I am starting to believe that the concept that has gotten me
this far is coming to an end. The lack of desire to know what is coming next is
quickly getting exchanged for the need to be monumental.
For a very long time in life, I was quite content with
letting things come and go. I was a go with the flow and I’ll just be where I’m
at type of girl. Now, as my thirtieth birthday is approaching, my desire to do
something is starting to kick in. As I make this graceful exit out of my 20’s I
am now starting to feel the need to know what is coming next. I am starting to
think about tomorrow.
I am not sure how I feel about this. I’ve never planned for
much of anything really and I have no idea what I want to do. And I am by no
means a slacker, or a bum. I’ve accomplished some pretty awesome things in
life. However all of them just kinda seemed to happen. In the last 5 years I
have gotten exactly 3 promotions in my career, which has pushed from an entry
level position to currently managing two properties with two on-site teams. I went
from barely knowing who God is to having dreams and visions and praying for
peoples healing and deliverance and seeing the fruit in their lives as well as
my own. But if I were to say that any of this was a result of hard work and
pushing on my part I would be dead wrong. Though I hung in there when things
were sometimes not so easy, I never imagined that I would be here, where ever
here is. In the middle I never looked ahead and though that one day I would be
able to look back and see all of the things I see now. It’s just a weird feeling.
Sorta like when I graduated college. It kinda happened like this:
Its Tuesday March 13, 2007, it’s unusually warm and your 11:45 Abnormal Psyc class is cancelled. You roll over and see that there is mail slid under your bedroom door. Apparently your roommate got to the mailboxes before you did and brought yours up. Nice. You get up and walk to the door and notice a letter from FASFA. Strange that you would get a letter now but you open it anyway. As you skim along, your eyes hit the last line at the end of the third paragraph, “…as of May 2007, you will have reach the maximum limit for undergraduate financial aid.” Your heart drops. You hate money issues. You know that your mom can’t help you. She can’t afford to take out another parent plus loan.
All of a sudden you are sharply reminded of that stats class, the one that the psyc departments requires you to pass in order to graduate, that one you dropped last fall…for the third time. As the freak-out-of-your-mind emotions starts to overpower you, you hold it together just enough to grab your free VCU-Tee that you got at the game the other night from the pile of clothes on your floor and some Tinkerbelle sweatpants and you rush past your roommate who’s mumbling something about apartment inspections being today, you run out your apartment building on to Broad street and race across 6 lanes of midday traffic make a sharp turn on Franklin street to run straight into your advisor…just the man you were looking to see!
As you walk into his office carrying a few of his papers and pins that you humbly helped him collect off the sidewalk, he motions you to sit down. Straightening his glasses, he looks over at you and makes a lame joke about how it’s funny running into. You kinda laugh, but only because you feel like you owe him that since he is now wearing what you can only imagine being his third cup of coffee today. And since you both share the fragrance of Arabica bean you can accept that joke as sign of forgiveness. As you start to ramble on about how you have no idea how you are going to pay for tuition and how you would do anything possible to be able to come back and finish for sure in the fall. You go on about how you promise to not drop another class and that you will only work 3 shifts a week at the dorm and no over nighters for the rest of the semester. All the while you advisor is looking through your student account. Right as you are about to make promises to stay far away from Shockoe-bottom during midterms and avoid all commons parties when you have assignments due the next day, he stops you to say that you are only 6 credit hours away from graduation. He then goes on to say that because it is common for students to take these classes over the summer, he recommends that you walk in the spring and finish by August, that way you will be covered by what is left of your financial aid and be ready to move out of the dorm apartments by your birthday, August 10th. He also mentions that he can sign you up for the summer semester now and put in put in your application for graduation today. As he is pulling out the necessary paper work, the freak-out-of-your’s-mind sensation subsides and you take a deep breath. He is still talking but you don’t hear a word he is saying. Then suddenly you come back into reality just as he asks you, “So, what are you going to do when you are finished here?” You look at him; you shrug your shoulders and say, “take a shower I guess.”
As you can see…things always just sorta worked out for me. I
never really HAD to think about tomorrow because it just always seems to show
up with its own solutions to yesterday. But now, now I am starting to ponder
about tomorrow. I am starting to wonder if tomorrow has considered all of its
options. Is tomorrow really prepared for me to show up? And what if I come and
bring something that it didn’t plan for? What exactly does tomorrow have for
me? What if it’s something I don’t want? What if tomorrow plans for chicken for
dinner and I want bacon? And what about tomorrows distant cousin Next Week? And
his third cousin twice removed next year? HOW IS A GIRL SUPPOSE TO SURVIVE ALL
THIS THINKING????
Ahh, my brain cavity hurts. I feel like I have a cabrasion (that’s
something like a contusion and an abrasion all in one).
huggle.
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