Everyone has moments in their life; the ones that prepare them for the future. For some, these moments are marked by great conversations, or achievements, or the powerful words of an author. However, one of my moments arrived in the back seat of my mom’s silver Windstar in 1999; my head was against the glass, laughing, my feet were swinging in the air, and I was singing Blink-182.
“nobody likes you when you’re twenty three….what’s my age again, what’s my age again?”
My mom probably turned the song off when the word “h-e-l-l “played, but it had already happened. I had just been prepared for the future. I had learned that 23 would be one of the worst of my life.
At 11, I didn’t know much about anything.
I knew that climbing my star tree was essential to my health. I knew that shoes were evil counterfeits of bare feet. I knew that fifth grade wasn’t as cool as third because the playground was lacking a decent swing set and monkey bars. I knew that a tomato was actually a fruit. I knew boys were stupid (with the exception of Clint Kilgore), evidently from my vast experience with my two older brothers; particularly, that event where- stranded amongst limbs- I was attacked from all sides by bottle rockets.
But that day in the van, much thanks to 97.5 WABB, I learned another vital piece of information. At 23, nobody would like me. I might not even like myself. Basically that it would be terrible. But with my wavy, un-brushed, and probably dirty hair laid against that van window, I knew that 23 would never come. It would take FOOOR-EEE-VEEER
Alas, 23, as Blink-182 warned me, arrived. And 23 was indeed worth a song. But what blink-182 failed to advise me by musical lyric at 11 was that 22 was actually the year I would be completely unprepared for.
23 was merely the aftershock, the effect, the aftermath…oh but 22, 22 was the catalyst, the cause, the explosion.
Some scientist vow and declare that the universe all started because of one big explosion -one moment, one second in time when everything roared, and burned, and smoked. One moment when the universe was on fire. And when the ash from that one explosion settled, voila, planets and stars were born, the universe as we know it.
That’s my 22nd year: One big messy explosion of fire, and ideas, and thoughts, and hopes, and disappointments. A whole lot of waking and a lot less sleeping.
It didn’t all happen at 22, just like that explosion before the universe didn’t happen in one second. It took time for those particles to gather, for the friction to build, and for that friction to be great enough to set those particles flying out into space to be born into something new. New.
Here’s where the memoir happens. It’s written in the fire, and it’s realized in the cool aftermath
***
June 18th, 2008
“The only thing worse than death, worse than suffering, worse than fear, worse than darkness, is finding yourself utterly unknown.
Because in that moment, you begin to forget yourself, and your life story disappears page by page as you let others rip it apart.”
October 13th, 2010
“I’m a mess. And not a beautiful one. I don’t know where to begin. I’m not supposed to be a sleepy dreamer. I’m supposed to be wide awake. I’ve realized the world isn’t what I thought it would be. Things don’t change, and I can’t make them.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve caught glimpses of a whole other world. One that is beautiful and elegant. One with white dresses, and churches. One with whole, juicy hearts. It doesn’t matter than I’ve glimpsed it, that I’ve held on to it, because I’ve realized that’s what childhood was.
What an awakening.
I remember God. I remember that verse where He was sad He created us. And I know why. And I’m sad He created us too, I’m sad that we stained all of the beauty black.
I ache because I’ve seen something beautiful. I remember Christ. But hell is around me, in people, in mean words, in the breaking. No matter the healing, things will keep breaking.I wish I could change it all. Take it back, but I can’t. I’m sad that what I hoped the world to be is gone. I’m sad that I’ll never be that barefoot girl in the fields again. Not in the same way.
January 31st, 2011
I feel like I really know who I am these days. Last semester, it’s like my eyes were opened to life. The bad, the disappointments, the realities, but all of the good seems so much better, and the beautiful, blindingly so. God loves me despite it all. I can finally say what I want outside of these paper walls, and I can run outside of them. All of this is because of one person, and a classroom of people who were so very much like me, that as I got to know them, it was very hard not to get to know myself.
January 3rd, 2012
I weathered through the storm. Hope is ahead and warmth. My heart is at peace, my small world, bright.I had the conversation of my life with my mom tonight. All of it, 23 years. Healing, and wounding, and healing. 18, 19, 20, 21, aimlessly wandering. 22. The awakening, the drowning, the breathing. And alas, 23. The finding, the hoping.
My life is a miracle. Miraculous, and only in existence through Christ. I carry thoughts of other with me. I pray they find what they are looking for, and will continue to do so.
I pray this:That the Lord will guide and hold my heart fast and steady. That He will make a path for me where He desires me. That He will remove all of those things where His will is not concerned. That I will be a bramble amongst His lilies, and a light somewhere in His heart. That I can obey him. That I can daily sacrifice, better yet, give myself.Alas, I am free.
***
There’s nothing that I can confess that you don’t already know, that you haven’t thought, that you haven’t felt.
The greatest thing I’ve learned is that you should never apologize for being you. Never apologize for saying what’s on your heart or on your mind. Never apologize for being brave, for being vulnerable, for being honest. For reaching out.
A very wise person I know once wrote about putting your hands in your pockets and falling. Forget the ground, forget the lack of hands, forget the pain of it, and fall. In the falling, in the pause, you learn what you are made of, who you really are.
On the verge of 24, I never want to go back before the explosion. I don’t want to throw away my old journals. I don’t want to undo the done.
I want to love blindly; I want to give more than I take. If I could choose to be any fruit, I’d be a strawberry, since it’s the only one that wears its heart (seeds) on its sleeve (yes, I did just go there). I want to look at the people who pass me on the sidewalk. I want to be so honest, I feel uncomfortable. I want people to read my journals when I’m gone, and I want them to soak up every single word, even the embarrassing ones.
I will continue to hum all of the time. I'll say the wrong thing, and often, nothing at all. I'll laugh- I'm sure- at the most inappropirate time. Somedays, I'll daydream more than one should. I'll love more and more, because loving, it seems, is what I love most. And I'll try to write something you'll love, something you'll read, something that matters.
***
Stars are my favorite. I can lay on my back, hand under head. I watch them, and I hope. I imagine great things. I could lie there, staring at these bright lights, like a month to a flame, for hours. There, in the cold, they burn. They just burn. They burn and burn and burn. They don’t burn up, they don’t disappear, they just shine, hot and bright up there in the cold.
I want to burn like that.
