baby

I have been a baby forever.

Doesn't that sound silly? But, it's true.

I'm still not a grown up. And it doesn't have anything to do with what I am responsible for, or the decisions I make on a regular basis; who decides where I go and what I do and what I eat or who pays for whatever. It has to do with TRUE age. With real maturity.

I'm twenty five. It has sounded so old until right this moment. That's because I've been thinking with my high school brain. The sixteen year old version of myself that still measures ambition and success based on a life planned out by the year and 'how long it takes' to accomplish 'levels' of the plan. The baby version of myself that still thinks people in their twenties know it all and that I am SO far from that.

The version of myself that keeps thinking, I better stick to that plan. That plan is my salvation. That plan is the way to live life.

I've been a baby forever. Forever! Who thinks that people are less valuable because they don't 'have their shit together'-- and that this is defined based on what you DO. Where you work, what you study, and where volunteering will get you. Who thinks that I am less valuable unless I am also DOING SOMETHING that will GET ME SOMEWHERE.

News flash: Everything gets you somewhere. Even just time spent will teach you something that will automatically put you in a different place than where you started. I am dying for being in the same place after three years, and OH how that VIOLATES my ideas of progress and success. But am I the same person when I started?

Absolutely not.

Do I still think the same way that I did, even when I first got to DC?

Not a chance.

Do I even LOOK alike? Let's examine.

Amelia, Spring 2008

Amelia, Summer 2008

Amelia, Summer 2009

Amelia, Fall 2009

Amelia, Spring 2010

Pretty clear, right? Just in case you missed the major differences because the progression was too much, let's reevaluate once more:

Like, woah, right? I was such a baby. But that doesn't mean that I am old now. On the contrary. I am STILL young. I only have been feeling so old recently because I have been so young this entire time. That makes sense if you give it some thought: I felt old and aged because in actuality I was too immature to see how that I wasn't old at all-- if I could really see how much there is that I DON'T know yet, I'd realize how young I really am.

I've been feeling like time has been running out on the things that I want to do, on my time in this place, on the amount of years I allotted for a graduate program, thinking that the next 'step' of life is supposed to be creeping up on this time here. Knocking on the door. Of course, I also made assumptions about what my 'next steps' would be. But isn't my inability to change plans I made years ago, and all the assumptions that accompany those plans in actuality a rigidity that can only accompany the idealism of youth? The next steps aren't knocking. The next steps aren't even the next steps I had mentally planned for. So what if it takes me four years to finish my first master's degree? I made some wise decisions that led me to part-time study, and I spent a good three years learning a LOT. So much, in fact, that I am a changed woman to the point that I cannot ever go back to the girl I was before I moved here. In so many ways.

I credited my time in Indonesia for the period of my life when I gained my first few steps of true independence. While that time continues to be extraordinarily formative, and all of the things outside of my comfort zone I accomplished while I was there will always be badges of honor for a former social hermit, I think DC finally made me an adult. It is here where I let go of misguided expectations from my childhood about what is 'grown up' and what is acceptable; I made real sacrifices based in faith and through them, reached a new level of understanding of Jesus' sacrifice in a way that defined the gospel for me. I refined my understanding of my purpose here to include education that cannot be taught in the classroom. And oh, the relationships I have established here. I joined community. For the first time, I have been a real member, a participant, and not just an outsider wondering why I should bother to try. Those are lessons that have altered me from the inside out, and will go with me wherever I go next. Whenever that might be.

It's weird that I still find it necessary to convince myself that I'm not old. That I'm not running out of time. That it's not possible to live my life wrong, or to run late in life! If I can still find joy in daily life, if God is with me and reveals beauty to me, can it be possible that I am meant to be somewhere else? In a society that defines who we are by what we do, I have to figure out a way to resist. I cannot define my worth by that standard. God made me for so much more.

And my life will be uncovered according to God's plan. I said today to a friend that when I moved to DC, I was absolutely certain of a handful of things-- things that would happen while I was here. But now I am absolutely certain of almost entirely nothing. The one thing truth that is left is that God won't fail me, and as long as I am in relationship with God I will never be alone. That is real comfort when the pressure of 'keeping up with' my peers-- so many close friends getting married this year! And so many with children already! so many who have made much faster progress in their careers or their education than I!--starts to make me feel like I've missed something, or I'm late, or left behind, or abnormal or an aberration in anyway. I'm not. I'm just living a different life than they are. God has a different purpose for me right now. And I love that.

So, I'm not old. I'm not as young as I was. But I'm ever hopeful of the way my life will go and the calling I wait to hear next. And one thing's certain: I am constantly in process of becoming the woman God created me to be. If that ain't comfort to this baby, there ain't nothing that is.