The last few weeks have been a struggle for me. It’s been hard for me to come to terms with the fact that the Race will end and I have no plans. I thought that made me a failure. I thought that made me not good enough. I know now that I was completely wrong.
I forgot what I actually want to get out of my life. I forgot, for just a moment, that what I really want is to do something good and love doing it no matter what that looks like. I got caught up in thinking that I have to follow a specific formula to be happy and live a “good” life. I think the thing that started my small bout of amnesia is that over the past few months of my Race, I have had multiple people tell me that they have heard from the Lord that I’m going to get married soon. Soon as in before I’m 25. That’s a lot sooner than I ever planned on.
As soon as I heard that, I panicked. I felt trapped and nothing had even changed except for confirmation of something I have wanted for my entire life. Ever since then, I have felt rushed. I’ve felt like I have to have everything figured out within the next two years. I have to know what I want to do for the rest of my life, I have to know where I want to live, I have to make all the right choices so that I’ll be in the right places at the right times, and on and on and on. I haven’t been able to just be me. It’s like there’s a roadblock somewhere in my brain that keeps rerouting all of my plans to be contingent upon this one thing and it’s getting me absolutely nowhere except stressed and worried about something that’s not even important right now. Something that’s not mine to hold onto. Something that’s not mine to own yet.
In the midst of all of this, I have forgotten who I want to be. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I want to do or where I want to go, but I haven’t even considered the kind of person I want to be, which is the most important. I’ve spent a lot of time this year trying to learn what I’m passionate about and I wrote a blog about it a few months ago (Read it here). These are the things for me to hold onto. These are the things for me to own right now, in this very moment. This is the list I need to be adding things to as I learn and grow more.
Yesterday, I was eating a delicious meal of Mexican food in the middle of Siem Reap, Cambodia with some of my teammates and two of my Squad Leaders. Something that was said really caught my attention and somehow lifted a weight from my shoulders that I didn’t even realize I had been carrying. My lovely friend Alyssa said that she used to think that she would do the same thing for her entire life. She was born and raised in Delaware and she would die there too. She explained that ever since she’s been on the Race, she’s realized that she has so many opportunities to take chances she didn’t think she had before. She can open a coffee shop in Seattle if she wants to. She doesn’t have to fit the mold of what she’s always thought she would be one day and neither do I. I don’t have to do the same thing day in and day out. I have no obligations to stay where I’m at, I have no expectations on me except those that I put on myself. I would rather live a life of risks taken than missed opportunities. That’s who I want to be.
I know now that I want to be a woman of dreams. I want to be a woman who is unafraid to take risks. A woman who follows the path God has set for her without fear of failure. A woman who is so in tune with the Holy Spirit that she knows what the right path is. I want to be able to show that to others as well.
I’m dedicating the next season of my life, no matter how long it takes, to finding what I’m passionate about, what I actually like, and learning who I am. I owe that to myself. I’ve spent enough time trying to be who everyone else wants me to be and it’s time to just be. I have a list of things I want to accomplish over the next year or so and my time after the Race will be dedicated to that. Here’s a glimpse of what it looks like…
I want to:
- Work at 30/Thirty Coffee (or similar café)
- Take pastry classes
- Train for a Tri-athalon with my roommate Ashley (if she’s up for it)
- Join a book club
- Take Guitar Lessons
- Practice the Piano
- Actually do Pinterest projects
- Start writing a book
- Find a Mentor
- Mentor a Teenager
- Be a Waitress again
- Start a Vegetable/Herb Garden
- Eat from a food truck
- Take a road trip to somewhere
- Take a Bartending Class
- Play Bingo with Old people
- Sponsor a Child somewhere
- Visit Bolivia
- Learn Spanish fluently
- Spend more time with my family
- Start saving money to open my own Bakery/Bistro
