Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thursday, May 07, 2009
The middle
I have started to feel like young adulthood is not unlike adolescence... let's think about this for a second. It is still just a series of stepping stones. College graduation... first full-time job...Wedding...kids...first credit card bill...first trip abroad... all these firsts and the changes they bring to our lives. Is life really a checklist of things I need to? If that were true, mine would look like everyone else', wouldn't it?
What if my life right now... living in this house, not doing anything related to journalism, working in a factory... is just a stopgap... something I hastily put together so that I could survive. Everything did fall into place so quickly once I figured out all the things I lined up for myself were things that were terrible for me, i.e. living alone, grad school, trying to become some accomplished reporter. Looking back on the entire year of 2008, it was like months of slowly sliding into a place where I didn't recognize myself anymore... the thoughts and emotions I had weren't like me, and they were dark and irrational and really scared me sometimes. But the end of the year came when I could not stand myself anymore, and I got desperate, so much so that I literally had to remove myself out of the life I thought I wanted and had worked hard to create. And I feel better and completely blessed where I am now, to be making money doing something useful where I am appreciated and I feel like I am doing something that helps others in an immediate way.
And, day-to-day, I'm a very happy person. I think that is all that I can really be asking for, isn't it? A lot of my good days come from getting to work with kids and doing ministry in the only way that ever made sense to me... and I'm so incredibly grateful that these amazing students have let me get to know them.
My biggest struggles lately have been feelings of inadequacy... which isn't something that I've ever shaken really, even at times where I accomplished great things. I know that there are people in my life who love me, they truly care, but they think that right now I'm wasting my life. I'm not living up to my potential, and I could be doing more. And I know that I have felt that way about my friends and family so many times... especially girls I knew from high school and college. And I had some grandiose dreams when I was younger, and I have no doubt that I could have reached a little higher to get actually get to some of them.
Today was Mother's Day... and i got up early and made pancakes for my family before my parents went to church. It was gorgeous outside and I had so much energy that after I cleaned the kitchen I went for a walk. I ended up all the way across town, at the cemetery. I don't know about you, but cemeteries really used to freak me out, but this one was really pretty and hilly and I ended up sitting for awhile on a cement bench that was on a hill overlooking all of it. And I don't say this often, and I really haven't been able to say it in a while, but while I was there I had a pretty profound meeting with God. I was just looking at all of the headstones below me and they all looked the same. They all sat in a line and created this windy, circular pattern in the grass. And they were all the same. But they weren't really, because each one of them represented a valuable life that was lived. For each grave, someone was born, lived a life--no matter how short--and then died.
And I felt like God was there in this. Like he was telling me that we can't do much to deviate from the beginning or ending of our lives. He knew exactly what i was going to be born into, and he knows how I'm going to leave this world and there is not much control I get over any of that. And I think we do get angry with God about death. A lot of times for us it comes like a thief in the night, and turns our comfort levels and our sense of security as the rulers of our world completely upside down. And it really hurts to live without the people we love. There is a part of me that aches for my grandma sometimes, because when she died it felt like my entire childhood was buried with her. And God, who both creates and destroys, who births and lays to rest, is in charge of our beginning and end. But I think what he was trying to tell me today in the cemetery was that he gives us license to do with the middle what we will. It is my life, and my responsibility when I do great things that honor him just as much as I'm responsible when i screw everything up. Our life is really his gift to us, the freedom to figure things out for ourselves.
There were hundreds of lives laid to rest in this cemetery, but not one was lived exactly like any of the others. We are all the same, but unique in our thoughts, emotions and decisions. So life is not a checklist...we are not on a conveyor belt. I'm free to take or leave any rite of passage I come to. The middle... our lives... are for trial and error, and freedom to love and live as we choose. How i'm living my life now, even if it is in error, could never be a waste.
What if my life right now... living in this house, not doing anything related to journalism, working in a factory... is just a stopgap... something I hastily put together so that I could survive. Everything did fall into place so quickly once I figured out all the things I lined up for myself were things that were terrible for me, i.e. living alone, grad school, trying to become some accomplished reporter. Looking back on the entire year of 2008, it was like months of slowly sliding into a place where I didn't recognize myself anymore... the thoughts and emotions I had weren't like me, and they were dark and irrational and really scared me sometimes. But the end of the year came when I could not stand myself anymore, and I got desperate, so much so that I literally had to remove myself out of the life I thought I wanted and had worked hard to create. And I feel better and completely blessed where I am now, to be making money doing something useful where I am appreciated and I feel like I am doing something that helps others in an immediate way.
And, day-to-day, I'm a very happy person. I think that is all that I can really be asking for, isn't it? A lot of my good days come from getting to work with kids and doing ministry in the only way that ever made sense to me... and I'm so incredibly grateful that these amazing students have let me get to know them.
My biggest struggles lately have been feelings of inadequacy... which isn't something that I've ever shaken really, even at times where I accomplished great things. I know that there are people in my life who love me, they truly care, but they think that right now I'm wasting my life. I'm not living up to my potential, and I could be doing more. And I know that I have felt that way about my friends and family so many times... especially girls I knew from high school and college. And I had some grandiose dreams when I was younger, and I have no doubt that I could have reached a little higher to get actually get to some of them.
Today was Mother's Day... and i got up early and made pancakes for my family before my parents went to church. It was gorgeous outside and I had so much energy that after I cleaned the kitchen I went for a walk. I ended up all the way across town, at the cemetery. I don't know about you, but cemeteries really used to freak me out, but this one was really pretty and hilly and I ended up sitting for awhile on a cement bench that was on a hill overlooking all of it. And I don't say this often, and I really haven't been able to say it in a while, but while I was there I had a pretty profound meeting with God. I was just looking at all of the headstones below me and they all looked the same. They all sat in a line and created this windy, circular pattern in the grass. And they were all the same. But they weren't really, because each one of them represented a valuable life that was lived. For each grave, someone was born, lived a life--no matter how short--and then died.
And I felt like God was there in this. Like he was telling me that we can't do much to deviate from the beginning or ending of our lives. He knew exactly what i was going to be born into, and he knows how I'm going to leave this world and there is not much control I get over any of that. And I think we do get angry with God about death. A lot of times for us it comes like a thief in the night, and turns our comfort levels and our sense of security as the rulers of our world completely upside down. And it really hurts to live without the people we love. There is a part of me that aches for my grandma sometimes, because when she died it felt like my entire childhood was buried with her. And God, who both creates and destroys, who births and lays to rest, is in charge of our beginning and end. But I think what he was trying to tell me today in the cemetery was that he gives us license to do with the middle what we will. It is my life, and my responsibility when I do great things that honor him just as much as I'm responsible when i screw everything up. Our life is really his gift to us, the freedom to figure things out for ourselves.
There were hundreds of lives laid to rest in this cemetery, but not one was lived exactly like any of the others. We are all the same, but unique in our thoughts, emotions and decisions. So life is not a checklist...we are not on a conveyor belt. I'm free to take or leave any rite of passage I come to. The middle... our lives... are for trial and error, and freedom to love and live as we choose. How i'm living my life now, even if it is in error, could never be a waste.
Friday, May 01, 2009
ABC's...
You've been tagged. You are supposed to write a note with the ABC's of YOU. At the end, choose 26 people to be tagged. You have to tag me so really you just need 25 more people. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you - but not in a creepy stalker kind of way.(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your ABC's of Me, tag 26 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
A - Age: 23 in a week and a half
B - Bed size: twin, I'm still a kid
C - Chore you hate: Cleaning the top of the stove
D - Dog's name: Maddie
E - Essential start-your-day item: caffeine in any form
F - Favorite color: green
G - Gold or silver: silver
H - Height: 5' 7 1/2"
I - Instruments you play: the kazoo.... the recorder?
J - Job title: Product Builder
K - Kids - None
L - Living arrangements: Three-bedroom condo with three roommates
M - Mom's name: Barbara
N - Nicknames: Goody, Sgoddard
O - Overnight hospital stay: When I was born?
P - Pet Peeve: Condescension
Q - Quote from a movie: "When we go to Morroco, I think we should take completely different names and be completely different people." - Almost Famous
R – Right- or left-handed: Right
S - Siblings: 2 Sisters, Katie, 25 and Lauren, 19
T - Time you wake up: Most days, 3 a.m.
U- Underwear: Yes... the boring kind.
V - Vegetable you dislike: I don't really like Fennel
W - Ways you run late: Getting caught up watching something on tv
X - X-rays you've had: teeth, left index finger
Y - Yummy food you make: cheesy chicken crescents
Z - Zoo favorite: Dolphins, polar bears
A - Age: 23 in a week and a half
B - Bed size: twin, I'm still a kid
C - Chore you hate: Cleaning the top of the stove
D - Dog's name: Maddie
E - Essential start-your-day item: caffeine in any form
F - Favorite color: green
G - Gold or silver: silver
H - Height: 5' 7 1/2"
I - Instruments you play: the kazoo.... the recorder?
J - Job title: Product Builder
K - Kids - None
L - Living arrangements: Three-bedroom condo with three roommates
M - Mom's name: Barbara
N - Nicknames: Goody, Sgoddard
O - Overnight hospital stay: When I was born?
P - Pet Peeve: Condescension
Q - Quote from a movie: "When we go to Morroco, I think we should take completely different names and be completely different people." - Almost Famous
R – Right- or left-handed: Right
S - Siblings: 2 Sisters, Katie, 25 and Lauren, 19
T - Time you wake up: Most days, 3 a.m.
U- Underwear: Yes... the boring kind.
V - Vegetable you dislike: I don't really like Fennel
W - Ways you run late: Getting caught up watching something on tv
X - X-rays you've had: teeth, left index finger
Y - Yummy food you make: cheesy chicken crescents
Z - Zoo favorite: Dolphins, polar bears
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)