4/3/2013. - Day 8 - "She saw objectives, not obstacles." Back to the beginning...

4/3/2013. - Day 8 -

"She saw objectives, not obstacles."











Today I saw a mountain of obstacles overshadow my objectives. I faced multiple challenges and ultimately found that I was my own biggest obstacle. While I'm pondering how to put today into the right words, we are going to skip over today and start at the beginning. In the middle of the story. And while that doesn't make sense, it seems a lot of things in life don't quite go in the order we think they will happen. And that's what messes us up--the ideas and pictures we have about how it's "supposed" to be. We'll come back to today's story, but for now we'll dig into how I got here in the first place.


"I've gone to find myself. If I get back before I return, keep me here until I get back."

I've had a lot of conversations recently about my choice to kind of take off suddenly, break away from the norm, drop everything, and basically drive around like a gypsy. Some have asked if I'm going to "find myself," and the answer is yes, well, sort of yes.

The common idea of going to find one's self is something I've been pondering lately. The more I think about it, the more I feel we don't really go to find anything. What we are searching for is already within us, and the search is then for a place where we can be who we know we are. I already know who I am, but the hard part is finding a place where I can most freely and easily be entirely that person. Not half heartedly and tentatively, but wholly myself. 



The truth is, if you are unhappy, you must change something. And I was unhappy. I was unhappy that my life was not on the planned out/organized on a spreadsheet/drawn up in my head and chartered across my dreams course that I had imagined. I loved the small town life, but knew it was starving me. I loved my job, but admitted it was scarring me. I loved being near my family, but had come to understand that sometimes the best way to be close isn't topographic proximity. We get comfortable in a place and stop growing if we aren't careful. Like plants that get root bound in their pot, if we don't expand and give ourselves room to grow, we become contained and stunted. I stopped growing and started to become afraid that I didn't know who I was anymore, or what my dreams and aspirations were. Even more, I feared I knew what they were and was afraid I would not be able to attain them.

And that fear was a very powerful thing.

I like to think that we are all quite good at reassuring others --that their hair doesn't look frizzy, that their test probably went better than they thought, that this breakup is for the best even if it doesn't seem like it right now, etc.--that ultimately God has something bigger and better planned for them. In my heart, when I am telling another person these reassuring things, I am utterly sincere and I truly believe them. But when it's time for me to believe these truths for myself--I fall short of my faith. I let my fear take over and tell myself lies that say these things are absolutely true for others, but not for me. And once you believe the fear, the unhappiness is just around the corner.

Lots of people asked before I left if I was afraid. Of course I wasn't afraid--I was TERRIFIED. But I was not terrified in the way you would think. Driving across the country solo was not what scared me. Failure was. And failure to me was coming back empty handed/having to live as a homeless bum under a bridge. (Side note: I initially considered myself a bum due to having no job and little monetary resources. Kristen informed me this was not true, and clarified that I am merely a "gypsy." Not a lot better in my book, but at least grammatically correct.)  People also said they were excited for me, and some conveyed they were almost jealous they were not able to do something similar. Still others said they were inspired. Inspired? By me? And here I am still thinking "I am TERRIFIED!" What a difference perspective makes. I've spent my life dreaming of ways to inspire others, and here all I had to do was quit my job, pack all my worldly possessions, and become a bum, er, a gypsy!

When this started, I didn't have a plan. I had a drastic idea that was a frantic attempt to force myself to move forward. I'm a firm believer that if our goals and ideas don't scare us, they are not big enough or daring enough. We can't grow without leaving our comfort zones. My comfort zone is orderly, structured, planned out, budgeted, and mapped comprehensively in a well organized Excel file. So I threw all of that out the window.

One of my favorite bloggers, Holley Gerth, writes: 

Sometimes our comfort zones are the walls that block us from God’s best for our lives. When we dare to step beyond them, we open the doors to things we never thought possible.

We grow. And our faith does too.

It seems that’s where I most often find Jesus too–not in the familiar or safe but just beyond the edge of what I think I can handle. It’s in those moments that I suddenly find His hands holding me.

So don’t despair if decades pass between the dream and its fulfillment. This is God’s economy, and it’s perfect. 

I quit my job, packed my pickup, and took off. I left without a road map, which actually was an accident but was very liberating. Until I needed to know where I was going....That aside, I left. I knew I needed fellowship, I needed more opportunity, and I needed some time away to clear my head of all the responsibilities and nagging "should haves" that plagued me. I was trapped under the guilt of all of my obligations and suffocating amidst all of my comfortable and familiar surroundings. 

So right now, I think I'm actually living. I mean, I don't know if what I've been doing the past few years was actually living, or if it was merely just existing. The first few days I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. I stopped at a restaurant, at some businesses, for fuel, to have my pickup worked on, and to run errands. But this time it was different. Everyone was happy, helpful, positive. The service on the pickup took more time than I wanted, the errands took longer to run, my food did not arrive promptly--but it was different. I was understanding. I was empathetic. I felt joy. I spend a lot of time feeling obligated to help, to fix, to solve the world's problems and in those first few free days I remembered joy. Not the joy of having no responsibility or commitments; but the joy of just being able to enjoy the day and not worry about every little thing. It helped me to see people and situations more positively, which in turn made me feel more positive. I have no schedule, no deadline, no place to be. So I'm just enjoying every experience for what it is. It's giving me an entirely new perspective on life, one I hope I can retain when I re enter the civilized population. But for now I'm letting go. I encourage you to try that sometime--even just for a day--because it is the most liberating thing I have ever done. 

 As I travel along, I am cherishing the time I spend with friends and family. I'm reminded of how important it is to take time out for the people in our lives, and I'm reminded of how much I've missed it. I'm exploring different parts of the country and learning about myself as I go along. The point is not to reach a certain destination, discover the purpose of life, or achieve an exact end result. The point is fellowship, growth, and faith. 

Everyone is growing up and getting more and more encumbered by obligations and jam packed calendars. It's hard to get together or fit in the hour long daily phone calls you could manage in high school or the weekend getaways and vacations we could take in college. As we all grow and change, it's essential to understand that our relationships will change, people won't have the same leisure time they did before and what little time to themselves they do have, they will spend differently. It doesn't mean friends are less important, but that life has changed and so too then have relationships. 

But it's still important to remember the importance of those people in our lives. Even if it's not coffee dates, an every day phone call, or the miles between mean you can make the next event--a card, a thoughtful text, a quick message that says, "you are important in my life and I'm glad you are a part of it" is huge. It doesn't have to be in those words, but just reaching out and taking the time, even a few seconds, to acknowledge that connection is important. Human beings were made for fellowship. I need others in my life and I need to make time for fellowship a priority. I need to seek out ways to grow and constantly be challenged. And I need to continually find ways to deepen my faith-- because faith in God includes faith in His timing--even when it isn't my timing. 

In short (or rather by the way I write--in LONG), I needed a break, a change of scenery, and a chance to examine all aspects of my life. I'll be on the road for several more weeks, exploring the land and exploring myself, and hopefully rediscovering what I need to be happy and be the most true self I can be. I'll be working on writing a better story. 


Regardless of how the story ends, that ending will only be the beginning of another chapter of my story. I will not regret this when I look back and I have always known that. Even from the very beginning. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I do know that right now, at this exact moment, I am happy. So I know it's right.