The baccalaureate speaker, a lovely elderly lady who I would like to take to tea sometime, told us repeatedly that "It's Friday, but Monday's coming." The last four years has been an absolute blast. I've made more memories during my college years than I have the rest of my life, it seems. But this is it. Those years are gone, and now we're left to figure out the world of adulthood. Okay, we get it. But she forgot to tell us what we're supposed to do when we wake up on Tuesday morning.
This terribly miserable stage of life has made me feel... well, the feels. Reminiscent, emotional, sappy, cry-y. You know. It made me think back to something I wrote at the end of my junior year, when I felt that all parts of my life were slowly unraveling, I was in the midst of transitions I didn't want to be experiencing, and I was feeling a lot of regret (looking back on it, it was really just a test drive to what was coming in another three-hundred and sixty-five days). But the words my hand scribbled out are still relevant.
It was a year.
A year a lot like the waves.
Roll in, roll out.
Inhale, exhale.
Abrupt crashes followed by a graceful tide.
I watched parts of my life cast out to sea, but found healing in a message in a bottle that ever so slowly made it's way to me.
I felt the stabs of loneliness, frustration, betrayal, and insecurity. I had wide-eyed nights of listening to the water kiss the sand and the raindrops hit the roof.
But without the rain, you can't appreciate the sun.
Just like the flowers, it's the rain that makes us grow.
And when I realized this, I found peace in the endless uncertainty of the ocean and the One who painted it, carefully and beautifully.
I found release in the carefree moments under the moon, in the fits of laughter on the living room floor, and in the glasses of wine I lost track of drinking.
Just like the flowers, I grew.
I learned who would still be holding my hand after the riptides.
I mastered the art of burning garlic bread.
I accepted that twenty-one-year-olds sometimes still need to sleep with the light on.
I was introduced to my worst flaws, and they all shook hands with grace.
I was given several little pictures of what it's like to grow up, and the negatives are in the process of being developed.
And as I listen to the waves outside my window for one more night, I wonder about the horizon I gazed into so many times, wondering what's beyond it with the same uncertainty of what the future holds.
What I am certain of is that a different girl will close the door labeled "thirty-two" than the one who first opened it.
It was a nice place to drop the anchor. But it's time to sail.
5/23/14
It's a weird thought to think that my past-self could give advice to my present-self, even though present-self really doesn't want to listen to it. Right now (if we're sticking to nautical metaphors) I'm kind of feeling like jumping the boat. What if I left it all behind, forgot the apartment in the city and the job I worked so hard to attain, packed my bags and started fresh? It sounds rather tempting.
But at the same time, when we jump the boat I guess we just get soaked with no paddle.
Friends, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling pretty stuck. We found a place to drop our anchor, and that place is telling us it's time to sail whether we like it or not. It's time to grow up. It's time to move forward, to go our own ways and chase our own pursuits with no guarantee that we'll end up next to each other. It feels awful, and it's in no means comforting. But this rainy season is only making us grow, and the sun will peak out from the clouds in due time. You will be okay.
In her bestseller Tiny Beautiful Things (please read it), Cheryl Strayed writes,
"The useless days will add up to something.
The shitty jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people's diaries and wondering about God and whether or not you should shave under your arms or not.
These things are your becoming."
Thankfully, the life we see now is not the one we always will. There is more to this. There is more to this than the stress of figuring out who is going to help you pay your rent, the exhaustion of your mediocre job, the emptiness of your checking account, and the forty-seven hour car ride that separates you from your best friend. Within it there is purpose; there is growth.
So go ahead, do what you can to push through it. In the question of "should I have a glass?", the answer is always yes. Buy the shoes. Order the ice cream. Call that friend. Write that letter. Cry. Take the day off. The drive is always worth it. Go home. Have that extra cup of coffee. Celebrate small victories. Thank your parents. Don't go to sleep without praying, and don't get out of bed without grace.
Monday came, but you'll figure Tuesday out.
No comments:
Post a Comment