More Conclusions (May they never end).

I just finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo today. It was amazing. I know everyone says that, but it's true. I have no doubt that I'm going to be mentally chewing on these 1450 pages of French masterpiece for quite some time now that I've at last concluded it! (I've been slowing chipping away at whenever I could for about the last month, I'm a slow reader). That's good though, good literature should always make you think. I was once told that a good book, one should find, ends up reading you by the end of it, and not just the other way around. I love that feeling. This one totally does that.

There's this one thing that the Count says at the end of the book that made me think today about what I've realized this last week, I was just talking to my dad about it the other day. And, as I read it today, I found it appropriately articulated what I felt, in a way. The Count is advising a younger man--Morrel, to "hope" in life and not give into despair and the grief that gripped his life. In so doing this is what he says:

"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison or fone state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life." -Monte Cristo

Though I've not experienced anything like the grief and torment of these characters as described in the book, I can certainly appreciate the principle portrayed here. One can appreciate something more when they are familiar with it's absence or opposite in life. I just liked the way the Count put it and how it related to me (well, everyone, really).

I've realized in the last week that I'm kind of lonely. I hesitate to even use the word, because it's kind of in a good way. But I just don't know what other word to use, so there it is.

I have met a lot of new people and even continued some previous relationships in the last six weeks that I've been here. It's been so much fun and I'm so glad I came and I know I'm supposed to be here. I love it! I must confess that I don't always love the job, but that's work...it would be wrong to always love it, right? There are a few people that I've really been getting to know, and some that will be going up to Alaska with me this summer and I'm so excited for it!

I love (most) all of these people that I've met and love getting to know them, and (did I mention this already) I'm having a blast! However. It so happens, and this is kind of the cool part, that in the midst of all of this fun I'm having with my new friends and aquaintances I'm reminded of just how precious the deep relationships I have with my family and friends that I've left back home and all over the country/world really are. I'm reminded acutely of how blessed I am to have the friends I already have.

Building new relationships has gotten increasingly difficult for me over the last few years. It's really not for lack of skill or ability to do it, I think it's more for lack of desire. I don't know if that's wrong. I love people, don't misunderstand me, but I love being at a certain level in a friendship more than I love getting there. I hope that makes sense. But you just can't get there instantaneously, it of course takes time, and maybe it's just that I'm impatient. That's probably it. And that's where I'm at and what I'm doing at the moment.

I can say that I am so excited about going back to Alaska this summer. And I'm excited because I already have relationships up there. Good ones, I feel, that I cannot wait to continue. And even more, I'm bringing some long time friends up there with me that I love dearly. I'm so excited! I kind of feel like last summer was the pioneer part (hard, yes), and I hope that this year and the ones to come, hopefully, will continue to reap the benefits of that. I can't wait.

But I will wait. Because there's a season for anything. And I don't want to waste my time here looking forward to the summer and not appreciate my time here. I'm working at a freaking ski resort! That's awesome! I want to live for the moment in proportion to how much I look forward to the future. I'm not gonna miss out on the reasons I'm here, and the relationships that I'm building right now. I'd regret that. Who knows where any of them could lead?

I'm just going to enjoy this season of getting to know new people and appreciate the fact that it allows me to also appreciate those that I already have in my life.
Thanks, God. :-)