Don't get me wrong, this is not an exciting revelation I've suddenly stumbled upon. I've known for a while, only I try to keep it relatively quiet. Relatively.
It's been a few weeks back and I'm still not certain about what to do with myself. I'm excited and terrified for what's ahead. I'm excited to start contributing to my Sunday school class, stories about my life. I'm excited to get through all my Europe pictures and start (and finish) a scrapbook with all of my momentos from by 4 months abroad. I'm excited to (finally) get my license. (I know its hard to believe. Yes, I am 20. No, I'm not proud that it's an important part of my life I seem to have let slip by, and yes, I'm aware that most people get their license to travel to foreign streets alone before they start traveling to foreign countries alone. I understand. Working on it.) I'm excited to see whats in store. I'm NOT excited about working although it just occurred to me that maybe I should work somewhere fun for a few months before I settle down for a high-paying job. (Haha. That is, high-paying for a high-school graduate who's just deferred a semester in college.) Maybe something will open up and I can just earn chump change in the mean time. Just thinking out loud, here.
Sometimes when life terrifies me, I remind myself I've been through Heathrow airport, and honestly there's nothing more terrifying than an airport 10 miles in diameter.
The other day I had jury duty which I was annoyed about, until I realized that it was a new experience that I can add to my life. I was sitting next to this guy about my age (if not exactly my age) the entire time, and the second half of our 'waiting' we started talking. He's going to NYU for Film. Needless to say, (as I've told everyone) we had plenty to talk about, both of us being interested in movies. It reminded me that going into film is still a possible dream, at least studying it. Becasue although its not an easy thing to get into, it doesn't mean I can't be interested in it. I tend to deny myself the things I think impossible. But what's the point of that? Compared to so many, there are so few things I want. I always do that to myself: make myself do prestigious things that I have no interest in: Like science classes.
My dad sent me an email a while back that said something to the effect of , "I like art." It might sound like an unimpressive declaration, but for me it made complete sense. Not all of us have amazing lives where we do amazing things and we make amazing impacts. The only working experience I have, I sat in an office 40 hours a week and did things I wasn't REALLY interested in. I had the most fun when I was sitting down and creating; thinking of ways to improve, finding ways to connect everything together. The things that make a difference for me, the mediums I want to use to make a difference for other people is art. Art is what makes sense to me.
I'm still trying to figure it all out, I guess. And where I used to want to know what other people thought, I realized that as interested as I am in other people and their life experiences, it doesn't mean that it'll work for me. And even if I want to try something new and I fail at it, who's to say it wouldn't have worked for me? More than that--what if I try something new and it does work for me when no one else said it would?
The cynic in me lives for those little moments when I prove someone who thinks they know life better than I do wrong. They might know their life better than me, but they don't know mine. If I ever presume to know anyone's life better than they do, please remind me what William Earnest Henley wrote so nicely, (and what Invictus recently brought to my attention), "I am the master of my fate; I am the Captain of my soul." It's not important to me that I should get the most on my 'To Do' list checked off than anyone else ever has. I won't succeed. I can't DO everything. I don't even WANT to do everything.
What I want to do is write stories, watch movies, read books, learn history, meet people and connect it all together to help me understand why God made the world the way he made it, why I am the way I am, and what it's supposed to teach me in the long run. After all, if what we're really trying to do is get back to Christ, what else matters but that we know the person we're trying to get back to, why we're trying to get back to him, and figure out why in the grand scheme of things God thought putting us here, in this place, at this time was his best chance of our ever getting back.
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