Tag: college

My Year

Life has just been insane. I remember last year, thinking about how everything was gonna go, and thinking it would all just be the same. I thought I’d continue to stay depressed, and nauseous, and lonely, and anxious. I thought the insanity would never end. I thought I’d never be my “normal” self again. And now, here I am, sitting on my couch, looking forward to all of the awesome things I get to do this summer. I’m actually excited about something for once. I’m not nervous, or anxious. Just, excited.

My next stage of life is nothing like I planned, but I’m really excited about it. I’ve made some knew-ish friendships, and I’m so glad I have the opportunity to stay here and cultivate them. I get to focus on my art, and music, and the people in my life.

Now that I have all my emotions back in check, I’m pretty much as normal as I used to be (not that I was ever normal in the first place). Something I realized, though, is that that “normal” part of me that I thought was gone, was my love for life. For the past six years people have mentioned to me here and there that I have a “love for life”, and I never really thought much of it until I lost it. It keeps me going, it helps me encourage people, and, it reminds me that life isn’t all bad.

There’s always this point, after going through a long, hard stretch of life, where I can look back at it all and be thankful for all the crap I had to go through (that usually doesn’t come for a good while, however). Right now, right this second, I’m there. And it feels amazing. I’m looking back at everything and realizing how much I’ve grown, and how much I’ve learned about my self. In the course of just a few months I learned how to really take care of myself, both mentally and physically. I’ve learned how to forgive people, and how to let people go, and that you don’t always have to let people go. I’ve learned how to keep friendships across miles. And, I’ve learned how to be a big girl.

Around the time I started feeling nauseous, and things started to feel wonky (about two years ago), I started getting to be really good friends with one of the girls who had just graduated from my youth group. She is now my best friend, and my sister. One of my biggest fears with growing up, and moving into the college class at church, and being a college student, was that I wouldn’t have any friends. That all my friends would leave me, and I’d be alone. But, having that friend who’s a bit older than me really helped me branch out. She helped me realize that college students aren’t terrifying. And, because she’d hang out with the college students, I got to know a lot of them, too.

Life’s looking up, and I’m happy about it. I no longer wake up depressed everyday. I no longer walk through life terrified that it’ll get bad again. And, I’ve got some amazing friends to help me keep walking along, and keep knowing that it won’t get bad again.

Everything we go through has a good reason. I’ve known that with my whole heart for the last six years. But, sometimes, when you’re in the midst of everything, it’s hard to remember. Look at Job, from the Bible. He spent years upon years in agony. He knew that God had a reason for everything that was going on, but he still cried out because everything in his life hurt so bad, for so long, and it never seemed like it’d get better. Well, it did. And it turned out even better than before.

I spent just over two years (two and a half?) with this nausea, and anxiety, and I prayed so hard that God would just take it away. Throughout everything, and after it being so long, I thought he never would. But he did. And now I’m sitting here, totally fine, ready to go see my friend give a presentation at school later tonight. God does look out for us, and he watches over us. Even if it seems like he never will. Even if it seems like it’s hopeless. He does.

My “Play-Doh” Plan

I had this smart, cost-efficient, reasonable plan that I thought was exactly what God wanted me to do. It’s not like I just made a plan myself and expected it to go well; I tried my best to listen to God, and then tried to build a plan for what he wanted me to do about college. It was great, smart, and really seemed to fit. And then it didn’t.

I called it my “Play-Doh” plan because I knew it needed to be flexible and moldable. I mean, my plan was six years long. I knew things would change here and there. I just didn’t expect so many big changes… My plan was a beautifully orchestrated plan. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Except, that I held too close to it. I mean, not unreasonably, I don’t think. I was excited about the next stages of life, and finally ready to take it all on (I wrote about it in my post, “Let’s Talk College”).

When I created my plan, it all made sense. I love kids, and people, and was passionate about sharing the gospel, so it made sense to be a missionary. What I was hoping was to travel the world, make new friends, and teach something somewhere. I didn’t exactly know how I’d do it, but that’s what I wanted to do. Right now, I’m looking at maybe backing off from the idea of being a missionary. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t still do all those things that I wanted to.

My want to teach, and work with kids, and people, will never change. It’s a part of who I am, and whatever I choose to do in college will not change that want (I mean, I’ve been doing all of those things my entire life anyway). What I discovered, is that vocation is kind of irrelevant. Yes, I want to have a job I love, and that I’m good at. But, life isn’t about jobs.

We’re taught from such a young age that everything we do is prep for college. We go to school, grow up, go to college, and then after college is when our lives “start”. Well, that’s not how I’m gonna do it. I’m not gonna wait for college for my life to start. I mean, I’ve already done some incredible things without having gone to college (being that I was just a kid).

I don’t want college to be my main focus in life. Everything I’m working towards is not so I can get into college, or have a good career. It’s so that I can live the life God intended me to live, and love people, and reach out to them. That’s what I wanted to do through my mission work plan, and there’s no way anything’s gonna stop me from doing it in any other position. If that’s truly what I love, I should have no trouble doing it anywhere, or any place.

Let’s Talk College

For a long time I didn’t want to go to college. When I was little, I just thought, “College is hard. I don’t want to have to do chemistry.” (Yes, I know, little baby me did not understand that chemistry was the least of her worries.) So, for a long time, my plan was not to go to college. I was going to be an artist (this is the view of slightly older little baby me, who also didn’t understand how stinkin’ hard it is to actually sell art). The older I got, the more realistic things became, and I decided I wanted to go to college. There were things I wanted to do, and I knew I had to learn how to do them.

My biggest conundrum was leaving. I desperately didn’t want to leave my home, my family, or my friends. But, as I got older, I started to get used to the idea. After a long struggle with God, I eventually said, “Okay. Fine. I’ll go where you want me to go, and I’ll do what you want me to do.” Thus, leaving me excited to go to college next fall (after a good while of still getting used to the idea). I was so excited, and happy that I was finally okay with leaving, aaaaand then the ball dropped.

After looking at this next year, I realized that it would really be better for me to take a year off to save money for school, get my license, etc. The more good reasons I saw to stay, it seemed like God was telling me to wait another year. I was so disappointed. After wrestling so long with the idea of leaving, I could not understand why God was telling me to stay. However, at this point, I’m pretty used to God doing things that don’t make sense, and are kind of annoying, and aren’t what I want to do.

There are so many directions I could go with this post. I could talk about college, and why it isn’t always a good idea to go. I could talk about wise choices, and how sometimes they really suck. And, I could talk about how to cope when God pulls that rug out from under you, and you lie there, thinking, “God?! What the heck?!” That’s kind of where I’m at, at the moment. But, eventually you realize that you can’t lie on that rug forever, so you get up, and you walk down the road that God put you on. You keep going, and you try to find the good in the crazy road trip that you’re now on.