5 Years

I've been meaning to write this post since China, but....oh well, here it is heh.

Five years. That's how long I've had my first digital camera with me. I got it as a present from one of my aunts when I visited China in 2008 for the first time since I left. I loved having that camera--it allowed me to document all the awesome places and people I saw and met in that time (and this was pre-smart phone days, for me at least).

And while I was in China, mentally pleading with the camera to not run out of batteries at Huang Long and Jiu Zhai Gou, I realized that so much had happened in the five years that I'd had this camera, and that it had documented almost everything major I'd experienced.

So much can happen in five years. Just five years.

I was in China, re-meeting my relatives for the first time after 14 years.
I graduated from high school.
I went to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as part of a karate competition team and competed in a national tournament.
I matriculated into and graduated from college. (This one blew my mind.)
I spent a summer in Long Beach, California, serving at one of the most amazing churches I've ever known.
I spent three months in a foreign country, Costa Rica, learning the language and culture, and traveling.
I went to two Urbana conferences.
I went to South Dakota once, Austin once, California twice, Dallas twice, St. Louis three times, and Indy five times while in college.
I spent two months in Ecuador, doing an internship with the municipal government, and stood not 20 feet from the President, Rafael Correa.
I also spent time in the Amazon there--a wild and breathtaking place.
I became proficient in two languages besides English, and okay in a third.
I got accepted into law school.
I went on my first cruise ever and visited places in Mexico I had never been before.
I met countless people that made my life joyful and great, and a few that made it not so great.
I returned to China to visit my relatives, some of whom I may not ever see again, and I visited parts of China that were incredible--places that were beautiful and unexpected on this earth.

Okay, yeah, this list isn't meant to make me look cool. It is a testament to how things come and go, how things change within such a short time span, and how grateful I am to have had so many and such experiences. I've changed; I've learned; I have a continual thirst to learn more. See more, experience more. There is a consistent, guilty nudge in the back of my mind, asking if I deserved these things, if I'm spoiled to have been able to do it all. Part of me says yes, but part of me wouldn't give up those experiences regardless. Just five years.