You're Gonna Miss This

I know I already wrote a little something today, but I just needed to write about one more thing that happened. Tonight, I was having a mini heart-to-heart with Padma, one of the oldest girls here at Bandhavi and definitely a girl who was born to lead. She is in the 10^th class, and was telling me how excited she is to finish 10^th class in March and go back to her village. She misses her family (she only gets to see them once a year) and feels very stifled by life here at Visthar. You would, too, if you were 17 and lived the same life, by the same rules, as the 9-year-olds…but took the responsibility and the brunt of most of the blame of things that happen. As she was talking, I did agree with her; I know that it is hard to be away from your family (I am only gone for six months; she has been gone for five years) and that, as a developing young adult, you want – and need – freedom.

However, I also looked around at where we were sitting. Here she was, surrounded by 60 of her closest friends – sisters, they call themselves. I looked at her and I said, “Padma, I know that it is hard to be here sometimes, and iknow that you are excited to go back to your village, to go to college, and to get away from the things about Bandhavi that you don’t like. But I also know that there are parts of it that you do like, and next April, you are going to miss those things. You are going to miss living with your friends. So try, just a little bit, to enjoy the things that you like about living here because once you move home, you won’t have them any longer. I know it is hard to believe, but you are going to miss this.” I was tearing up as I said this, remembering all the times in my life that I have wished myself into the next stage rather than enjoying where I am (and, of course, started singing the country song that is the title of this blog) and thinking about how that is something that I continuously have to work on. And I hope, I hope, that she understood at least a little bit of what I was saying and that she will take it to heart and apply it.