My mind is like The Civil War: a destructive war in which one side is clearly wrong. Fighting on the side of the Confederates is the voice that tells me I'm useless. It tells me that I'm just a girl who has accomplished nothing, will live with her parents forever, has no discernible talents, someone who is unlovable. It tells me that my life is crap and won't get better and I certainly won't be able to live my dreams. Standing on the side of the North is The Truth. It's the knowledge that I am the child of a God who has my future planned and has created me on purpose for a purpose.
Yesterday, my 25th birthday, was Gettysburg. To me, the day represented all my failures; a monument of dreams unfulfilled, a milestone to mark achievement-less existence. The South was winning, willing me to sleep the day away. The thing about Gettysburg? There were a lot of casualties, but it turned out to be sort of a turning point, and (spoiler alert!) The North wins. Jesus wins. I have victory in and through Him.
As much as I wanted to ignore my birthday, my friends did not. On Saturday I got to go on a hike in the beautiful redwoods with two of my amazing friends, one of whom had lovely picnic surprises for me. A friend brought me bacon at church yesterday. Other friends took me out to dinner and then (sort of) played Catan with me. One gave me a box full of things from The Office which was so me right down to the argyle paper she wrapped it in. The other made me the most gorgeous cupcakes I've ever seen, covered in things that are special to us. My thoughtful, wonderful friends showed me that I matter to them, that they love me.
I also received a letter. Ashleigh likes to make me cry, so she told me that she's proud of me and that we're going to make all of our dreams come true, but what I can't get out of my mind is, "I can't wait for this next chapter in your life. You're going to be great." 24 was absolutely the most difficult year of my life so far. But Ashleigh's right, now is a new chapter. I've talked about how much I love the promise of the New Year and have been sort of ignoring the fact that a birthday is kind of the same thing, except more personally. Yeah, it's arbitrary, but that crap year of my life is behind me. But it also grew me. I'm certainly not the person I was when I had my last birthday. I know that growth is what Ashleigh is referring to when she says, "You're going to be great." It's honestly one of the most meaningful things that has ever been said to me. So many people would have said, "It's going to be great." That means nothing. You know nothing about the future. But if just one person has faith in the person I've become, I know I can do it. I know she will support me and cheer me on as I learn to be a person.
Anyway, this isn't meant to be another love post about Ashleigh. It's a post about growing and learning and life. I've had several conversations with my fellow 20-somethings about how we don't feel like we are where we're "supposed to be" at this point in our lives. I advised them to stop comparing their lives to others. Of course, I am a hypocrite. It's so easy to scroll through our News Feed and see updates from people getting degrees, starting families, getting fancy jobs, doing things we feel like we should have done by this point in our lives. We see those people and get depressed that they have it all together and we don't. PSA: No one has it all together. Everyone sees something when they look into the Mirror of Erised. When we compare our lives to others, particularly on social media, we forget that we don't see everything. People choose what they put on Facebook. Most people aren't going to put their biggest mistakes on Facebook. It's so easy to forget to imagine people complexly.
Life isn't a formula. You're not "supposed" to do anything. There are no timelines, no maps, no guidelines. You don't need to go to college, get married, have babies, have a solid career EVER if you choose not to, let alone do those things by a certain age. You are not defined by your achievements. There's no measuring tape that says you're less of a person because you don't have that degree or that house or that anything. There's no progress report to tell you if you're doing life the way you should be. You're not a pile of mistakes. You're not half a person without romance. You're not worthless just because you haven't done the things some other person who is completely different than you has done. One day, you may just be given an opportunity that you wouldn't have been able to take if you had done things in the order that someone once made you feel was necessary.
With this being said, I'm going into my 25th year of the precious life I've been given with my Savior by my side, my friends on the other, regret behind me. I'm vowing to myself to do some of those things I can't believe I haven't yet done in a quarter of a century. I'm vowing to see the endless blessings in my life. I'm vowing to do my best not to compare myself to others. I'm vowing to see myself as something other than a compilation of my mistakes. I'm vowing to make better choices. I'm vowing to put my life, my future, my perspective, in the hands of the Almighty. It was always His anyway.
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