A month after moving back in with my parents, I drove down to Dallas to shoot a wedding. I've shot dozens of weddings before -most of them clients that have had no previous contact with me, but I usually worked with my former boss, an energetic Frenchman who has not only guided me as a visual artist and inadvertently educated me on Edith Piaf's discography, but also has become a good friend of sorts, welcoming me into his family, he and his wife generously supported me in my final push to graduate. Shooting those weddings I became accustomed to verbalizing what our goals were, praying before we began, dividing and conquering the reception (my least favorite part of weddings), and even venting a little and reviewing what our technical struggles were of the day. I miss that. And it was a feeling that was especially acute in Dallas. I had spent the whole weekend chatting with strangers usually about the bride and groom, how they're connected to them, or about my work. They're very draining and empty conversations that are a necessary part of my job, which I really do love, by the way. Besides working on my own, the recent changes in my life were keeping me on edge, to say the least. I had no idea what my next step was or what exactly I wanted or who would still be a part of my life, post grad. Post grad. The magical word that suddenly makes this whole scenario make sense.
I remember feeling so overwhelmed by loneliness at this wedding when I had a little down time to grab a bite to eat at the reception. I sat next to a glitzy woman in her late fifties, who began to talk with me, oddly enough asking about my personal life and telling me about her grandchildren. I latched onto this woman like a kid and a pacifier. She radiated encouragement and positivity, two characteristics that were completely void in my life. I confided to her I had no idea what direction I needed to head towards, now that I was out of college, an adult. She reached over and grabbed my arm, looked my right in the eyes and said in a thick southern accent, "You take it one day at a time. You should journal. One day it might be bleak and hopeless but you keep on. Two months from now who knows? Maybe you'll have little more opportunities and more confidence. Soon enough you can look back at all your journal entries and go "wow! It's been six months and look how far I've come." and you'll realize how much God has planned that you would never have imagined." I think about those words so much.
It's been seven months since I've graduated -a speed I've never experienced before. The past year as been nothing but curve balls, which has been both awful and satisfying -as most things in life are. I rock back in forth between embracing adulthood and struggling to let my adolescence go, between enjoying my simple, quiet life and despising the lonely and settled aspects of it. And that woman is absolutely right: I would have never imagined the things the Lord has placed in my life thus far. Since driving back from that Dallas wedding seven months ago, I moved to a tiny little town with no job (I can't believe I did that. My parents are incredible people to wholeheartedly support me in my madness), lived with five strangers, made five new friends, worked at a restaurant, got a full time job with a camera company out of the blue, moved again, got a house with my cousin, booked half a dozen weddings and traveled quite a bit over the summer, and have tried to plant some roots into a new church close by. It's a simple life, not the glamorous life I conjured up in my noggin all through high school and college. There are things about my life I truly regret. There are people I've let go that I miss terribly. I'm genuinely happy working and learning at my job -having the opportunity to teach and network with all kinds of professionals. I miss my family more than I thought was possible. I'm a little blind-sided by the weight of personal responsibilities. I adore having my own bedroom, a luxury I've never had before. I like how personal my relationship with the Lord is now, even though it's quite imperfect.
Sometimes I get home from work and kind of chuckle at how boring my life kind of is and how much I still like it anyways. Sometimes I get home and hate the emptiness of my house and the lackluster responsibilities that must be done in it. Sometimes a friend calls and tells me they've been offered a job that pays five times as much as mine does. Sometimes I have to encourage others as they're struggling to fit back into their families after being away for four years. Most of the time I want to bang my head against heaven's door and wail, "What the hell does it mean to be twentysomething!?" because I'm baffled. But there are three truths I've clung to this year. And if there's one thing I've learned in the last decade it's that it's not what you don't know, but what you do know and refuse to do. So here's what I know and what I'm trying to do about it:
1. My life is a gift. Each day I wake up, the Lord hands me this day, in which good things exist that I need to take the time to unwrap and thank Him for. The gift of having bills to pay and the ability to pay it off is a genuine gift from the Lord. Being single is a gift handed to me each day that allows me to move about my life freely and invest in people I would struggle to make time for otherwise. Even being lonely is a gift that helps me understand quality always trumps quantity and allows me to have time to grow in my relationship with Christ one-on-one, which has been surprisingly awkward yet rewarding this year. And then there are the obvious good gifts that I just need to be diligent to thank Him for, that often go under my radar as things I expect in my life that really are gifts, not understoods.
2. Pslam 16:8 "I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." And Pslam 119:9-11 "How can a young man keep his paths straight? By keeping it according to Your word. With my whole heart I seek you, let me now wander from your commandments. Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You." These verses are my mantra these days and they are truths I want to speak into my life on a daily basis.
3. The song "Sigh No More" by Mumford and Sons. It hurts to listen to sometimes because of its truthfulness in my life. The growing pains are at times excruciating and there is nothing that comforts me more than to realize that "Love will not betray, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free, be more like the man you were made to be." Listen to it! Now!
At the end of the day, my life is still a mess (surprise!) but I’m living with the small ounce of faith that God is picking up the clutter and arranging it for His glory. So here I sit, slouched on my bed, a little nervous that I’ve exposed such an unsure place in my brain for the whole web to peruse through. But it’s okay because I think that deep down everyone is still growing into the person they were made to be too, even if their life looks totally different than mine and their changes may not be as drastic as mine appear to be. (Plus, almost everyone I know is a mess too.)
