Going on a trip with Habitat for Humanity is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. The difficulty was that I got caught up in life, and not caught up in life in the sense that such a trip was an impossibility, but instead caught in the sense that such a trip was a frivolity. It is only now I can see that a trip like this is neither frivolous nor impossible but necessary. I don’t mean that this particular charity is more necessary than others, but that something of this nature is needed. I don’t want you to be confused, however, it is needed for very selfish reasons.
I made the decision to take this trip in stages. First there is the fantasy stage where I say, “I would really like to do something like this”. At this point there is a part of me that thinks that it is highly unlikely I will do this thing. The decision, for me anyway, then gets concretized by outside forces, by decisions taken or in some cases not taken by others. My tone then switches and becomes louder and more definitive, “I am going to take this trip”. As I make the statement, the statement I created mostly as reaction to my world, I feel the need to support the rhetoric with an action. The action becomes an email, a form filled. My actions have reactions and my phone rings. It is an interview with the team leader. I assume that she wants to make sure I am going for all the right reasons.
My interview was interesting for a variety of reasons. First, I didn’t know how one might prepare to answer questions when I knew so little about where I was applying to go. I knew the country but not the specific location. I figured that at some point I would be asked if I had any questions and that asking for the specific town in Honduras would be an outstanding question. I was prepared for that part of the interview. The only problem was that I had to answer some questions before I could ask my own brilliantly conceived of query.
The first question for me came. I guess I should have expected it and perhaps I did, but I was at a loss about how to answer it. “Why do you want to go build a house for Habitat for Humanity?” I suppose I could have answered any number of ways all of which would have expressed some desire to give instead of receive but, to my ears anyway, it would have rang false.
In the past I’ve volunteered to read to the blind, teach migrant worker’s children and much more. By the way, if you know me well and you didn’t know I did those things it is because again I did those activities not to share them, but for me. I’m not being modest, but selfish. And this trip is no different. It is a selfish trip. I am applying because this is what I want to do. I think the interviewer was taken aback at my answers, because they all revolved around me and my desires so she asked what my expectations were for the trip and I told her that I had none. I simply had no expectations regarding what might be accomplished.
About a week later I received an email from my team leader. I had been invited to participate in the trip. An idea I had was snowballing into a reality; a very concrete reality in a life that has become so ethereal. My life right now has very little grounding. I have no idea what is going to happen next. In some ways I find that strangely comforting because I enjoy the journey. Other people I talk to in my situation seem to be very uncomfortable with the lack structure. For me, after a short period of adjustment I seem to have returned to the place I enjoyed all those years ago, a place that has no certainty and perhaps no expectations.
As a side note, I am surprised at the effortlessness in which it all comes back and how easily I can once again enjoy life on the level of journey as opposed the constant worry of reaching the final destination. I should say that there are moments when I think it would be nice to have certain issues settled, but hell even if they are not I am going to go off to Honduras to…well…do something.
