Here Comes the Sun

I’m not quite sure what I was thinking when I created this blog. It was 2am and I couldn’t sleep, so I think it’s pretty safe to say I wasn’t. What little brain activity I had going on at that ridiculous hour went into coming up with a URL I liked for this here blog. I think I was more concerned with that than to what extent or purpose I planned to use said blog. I guess it doesn’t matter much so long as it has a cool name.

Originally I wanted to use the Italian phrase "eccomi," which translated means "here I am," but some Italian guy with pictures of a ridiculously cute baby seems to have laid claim to it already. I tried a number of variations and wasted a good half hour of valuable sleep (knowing full well that I had to be up again in three hours, all sunshine and smiles) trying to find something suitable. I guess I was looking for something that would somehow be significant to me, and eventually came up with "ecco il sole" which literally means "behold the sun" but can be translated as "here comes the sun." I like it. It manages to encompass the three phases of my life, at least as I see them: pre-mission, mission, and post-mission. Yes, my mission was that important. In fact, the reason I was in this whole sleepless predicament in the first place was because I was thinking about the friends and fellow missionaries in Italy that I haven't called or written to in a while. I was feeling negligent.

I miss Italy. It's the good kind of missing, I think, not the "I regret never having done..." kind of missing that some missionaries feel in the post-mission phase of life. I know I worked hard and did what I could, as little as that may have been, and I can feel good about that. And it's not so much a missing sensation as it is a kind of homesickness that comes from the understanding that no matter where I am or who I'm with, I will never really be home. There's a part of me that just belongs to Italy, and that's where it will always be.

I do miss the sense of definition and purpose it gave my life. Being a missionary, for all its social limitations, affords you the comfortable structure of knowing exactly who you are, what you're doing, why you're doing it, and who you represent. It's its own sort of freedom, and one I rather appreciated. I've been disappointed with my apparent inability to give structure to my present circumstances. I've made the effort at least, and I suppose I haven't exactly made a tragic failure out of my life: I have a full-time job (I'm teaching high school, in case you missed the memo), I've moved down to Georgia help to my brother's family while he's in Afghanistan, I teach the 14-15 year-old Sunday School class at church, and I have a vague idea of what the next three years of my life are going to look like. Nothing tragic there. I know my life has purpose and definition, but it's harder to recognize because it's more subtle. I don't put on a black tag every morning that shouts to the world exactly who I am and what I stand for. I guess it may be that it's just more difficult to find the noble and selfless in what appears to be the mundane.

This is a lot more introspective than I intended it to be. I realized this morning that two years ago today I entered the MTC, so maybe that's what's got me on this reflective kick. I started my mission with a whole laundry list of hopes and expectations that never made it past the three month mark. Everything changed, but in the most wonderful ways possible. September 20, 2006 was the start of the best years of my life. Ultimately, I think I'm just hoping for -- searching for -- the assurance that someday I can look back and say that the day I came home from my mission was the start of the best years of my life. Not because my mission wasn't wonderful (because it was), but because everything since then has just gotten better. After all, that is the point this whole thing, right? To be happy? To make every day -- and subsequently ourselves -- a little better than the day before?

It's late, and I'm tired. My less than interesting explanation of why I chose the phrase "ecco il sole" will have to wait for another day.