Life Lessons

As I'm getting ready to leave (packing belongings, acquiring more junk I don't need, transitioning my decorating style from 12-year-old-hyper-enthusiast to quiet-artsy-reliable-18-year-old), I've started to reminisce on the past year and everything I've learned. Not things just about myself, but about the world, others, and how to make complicated relationships work. I've learned a lot about letting go, and it hasn't been easy. I'd have to say the majority of days I've felt like an abandoned puppy in the store-front window, watching all of its friends be taken home to a place where they're loved and accepted. There have been a lot of things I've had to deal with besides just loneliness, though. I've had to endure the waxing and waning of friendships, the uncertainty of where I would end up this Autumn, and, worst of all, I've had to confront my nightmares and accept their reality.

I'm sure everyone has had to come to grips at some point with the one thing that they would rather see locked up in a closet and forgotten for eternity. But the truth is, locking something up, pretending it doesn't exist, only makes everything worse. No matter how hard you try, the anger, the guilt, and the shame all come seeping through the cracks. At first it's easy to shrug off. It's easy to say, "I'm fine." It's easy to lie. But the hurt keeps building, and the pressure becomes too much to bear. The only answer is to deal with the issue, and to forgive. Whether it's yourself, or someone else that created the darkness inside, it has to be confronted. No one has ever healed by letting splinters fester, and pretending that the pain isn't real. I couldn't forgive on my own, though. The hurt went too deep. The shame, the self-loathing, the fear that no one would ever see me as I want to be was too much for me to deal with. I prayed for months, asking God to take the nightmares away. They didn't stop. I pleaded, bargained, and tried to cope on my own. But God never meant for us to carry our burdens alone. Sometimes, He wants us to share them. First with Him, and then with someone we trust. God created us to support each other. He knew at the beginning that it wasn't good for man to be alone. It's why He gives us family and friends who care about us.

I thank God every day that He has blessed me with such a loving family, and wonderful friends who I know I can count on, day or night. Sometimes, I really take all of it for granted. Worse, sometimes I feel like I deserve this blessing. So I keep praying, keep failing, and only by the grace of God I keep remembering how fortunate I am to have a life so full of blessings.

Hi-ho, Hi-ho...

...it's off to work I go.

I'm working full-time this summer at a moving and storage company. My days are spent mailing invoices, uploading documents, and calling other agents to make sure they're doing their jobs. Glamorous, right?

There are, however, some upsides to being a slave to my work. The first, and most important, is the people. I work with an amazing company, full of wonderfully funny individuals. The dynamics here are unlike any other place I've worked, which, albeit, is few. But, like the flu knows exactly when it would be most inconvenient for you to catch it, I know this place is unique. Call it intuitive instinct. Or not. You know, whatever floats your boat. I would give you specific examples of just how awesome these people are, but most of my stories involve them mocking me, and I'm not sure I want to fuel their egos.

But the people aren't the only things that make my job interesting. Here's a list of what I'm going to miss most come August...

1. The sarcastic banter that never ceases.
2. The fluorescent lights that never seem to work quite perfectly.
3. My really, really, really anciently slow computer.
4. The smell of burnt coffee in the morning.
5. The cumulative effect that drinking said coffee has on those desperate enough to consume it.
6. How you sometimes have to scan your badge 3 times before the door will open, thus making you look like an absolute numbskull.
7. How everything looks different, depending on how tall your heels are.
8. The vast, endless quantities of office supplies.
9. The customer service reps shouting geography lessons across the cubicles.
10. The fake tree outside the bathroom that looks like a marijuana plant. It took me 3 years to notice this.
11. Laughing at people who don't know how to conduct themselves on the phone.
12. The one lady that leaves me messages who seems to think that her call-back number is the funniest thing in the world. Seriously, every time she tries to give her number she starts giggling. It makes me feel like I'm missing out on some hysterical joke.
13. How everyone sits up straighter and puts their shoes back on when the VPs walk by.
14. The jar that everyone in operations has to put a dollar into when they curse that only appeared after I started sitting back there. Oh, the power. Oh, the influence. It's intoxicating.
15. Oh yeah, and a paycheck.

Six weeks left... Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho.

And the Journey Begins

College. It's the one thing I've been looking forward to my entire life. I can't remember a time when I didn't want to go. But, then, that's the way I was raised. My father, who went to college twice and finished both times, had to literally be dragged out of school. Alright, not literally, but you get it. My mother was the first in her family to get a college education. Later, of course, she discovered that the degree she had fostered a career she hated. But nevertheless, college, for my parents, meant you had made it.

It's different for me. For me, college is less about success, and more about discovery. Right now, I only have a vague notion of who I am, what my passions are, and what experiences the world holds for me. What do I know about work, relationships, perseverance, or hardship? Frankly, nothing. Over the next four years, I hope to learn and grow in all of these things. Most of all, I hope to discover what amazing things God has planned for my life, and how He will use me to bless others. Because, at the end of it all, I don't want my life to be about me.

So, all that to say, I'm going to keep this blog from being a personal diary. I want it to be about the people God blesses me with, and a reminder of how rapturously thankful we ought to be. I want this to be a documentation of the incredible Creator taking the mess I've made of me, and weaving it into the life He intended.

"A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us." -- John Steinbeck