The DCG Has an Epiphany

If you had told me one year ago that at 24 I would have uprooted my entire life and career and moved to a city where I knew virtually no one, that I would be looking in a mirror in an upstairs bathroom, straightening my hair and listening to a bunch of goofy boys freestyling to jam band music downstairs ad thinking how happy I was, that I'd be talking to my mother on the phone and convincing her that I really did love a city covered in 50 inches of snow and never wanted to move back to my beloved South, I would have pushed my feet a little farther into the sand, looked out at the ocean and told you that you obviously didn't know me very well.

But apparently the joke was on me.

I think it is so funny to think about where I was this time last year, even 7 months ago, and how different the place I am in now is from the place I'd dreamed that I'd be.  Up to the moment I pulled out of my driveway, I didn't really think I would do it.  I couldn't leave behind my entire family, my entire heart, and go to some city that I had been once.  What would I do when I got there?  What if I hated my roommates?  What would I do for a job? A bed?  What if I couldn't make any friends?

I was petrified.  I was leaving everything, EVERYTHING, that I had ever known behind on some crazy need to start anew.  I couldn't do it.  But I did.  And I'll never regret it.

I'm sitting in Beardy's bed, listening to him and his friends sing everything from classics to improvised songs about Shakeweights while they strum lazily on guitars.  Tears are literally rolling out of my eyes.

I pull my tank top over my damp hair and look out the window at the mounds of snow outside and count the days until Spring.  My shoulders tense up when I think that I only have two days left until I have to go back to work, and the pressure of being an English major in an accounts receivable job.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.  I can't remember the last time I was this happy.  And I think that is the most ridiculous thought I have ever had.  Because I'm a Southern girl...to the core.  I can't live without my family.  I'm supposed to hate the cold and the snow and the business of the city.  But I can't imagine myself anywhere else now.

I guess the point of this story is that you can't plan for things.  I mean you can, but it probably won't work out that way.  Things will change, you will change and you will find out new things about yourelf that you ever would have thought you were capable of.  Your dreams won't come true, and I thank God that mine haven't.  Because my dreams of yesterday would have led me somewhere else today.  And that would just be tragic.

Have a Little Faith...

Do you ever feel like you're being followed...by a phrase? That's what I've been dealing with this past week; first it was the John Hiatt song, then I stumbled upon the Mitch Albom book today while in the library. It can't be ignored, though believe me, I've tried.

Have a little faith...It's so hard. Especially when things aren't going your way- when your heart is broken and you just want it fixed. It's hard to have faith in some guy that you've never seen in flesh and blood and to believe that he loves you and wants the best for you. It's hard for me to believe that about my dad all the time, much less a heavenly father. But I do. Like I said, letely I've tried to ignore it, because what he wants just doesn't seem to coincide with I want. And I'm getting mixed messages. But "have a little faith".... I'm having trouble ignoring that. Every time I turn on the radio, it's come blaring out at me, refusing to go away until I just do it. And I'm really thinking maybe I should just go ahead and do it.

I'm one of those people who grapples with their faith because I like to have control. When I don't know what's going to happen, I lose it. And that's what God is always asking me to do. "Just let go, Ryan. I'll take care of it." But God, what if the plan you have for me isn't going to make me happy? What if you don't want me to be with the one that I want to be with? What if I don't make enough money and you want me to live on the streets? What if you want me to be radical? It's horrible, I know. But if you believe in God, or any higher power, you know what I mean. You've thought it before. What if I know better than you do, God?

And that's what always gets me. I never do.