My typical method for blogging is a bit haphazard. Every week or two I'll have a thought I realize could be good for a new post. I type it into a note on my phone and in a couple weeks I may or may not get to writing it. This one happened a little differently. Not in a good way. A million thoughts came tumbling out of me at once. At first they were panicked and crazy, but eventually they righted themselves and turned thankful and healthy. Eventually.
One of the main culprits in this assault is the weather. Though I can be happy in any weather, or so I tell myself, I get a fair amount of satisfaction and groundedness from being outdoors. I can be perfectly happy hiking on a cloudy day, the sun really isn't the biggest factor, but bitter cold puts a damper on my eagerness to be in nature. So, naturally, I was one happy lady when I learned that the high was right around 70 degrees on Sunday. I had some homework I desperately needed to finish but left the house that morning in a pretty good mood on my way to church. On the way home, my roommate helped me start my car so I could swing by the auto parts store and pop in a new battery (ha), mine being long past its golden years. I settled into my seat with a smug grin, gloating over my ability to jump my battery in under three minutes. Not a goal you want to have.
The trouble started at the auto store. Once I realized that "popping in a new battery" would take longer than ten minutes, I started to cry. In the store. In front of an angel named Hazel to whom I was moderately rude. Which made me feel horrible and cry more. The thing is, I don't cry. Not in real life. NOT in public. I cry during movies and when I read good books and when I watch couples reunite at the airport. I inherited my father's mortifying inability to control my laugh/cry/shoulder shake at triumphant moments in sports movies and the sweeping crescendo in a symphony. Those weren't this cry. This cry came from the four year old living inside me who just wanted to be outside playing while some adult dealt with the money and the car and the sinking feeling that I really don't know what I'm talking about and Hazel could easily be ripping me off. But I'm not four, I'm twenty four, and twenty four year olds don't cry in O'Reilly's because it's sunny outside and they're inside and have work they left at home. And yet there I stood, with big, pitiful, shameful tears running down my face while Hazel asked if I was up to leaving my car for an hour. An hour, Prentice, not a week. Get it together. I couldn't.
Fast forward through an hour of panic mode, realizing that I was not on a competitive sports team, or hiking consistently, or doing anything outside consistently, or able to complete my work like an adult, or good at anything (I told you it wasn't pretty, it's called a crisis for a reason), all the while that same roommate is taking me to the grocery store and sweetly pretending like my freak out is normal when it is most certainly not. And I'm back at the auto store, sitting on the curb eating my kale salad from Trader Joe's (I mean some part of me had to feel like I was an adult that day) when these thoughts just start to pour out onto my notepad. Thoughts that slowly changed to thankfulness at finally getting to enjoy the outdoors, regardless of all the weird looks I was getting. And about my roommate who took another couple hours of her relaxing day to chauffeur my crazy brain around. And good friends and great family and an incredible God.
I felt needy this week. Not "Oh, I'm being vulnerable and letting people in" needy. Ugly, over-snapchatting, clingy, CRYING IN A CAR PARTS STORE needy. I panicked when I thought about friends far away and how our relationships would never be like they were when we all lived in the same place and didn't have to worry about checking in or making time. I felt suffocated and unlike myself, missing the freedom of times past. And I haven't figured it out yet, although I have prayed and pressed in and asked hard questions and reminded myself that different isn't worse, it's different. Still beautiful, but different.
The times they are a-changin'. Babies are being born and plans being made and a million wonderful things are happening. I'm becoming more myself each day, but that doesn't mean it isn't tough. I like gaining the wisdom. I like learning and growing and healing. It's fun and it leaves room for dreams that thrill and terrify me. But it's different, and different is change, and change is scary. And it's good. Praise The Lord for faith and prayer journals, or y'all would see the crazy all the time. But for now it's just an hour long quarter-life crisis in the car place. Nothing a kale salad in the sun can't fix.
Side note: I'm not on the kale bandwagon, it just had the tastiest dressing in its box. Don't worry friends, I'll never grow up that much.
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