Stretching and Growing
This season, which has felt like almost a year, I have been uncomfortable. I am having a hard time recognizing the body I am in. I am having a hard time liking who I am. I have been feeling discontent. I have lost what I’ve enjoyed doing. I forgot what brought me life.
All of that sounds super depressing, sorry. Those feelings ebb and flow every day. Some days are better than others. Weekends are definitely the highlight each week. I find myself again when I have time to reflect, sit in sunshine and dress the way that I want. But if I’m being honest, I thought this year was going to be the greatest year of my life. In a way, it has been! I've celebrated being married to a man I have prayed for. We adopted a puppy. We’ve helped cultivate a home we enjoy sharing with everyone. We have learned to better listen to and take care of our bodies. I’ve stepped into my first big girl job. I have shot the most weddings this year. We have made new friends. We traveled a lot. We did a lot of really good things and God provided it all. But there is still a part of me that is longing for something more, a greater purpose in the every day.
Now I know my greater purpose in life is to share the gospel and live for my Savior every single day. And I fail at that more often than not. I let what I think the world expects of me to take over instead of surrendering control to God. But in this ebb and flow of uncomfortable feelings, God is doing something, silently, and I have NO clue what it is or where He is leading. I feel like I am on the edge of something big. A lot of times I feel like on the edge of a cliff, like when I have walked along the Grand Canyon edge or on top of mountain. I look down and I am absolutely terrified because that fall looks scary. But the view is gorgeous and I know that if I keep walking along the edge, I will keep seeing great views. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it helps me to better process.
So since it seems like no one sets us up for adulthood, here are some things that I can be sure of and that I have learned:
-We are not supposed to have it all figured out. I guess part of being an adult is every single day you are learning something you thought you should have already known. Our parents were good at making us think they knew everything but in reality, they were growing just as much as we were. Taxes are required and are not easy. Trying to figure out how to eat healthier, not easy and expensive. Building a gate, not easy and you will need help. Not having it all figured out is frustrating but this requires grace for ourselves. But if you don’t know how to do something, you should ask for help! There are people that have jobs to figure out the things you don’t know how to do, like plumbing, taxes, and things you feel the urge to YouTube. ASK FOR HELP. IT’S OKAY TO DO THAT!
-It’s okay to say no. If your work schedule and busy-ness of life already makes your chest tight, it’s okay to say no if someone wants to hang out. You can schedule for the weekend or a time where you know you will feel more free. There are some seasons where being busy works with me, and sometimes the thought of menial tasks feels too heavy. So be honest with where you are in life at the moment and that friend will understand and hopefully come alongside you in it!
-You can change your mind. If you have what you thought was going to be your dream job, and it turns out to be a toxic work environment and sucks the life out of you, it’s okay to change what job you want to do next. Just because you studied one thing in college, doesn’t mean that it what you desire to do for the rest of your life. Some of my closest friends are doing something FAR from what they studied in college. It’s all about experiencing, learning and shifting what’s next.
-Honesty isn’t the norm. Have you ever asked someone how they were doing and they just kept saying “Good” even though you knew that half of the time, that wasn’t necessarily true? Well I encounter that every single day. I have been trying to be honest by saying “Okay, been better, tired, pretty okay”. It sparks conversation. It creates space for more honesty. I feel like life is too short to fake how we are feeling. We should feel our feelings.
-If you want friends, it requires a lot of effort from both parties. I thought that the friends I had in high school and college would just easily blend into my life as an adult. That is far from the truth. Unless you live at camp and work and live with your friends, then friendship is pretty easy and fun and that blend is seamless. But when you live miles away from friends, don’t work with your friends, you sometimes have to be the one to reach out first. I’ve had to text my friends first most of the time because lives get busy and if I want to have dinner with them, I can’t expect them to read my thoughts, I ask them when they are free! Sometimes I can only see them once a month or once every few months, but I’ve learned, this is adult friendship in this season and it’s still a blessing!
-Life is both cheaper and more expensive than I thought it would be. Furniture, healthy foods, good quality clothes, phone bills and car insurance are all SO EXPENSIVE! Like CRAZY expensive I am shocked. But Christmas Trees, utilities (water, gas, electric), tattoos, and some plants are surprisingly cheaper than I thought!
Okay so I said a lot in this blog and so how do I sum it all up? It’s okay to feel uncomfortable, anxious, frustrated all while feeling hopeful and joyful for what might be coming next. It’s good to find simple rhythms to cope when your emotions. It’s okay to not do anything extra if you are tired. It’s okay to ask for help when you don’t know how to do something but give yourself grace when learning something new. It’s good and refreshing to be honest. This life is just full of growing and stretching and it comes with some growing pains but God is still working and shaping us for the next season of growing and stretching!
