People...

This week I (finally) began my new job, working in the kitchen of a new restaurant here in town. Being a new restaurant, the training schedule has been very busy and there's always two to three times more people training than will actually be working a regular shift. Despite all this newness, I am LOVING  my new job! Sure, I may be one of a handful of girls working in the back, and I do believe the red dot on my thumb is a burn mark, but it's been incredible thus far.

Part of this excitement over the job I think is also due to having been bored out of my mind since coming home. Given the lack of transportation, my own apathy, and bipolar weather, my laptop has proven its true friendship these past couple of months. Needless to say then, that working with other human beings has been a major high. However, one thing has been bothering me since I started working. One thing which hadn't even dawned on me until this week; I don't know how to have fun. 

Let me elaborate a little bit:
Before I left for England, not only was I in a different town, but I was in a completely different age bracket. I was still a teenager, and a good law-abiding one at that. So, now I'm back in Canada, now a legal adult and am no longer affiliated with anything involving school, youth group, or anything else "young". This being said, I honestly haven't the slightest idea how to hang out with people my own age.

The only young adults I've hung out since I reached that age bracket have all been Christians, good, law-abiding Christians who truly do love God. I haven't been with young adults who aren't Christians (and sometimes aren't law-abiding) since I joined the ranks. To give you some more context, even just listening to the conversations at work can be difficult. Now, I can already say that I really, truly love my co-workers, which is awesome, but some of the things I hear being said and discussed makes me feel on the outs. Green Brownies, leisurely hook-ups, drinking till blackout occurs are seemingly the main source of humor within the crew. Back in my McDonalds days, yes, I would've found these stories hilarious and probably would've even encouraged them. But how do I respond now?

I see the way I am now and where I've come from, and I can truthfully say I pray that I never go back to that. I'm not proud of the things I found funny and the things that I said to be funny. I want to have integrity in every area of my life. So how can I be relevant, hilarious, honest, upright and moral, and still be able to go out the pub with my new-found friends? The answer to this is probably simple, and probably ends in "Just Be Yourself", but sometimes it doesn't feel as simple as stated. Sometimes life, relationships, all these things can feel like a juggling act, all a careful balance between chaos and control, order and a world of pain. I don't understand it myself, and I often find myself wondering why, if I'm such a people person, is it so hard for me to figure them out?

On a plus side, I have recently acquired a phone, so friends, I'm not as far gone as I thought I was. Progress...