Three Weeks In and Lessons Learned

This is typically more religious than I like to go, but I just can't get it off my mind.


Somebody that I am too tired to look up at the current moment once said that everything you need to know, you learn in kindergarten. There is probably an element of truth in that statement, but I am going to go out on a limb and say everything I need to know I learned in the past three weeks.

Today is the 20th of January. Just three weeks ago I was welcoming in the new year with no clue as to the direction it was going to take me, and this point was driving me crazy. My interests were in so many different places, and I can honestly say I have never felt so much like my life had been turned upside down. Everything I had planned was going down the drain. Slowly and mostly silently I was falling apart.

Fast forward to last week. Growing up I had one best friend. Yes, one. I had several friends, and a couple really good friends. But "best" implies that there is none better, right? Therefore there can only be one best friend, and I had found her. Jessica Deaton and I sort of operate as two people sharing one brain. Since we started college, we sort of drifted apart. We always had little to nothing in common, and this point seemed especially emphasized when we found ourselves only together on occasional weekends. Little did I know she was all I needed all along.

Last week we were sitting in IHOP in the wee hours of the night (or morning?) eating strawberry banana pancakes (the kind with bananas on top, not cooked in). We sat and discussed how our lives had been, dishing out everything that we knew no one else would understand. We both felt like we didn't know what we were supposed to do in life or who we were supposed to be. As I've said before, I know why I am in Huntsville, Alabama in the I grew up here and the college is cheap aspect, but I don't know why I am here in the everything happens for a reason aspect. If the universe followed my plan, I should be in Knoxville, Tennessee, but I am not. Well I haven't figured out all the specifics yet, but it turns out all I needed was reconnection with the other half of my brain to figure some things out.

I've spent much of the past couple of weeks asking people close to me what they could see me doing for the rest of my life. I am fairly certain most of them just had no legitimate clue, but everyone came up with the typical, "Do what makes you happy...""Follow where God leads you...." sort of thing. Not helpful. But somewhere between fighting over the cheesy part of the eggs and making fun of how much sugar Jessica had in her coffee (or coffee she had in her sugar) my best friend helped me discover what I want to do, what I have always wanted to do. It wasn't that she knew to pinpoint to the exact career I would be most happy in, but that she knew what concerned me the most about my career choices and helped me hash them out. She understood why it was hard to commit to a career that would scarcely allow for a family life. She knew that graduate school was a definite option because of my love for learning, even though that does not make sense financially. And she understood that above all, I wanted to find what God wanted me to do, while trying to reconcile that with what I want to do. I hope, but don't know, if I helped her as much as she helped me, but I know in one sitting at IHOP she changed my life.

Fast forward to last Sunday night. The greatest man I know is an 18-year-old United States Marine. He was able to come home for a visit this weekend, just in time to alter my life once again. After what was possibly the oddest movie I have ever seen in my twenty-year existence (Youth In Revolt) we were driving home discussing the next time he would be home. He didn't know, of course. Signing up for the Marines is essentially signing up for a life of uncertainty. He didn't know where he would be headed after his training at his current location was done, and calmly explained this point to me. Finally all I could say was, "Well you've got the 'someone else is in control' thing figured out a lot better than I have." I simply cannot comprehend how you live without knowing what you'll be doing the next month. I want my problems solved now. I want to know where I'll be going to school next year, and I want to know NOW. But I don't, and I probably won't for a while. But every burden seemed to fall off my shoulders when he hugged me and told me it was going to be ok. And something in the way he said, "You do the same," after I told him to take care of himself seemed to imply there was more behind that than just a friendly gesture.

There's a line in one of my favorite songs about a girl who runs off from the small town life in search of what she's looking for. Her mom tells her as she is leaving that home is where the heart is. In one of the closing lines, Lady Antebellum sings, "Then I realized there's something momma always knew: Love is what I really had left to find." Why do I have such a newfound confidence in that everything is going to work out for the better? Because I have found what I am looking for. Through my closest friends, I've discovered peace with myself and peace with God that surpasses whatever life throws at me next. Wherever I go this fall, I will be happy because I've got my friends and I've got my God, and in the end that's all I really need, all I really had left to find.

And for those of you who are curious, it's journalism. I haven't decided the specifics yet...