retreat or had any clue how much I would get out of it until the very first night. The sensation hit me instantaneously that night, like a freight train rolling. The weekend was excellent, so much so I cannot even go too far into the details or specifics. Suffice it to say, what I got out of the weekend was something that I did not even realize was missing from my life over the past year. This missing piece, like the one puzzle piece you could just not locate, would turn out to be the piece to piece everything else together.

This piece is something I heard about last time, at my original retreat. Awakening emphasizes the importance of community, among other things. I heard the importance of this the first time. I took it with me out of the retreat, and I thought I was getting a lot out of community. I realize now, after all this time, that I had community. I was apart of the Catholic parish. I came to Wednesday nights and Sunday masses. I had friends (in fact, my best and most of my friends) in the Catholic Student Association. But what was missing? What was that missing piece? I wasn't participating enough. I wasn't contributing like I should have been. I realize I did the bare minimum, and no more.

Even more importantly, I wasn't allowing others into my life. Father Charlie, the Paulist priest at my parish, gave a homily at the closing mass of the retreat. He mentioned something along the lines of allowing oneself to be vulnerable. That is when this all hit me. I wasn't allowing others to see the true me, and therefore they weren't getting the best Nikko out of me and I wasn't getting the best experience I could either. I trusted few and did not allow myself to open myself to others. How can I get much out of anything in life if I do not give of myself fully to it?

This weekend was different, though. I allowed myself to be vulnerable, and I feel like for once, in what feels like a lifetime (but is really just this past year or so), I know what it takes to get the most out of my faith, the most out of my relationships, the most out of my life. This is not to say that things have taken a complete 180 degrees turn. Things are still hard. Every day, I face challenges with my struggles. Daily, I face things that seemingly pick at my old wounds, and it is not fun. But I feel like I now have the foundation to deal with these problems and struggles. I am really relieved by this. I am taking a renewed, others-focused look on life, because I realize that investing in others is what gives me the most joy in life.

That's all I got for now.
 
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8: 28-29

Decisions, decisions...

Haven't written in a while. But that doesn;t mean things have been boring. Something has been on my mind lately and I just need to write it out.

I have been feeling the stresses and pressures of my upcoming major coursework next year. As junior year draws closer, the certainty of my future does too. I am a nursing major, and have wanted to be a nurse for a while now. Since junior year in high school, taking an Anatomy and Physiology class that would spark my interest in health fields, I have been working really hard towards becoming a nurse. I have worked my butt off so far in college, delving mostly into sciences that, I do not necessarily enjoy day to day, but that I appreciate and that I have an aptitude for, apparently.

But recently, I have noticed that my interests have changed a lot since starting this journey towards my job and career. I have picked up blogging, and writing outside of the school-setting. Blogging and writing is something I enjoy, a true pleasure-based form of thinking for me. Not only my blogging, but other peoples blogging in fields like health, fitness, sports, and food/culture bring great excitement and joy to me.

Additionally, I have realized how much sports truly bring out an energy from me unlike anything else. I obviously am not athletic or able to play sports like many people aspire to, but I get great pleasure from all things sports. This love of sports has come across over the past two years with an interest in the world of sports communications. I listen to ESPN Radio as much as I can, absorbing things that people like Doug Gottlieb, Scott Van Pelt, and Colin Cowherd discuss. I love the whole business of sports, love the drama it brings across, and love how much analysis we can make on it. Every one has opinions, and discussing it with people as well as listening to people discuss it is really intriguing to me.

Nursing is something still interests me too, but I cannot help but question now. The pros of nursing is that it allows me to help people, in a very concrete way. The profession seems to be a good mixture of scientific and personal aspects that I can match well with. Nursing has great job security, seeing as we always seem to have a need for nurses in today's world. The money is pretty darn good, too. Nursing would allow me to pursue interests such as missionary work, which is important to me. However, what scares me about nursing is the risk I take with people's lives. I mean, lab work is all well and good with cadavers, but its real people I am working with here, real people's lives! Besides that, there isn't much that sets me off from nursing as a career.

With writing, I could something like journalism, of some sorts. I could really see myself working for some talk radio station, or working some newspaper as well. I know so little about this though, compared to nursing, which is essentially wired in my brain by now. What I do know, however, is that the job security of journalism sucks compared to nursing, especially in this economy. Any job I find is going to pay significantly less, also. That is, if I find a job. With the lack of jobs, whose to say I am not going to go after a job with thousands of people more qualified than me chasing after it as well. Additionally, I feel like I lack critical skills required for any non-healthcare business setting. I am taking a class now to work on that, but I still do not feel confident in that. I am not the natural go-getter, people person, that every employer today craves. On the bright side, with journalism, I could do missionary work and help people. Until this world is a utopia, there will always be people not spoken for in far off lands. There will always be words that others are to scared to say, and that is what excites me. I know I can find those words, and bring them to the surface.

So having said all this, I feel nervous at what feels like a critical point in my life. I feel like I would be, could be happy with the nursing career I am currently pursuing. But what if? What if this is my last chance to chase a dream? To chase a dream to be a sports broadcaster, to be a journalist speaking for others who cannot, to write something I can be proud of daily, that matters?

Nursing is the kind of degree here at university that is so competitive to gain entry into that it would be a close to impossible task to re-enter, were I to realize that nursing was in fact the right way to go for me. This is the source of all my stress, this is what I am forced to push to the back of my head, until Sunday nights when I decide to blog about. Decision, decisions...