Safe, or wild? Hmmm....

A couple of weeks ago I was working at the hospital for my practicum and I was wearing pretty formal clothes. Finding myself in a world of well-dressed people, in the last year I’ve accumulated some dress pants, blazers, a somber gray skirt, some grown-up looking pairs of high-heels and pairs of nylons. I put them on and put on my makeup and do my hair so it looks neat and sit and walk around the hospital and peruse charts and make intelligent conversation. I deal with life and death issues and act mature and try to cultivate the image of a doctor; someone you could trust. I came home from work that day and my mom looked at me and she said, “You look like….. a doctor.” I sort of looked at her and then at myself and I felt this strange sense of unhappiness.
Our church and family went to Bowen Island last week for our annual trip and I wasn’t feeling very well and was super tired and just sat around all day. I didn’t go swimming in the ocean cause it was too cold, I didn’t go fishing cause it was too dirty, I didn’t play sports and bounce around having fun cause it was too much effort. At some point I found myself sitting on a lawn chair with a book and looking out and suddenly feeling so unhappy. I can’t believe this is happening to me. This is what I’ve always dreaded and always said would never happen. I’ve grown up and become an adult and got serious and I am no longer wild and free-spirited. I’m content to watch other people have adventures instead of having them myself. I’ve become safe.

But then I found myself camping this weekend with my very large extended family. Ten of us slept in one tent, the air so cold we could see our breath, bundled up in layers of clothes, talking and laughing and throwing candies at each other and eating chips. Alpha and I did a rendition of the JFM-R radio show and we all dissolved into laughter when her and I sang the ‘Paul Lake lullaby’. In the day I jerry-rigged the sailboat with bungee cords and went sailing, lying on the deck of the boat with spray coming up and soaking me, every now and then nearly capsizing at the hands of the absent-minded skipper. We went running and hiking up the mountain and I took the little kids for rides on the back of my bike and I played crib and scrabble and ping pong and lay on the grass reading a book and trying to study. I had a little fight in the parking lot with my siblings that involved using my niece’s dirty diaper as a projectile. I found a bucket that looked like a good slider and I carried it to the top of a dusty hill and tried to slide down in it and ended up bailing into the bushes.
I voyaged out to ‘Splash Island’ and spent many happy hours talking and playing and wrestling with the others and taking turns being thrown in the water and fighting for our lives. There was only one bloody nose and a few scratches, which made for a fairly tame weekend. I got thrown in the lake about 50 times and had a play fight with my Dad and on separate occasions with Alpha and a tarp, Robin and a coffee cup and a towel, and Kyle and a wet noodle. I got totally owned about 6 times.
Driving home on Monday night it was hard to find a comfortable way to sit because of all my bruises. My feet were caked with dirt and my nail polish had all chipped off and my hair was wild and tangled and I had a bunch of new mosquito bites. I’d ripped some clothes in one of my fights but had just balled up all the dirty ones on the back seat and drove home in nothing but a ripped sundress. I could feel the sand in my hair and my ears and when I finally got home I tried to wash it out before jumping in bed.
I’ve never felt so alive. I’ve never felt so myself, and as if I belonged.
I’m going to be a doctor, that is true. I will be trustworthy and mature and intelligent and caring. But the other half of the equation is that I come from a pretty wild family. I can’t undo that part of myself or hide it under a somber skirt and a pair of nylons and grown-up looking shoes. I’m hoping those things will make me a better doctor. At the very least they help me survive in Antigua and someday they’ll help me survive in Africa or some other jungle I end up in. God didn’t mean for us to lead boring, depressing lives. He is a God of risk and adventure. He is a God of excitement .
“Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good.”