swim.

I recently started noticing messages in my inbox regarding my upcoming high school reunion. This made me feel awkward in three ways: 1) I didn’t technically “graduate” from this high school and I think 99% of the people I considered my friends at the time didn’t know what actually happened to me, 2) I hated high school, and 3) it freaks me out in a small way (similar to perhaps an adorable baby mushroom cloud) that it has been ten years since I was 18. Ten. Years. That’s a whole decade worth of drama, growing pains, and good things. Wow.

As haphazard as my decision-making skills are and as wild as a rollercoaster my emotional and spiritual development has been, I must unfortunately state in a contradictory manner that I was always an equal balance of safe and reckless. I feel cocky to call myself a big fish in a small pond, but I really did act as if I knew everything about this feeble body of water in my massive tuna of a body.

In practical terms, I came out of high school thinking I knew it all. I considered myself to be a professional wiper of life’s shit, and as long as I had these “street smarts,” it didn’t matter that in every other term, I didn’t have anything figured out. Dreams to be accomplished, jobs to be pursued, careers to be made… I had no clue what I was destined to do. I know a lot of people don’t have it figured out, and I know that it’s one of life’s fun mysteries to discover what your purpose in life is and how you can make a niche in this crazy world today, but as much as I enjoyed struggling through this identity crisis, I stayed in it even after I knew what I wanted to do.

I knew I wanted to write. I talked about it all the time. I talked about blogging, moving to New York to pursue a Sex and the City-esque life resembling Carrie’s, working my way up in a publishing house, and even going to school to get my master’s in writing. I blah-blah-blah’ed my dreams into one giant puff of a cloud that simply followed me around and didn’t take any shape. I became complacent with working in professions that I knew that I was good at, but didn’t particularly get excited over. My heart bled for the written word, yet why was it so hard for me to snap out of my passive comfort to pursue what I knew was woven into the DNA of my being?

As I erratically jumped from job to job, I realized that there were times I did this because I was afraid. I was afraid of becoming a big tuna in an even bigger ocean, where rejection and criticism were much more common, and I wouldn’t be surrounded by the safety of what I was already confident with. The predictability of my life choices began boring me to tears, and I knew that I needed to face my fears and start applying to jobs where I can start writing and hone in on this passion of mine that loomed over me for the past ten years.

I didn’t get callbacks and started getting discouraged. I even accepted a job offer for this job that was completely out of left field and wasn’t at ALL what I was expecting or looking for, but it seemed like it would be a great asset to my professional development. But to keep a long story short, I heard back about a writing position literally the weekend before I was supposed to start. God is so funny, and He loves to surprise me with His faithfulness.

It’s finally happening. Not only am I going to write full-time, but I’m going to be moving to a new city too. I feel like this is going to be the beginning of conquering fears and fulfilling dreams.

My oceans will continue to grow, so may I become bolder to swim.

bubbles.

I took a bubble bath for the first time in years recently, and I was all of a sudden a delighted child fascinated by the textures of the giant bubbles that surrounded me. I recall as a little kiddo, my grandmother used to give my cousin and me bubble baths, and the reactions were always hilarious to her. I was absolutely placid, dunking my face into the translucent wonders and giggling as they popped, but my poor little cousin would fight the bubbles as if they were trying to exorcise her, screaming and thrashing like a shark out of water. It caused quite a chaotic occasion, and the whole bathroom would be soaked by the time we were bundled up in our terrycloth robes.

What was always so strange to me was that my grandmother simply laughed at my cousin when she was so terrified, and I flat-out ignored her. There was no amount of comfort shown, and eventually, my cousin knew this. She caught on that no matter how many tears she shed and how many baby-gibberish words she created, no one would save her. She would start noticing that the bubbles only created the illusion that the water was extremely deep, but they were actually light as air and totally harmless. She then discovered that although plenty, they weren’t as scary as she imagined and they were actually quite beautiful. As the months went by and the only time I got to really spend with her was in that bathtub butt naked and adorable, she calmed down and started relishing those moments being bathed.

I recently started a study with some girlfriends called How We Love, and a big topic was comfort, and what kind we received growing up, and what kind we give now. One of the opening questions were to remember a specific time when we were comforted by our parents, and I couldn’t think of a single one. Honestly, my biological father nor my stepfather were any good at comforting anyone, and they were both extremely prideful to show any affection. My mother was a professional at providing “tough love,” and she was the type of mother who would gaze at me without a single facial movement if I fell or cried, and wait until I pulled myself together. I can’t help but wonder though… is it absolutely devoid of maternal instincts that my mother didn’t comfort me, or were those times when I fell and laid on the floor wailing necessary to discover my strengths and the reality of how bad it really wasn’t?

If I think about the prayers that I had been lifting up to God the past few months, I can’t help but feel like my cousin during her inaugural bubble bath. I hurled fear and uncertainties covered with unfamiliarity up at Abba, completely terrified of what I didn’t know. But what it comes down to is when we can cradle and examine each event that occurs, then determine whether we’re going to let it dictate how we experience anything.

No one else is going to hand me solutions nor will anyone give me the answer I’m looking for. I can talk to tons of people and try to “figure myself out” as quickly and sanely as possible. Soon the splashing will subside, the water will still, and I will see that no one (human or animal) is there to save me. I have to believe that God has my back wherever I boldly step. That’s the beautiful thing about God — he gives me the freedom of choice, and even if it’s the crappier choice, He still loves with grace.

I guess the best way to put it is that I’d rather see my circumstances as ‘soaking in opportunities‘ rather than drowning in problems.

reach.

I was watching the sunset yesterday and one thought pressed deeply into my brain:

How is it possible that something that looks so small can touch everything around me?

The sun is obviously a massive phenomenon, but you’ll never really know that unless you’re floating in space and taking in the full view of its entirety. From what we see in our daily lives (perhaps moreso in California than others), the sun can fit in our hands and we can pinch it ever so playfully with our fingers. Yet it’s bigger and much more powerful than any of us can muster.

The sunlight was lessening on my skin now, and the cold was prickling through. As I got up to leave, I had to pause to imagine what significance this small, dust mite like me was making. How far was my reach when it came to my influence, how wide were my arms to give and collaborate on Love’s grounds, and am I living my days exposing to the world the brilliance that I know God had infused in me?

It doesn’t feel that way these days. I feel like there’s a lot of weariness in the way I move my feet, bitter complaints seeping through my heart as it pumps life into this vessel of a body just because it has to, not because it wants to. The thing is, many people can share inspirational quotes and shoot me encouraging high-fives, and I can experience so many things that show me the true beauty of the world we are fortunate to live in, but I am currently in a state of juxtaposed dysfunction between my heart and body.

This “happy medium” people talk about, that seems overly mundane to me. I don’t want to be “happy,” nor do I want to be in the “medium.” I desire an “overjoyed high,” but is it possible that I may be shooting for something so far up at all times that I’ll always feel like I’m stuck in the darker depths?

waiting {part three}.

Hi. 🙂 Did you miss out?

“Have you prayed about it?” my friend asked me, brown eyes pouring into my soul like death by molasses. I began to nod, paused for a millisecond, and then resumed my bobbing.

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure this is what I should do,” I answered, not realizing that I was continuing to nod and had not stopped.

“Pretty sure? But what did you feel God telling you?”

My head was starting to hurt from the world floating up and down before my eyes. And all I said was, “Yeah, pretty sure.”

To this day, I feel like someone pricks me at the bottom of my big toe when I hear the words “Pray about it” in response to grand decisions I need to make about my life.  It’s almost as if I get lazy at times to just pray and listen for God’s voice to instruct and lead me, and would rather have Him tell others to intercede and act as my messenger. On the other hand, it can come off as just a cop-out Christianese answer, and there are definitely people who have used this to get out of a situation.

Should I go to law school? Pray about it.

Should I quit my job? Pray about it.

Should I take this job? Pray about it.

Should I dump this guy? Pray about it.

Should I go to grad school? Pray about it.

Should I really consume this fat carne asada burrito at 4AM? Eat it.

I have ‘should’ so much over myself over the years that I often compare myself to a gigantic, walking question mark. Nothing is stable and committed, and friends even would joke that big decisions I made would transform into something different anyway, so for no one to hold their breath. I really did try though, and I really did try to pray about it. But what ended up happening was that I would quip up a few words asking God to reveal and to clarify, and all of a sudden, my prayer would turn into a report of what I was leaning towards and what felt right to me. It gradually became enough to simply tell God what my plans were, rather than sharing with Him all my doubts, fears, questions, and possibilities, then trusting that He knows it all and He has me. Waiting is embedded into the beauty of prayer, as is prayer within waiting. You cannot simply do one without the other.

It was exciting for a while, I have to admit that. Feeling that thrill about an opportunity rise within my throat like vomit, then acting on that on my own will and going off to my new adventure. I have had some really amazing experiences, and I’ve had some really horrible ones. But after so much of my life was invested into spontaneity and abandonment, nothing was rooted in my heart and as a drifter, I felt lonely frequently and felt unfulfilled in a frightening way. I would find myself in the wake of a concluded journey, wondering “What now?” and trying to figure out why I couldn’t even feel at home in the place where I lived.

I reflected the girl who cried wolf, the wolf being the looming NEXT BIG THING. I became guilty to share anything new with my dearest friends with the fear that they may roll their eyes and perhaps react the same way I did at times to my life, which is “Seriously?” And then a massive lie gripped me into submission, which was that nothing was permanent and lasting, and that just like the story of my life, nothing could possibly be forever and joyful.

I felt more alone than ever.

And as if by some cruel schedule, the vomit came up again. But this time it was very different, involving something significant that I later realized had been a longing deep within me for almost ten years.

waiting {part two}.

Click here if you missed Part One.

I am a terrible, terrible waiter.

Not that person who takes your order and delivers your food.

But that person who has to wait. For anything.

I needed to get out of Michigan, stat. Although there were very specific things about Michigan that I absolutely grew to love – namely my roommate Kristin, the largest cumulus clouds I ever saw, snow, and the cheese pretzels from our dinky cafeteria – there was a massive arsenal of things I could not stand. I couldn’t wait, so in the same zest one would acquire in jumping out a burning plane, I applied to Biola University (again, another miracle that a four-year institution would take me, but my sob story essays may have been killer) and got in. My poor Prelude had to endure yet another cross-country trip in less than a year.

Once I arrived back in California, I did not return as a changed, shiny girl. Instead, I was deeply bitter about a lot of wounds that I let fester, but that was another chunk of my life that I did not have any time for, and healing needs time more than anything. I became a bulimic of the new, consuming all that I wanted that would take me further and further away from the cowering, real me buried deep inside. We all know that even new things grow old, and that was when the purging would commence where I sacrificed everything that would remind me at all of where I came from and who I really was, leaving me constantly dissatisfied and alone. I even broke up with a kind boyfriend who was really trying to be there for me and genuinely cared for me, without a good reason at all.

My heart had become its own private island airport, where the only traveler whipping through the waiting terminal was me and me alone.

Biola lingered and trudged by like an ancient snail, and it had a strange similarity to its predecessor. I was antsy as a child could be and did the very best that I could to stay sane, which meant jumping from major to major, joining clubs and quitting them, taking an eclectic arrangement of classes, and working ridiculous odd jobs to keep me distracted from the looming possibility of any stability in my life. In reacting to the pure ecstasy of completing the college portion of my life, I hit the ground running and left for Europe for a few months (despite the flighty character of who I am, this was probably the best thing I ever did for myself), fulfilling my desire to disappear and take some time to breathe some newness into my bones again. Upon my return, my post-college, young professional life was no different and to this day, it’s amusing to review my resume because the only thing that all of these jobs had in common was that I never stayed longer than 1-2 years.

The punch line is that I also have not ever lived anywhere for longer than 2 years either. This brought me to a so-called philosophy: Why the hell should I wait for life when life never seemed to show mercy and wait for me?