Being where you are. Its easier said than done, am I right? I think so, anyways. I think there is this myth, especially when you are in college, that one day your life will start. Once you graduate, that's when life starts. Until then, your goal is just to make it through. Make it through your test this Thursday. Make it through your presentation next Tuesday. Make it through that speech that you have in the morning that you haven't started writing yet. Maybe that last one was just me mostly... Either way, it always seems we are all just wanting to make through that next thing we have to do, all so we can make it to that graduation ceremony so, finally, we can stop waiting for life to start and we can start living it!
Believe me when I say, this is dumb. And unrealistic. And now that I am on the other side of this myth, I can see how detrimental these expectations are to my life. I graduated seven months ago and I am still waiting. I have spent the last seven months trying to figure out what is next for me and convincing myself that once I figure that out, that is when I will finally begin to start living my life. And it didn't hit me until today, when I was sitting in my room, staring at boxes all packed up, wishing that I was moving tomorrow so I can "start my life" that I asked myself, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
The truth is, I am waiting to approach a point in time that does not exist. It never has and it never will. Let me start from the beginning.
For the last seven months or so, people have been asking me what I am going to do when I leave Milledgeville. What is next? To most people I have probably seemed like a pretty cool cucumber about the whole situation. Very non-chalantly telling them 'I'm not very sure, but whatever is going to happen will happen and I'm gonna just roll with it'. I would like to say that I was acting so calm about everything because I fearlessly and open-heartedly trusting in the Lord, but I wasn't. In all reality I was anxious. Impatient. Faithless. Scared. I was surrounded by people that were in college still, living the "i'm a college student, hanging out with friends on week nights and cramming for tests in two hours" lifestyle and on the other hand, I had my graduated friends that were getting real jobs or getting married or planning trips for Europe. And here I was, stuck in limbo. I was still in Milledgeville, still working at Starbucks, still longing for
my new and exciting things to start. And although, trust me when I say, deep down I was and still am genuinely ecstatic for the things happening in my friends lives, there was still a tinge of jealousy underneath my OH-BOY attitude. I actually had a ho-hum attitude when I was by myself.
Finally, at the beginning of June, when many doors had been shut and many of my attempted plans for the future had failed, I decided to just stop. In the midst of the all of the worrying, desperate trying, and disappointments, I decided it was time to quit. I figured it was time to quit depending on my own coordinating skills and shoddy attempts at determining my own "greater purpose". I sat down and I thought, simply, where would I go if I could go anywhere? Colorado. Duh. So from there on, this was my prayer,
"Lord, you know more that anything, I want to be in Colorado but I am going to trust that if that is where I am supposed to be in the next chapter in my life, You will make a way for me to get there. I don't know where I am living in August, but You do and You have known for a long time and I believe that You are faithful. So, this is the end of my planning." And so, I waited. And I told myself that in the waiting, I have to be where I am, in Milledgeville. Of course like anything else, in the beginning its great. I began to think of how special Milledgeville was to me, all the wonderful people that I love here, and how this city has been more of a home to me for the past five years than any other place. I began to feel relieved and content. The longing, although still there, was beginning to diminish a little each day.
I'm sure as you read this, it all must sound very rosy and peachy and like it was this easy, magical process. Well, it wasn't. It did not come with out times of trying and one impromptu road trip that turned into a vacation simply for the fact that I didn't want to go home and feel alone in Milledgeville again. But for that most part, it was good. I'm sure you are also thinking, "Jessica, you said that you just realized all this about 'being where you are' today, this is weird." Well that is because as the month went on, things started happening and the longing to start something new happened too, especially in the last week or so. You see, as the month went on I started getting phone calls from my friend Caitlin, (for more about who she is read
this) and she was telling me that she wanted me to come live in Colorado with her. Then, I got a phone call about a house she found for us and her two other roommates to move into. Then, all of a sudden, I was moving to Colorado in August. And of course, then, I started daydreaming about how I can't wait to get out of Milledgeville and start my life in Colorado. And there it was. The stupid thorn in my side, I thought I had conquered. The wanting for something else and for time to hurry up. I was back to wishing my days away so that my life could soon begin.
I guess I'm realizing that there will always be that thing happening in a few days or a few months that is begging for our attention, our thoughts, and our hearts. I think these things are meant to excite us and encourage us to keep going not to make us long for something better than we have now. Because what we have now is probably pretty great if we would just stop wanting something different.
It makes me mad at myself when I sit back and think about how badly I want to leave Milledgeville, how I let myself have this awful, poor-me attitude about living here still. I think I owe a lot to this town for making me who I am, in some weird way. And I definitely owe it to Milledgeville not to be wishing my time here away. So here is my challenge to myself, to try and keep myself in the now, I am making a list called "100 joys". It is exactly what is sounds like, 100 things that bring joy to my life and I dont want to write it all at once, even though I'm sure I could. I want to write a few things each day, things I discover throughout that day because of the whatever I am experiencing at the time. Hopefully, I'll post it on here soon. I encourage you to make your own list of joys and I hope it helps you to be where you are.
TTFN,
Jessica
