There’s something very novel about my winter break this year.
My family spent Christmas in Sylacauga and we had a great time. Santa was very generous and I was very thankful for the time we all got to spend together. Going to school 13 hours from home makes those moments rare and difficult to come by, and therefore precious.
But today, two days after Christmas, my mom, dad, brother, and sister headed back to Dallas and back to real life. Which leaves me sort of on my own for the rest of the break. I have plans to spend New Years Eve with my friends in Birmingham. I’m in my grandmother’s wedding on the 2nd (yes my grandmother, it’s weird, but that’s a story for another time) and then I’m going to Passion Conference immediately after that. Not to mention Monster Truck Jam in Atlanta on the 7th (don’t judge). I have a lot lined up before school starts. But these next few days are sort of empty.
So I talked to some friends in Atlanta and made plans to hop around there until New Years.
It’s all very exciting.
And this week specifically is one I’m looking forward to.
I essentially have 4 days to do whatever I want. The last 4 days of 2009.
I suppose they are just 4 days like any other but the fact that they’re the last days of the year and some of the last days of my teenage life makes them feel more special and real and valuable.
I packed up my things and drove away from my grandparent’s house this morning and I have no where that I need to be. I think I’ll spend tonight in Atlanta with my roommate but I don’t really have to. So I drove to Birmingham. If I do end up in Atlanta tonight, this was way out of my way. But I don’t care. Because I knew there was a Starbucks here and I wanted to come and read my Bible and get coffee and a muffin and write and read my new book. I drove with the windows down and the sun behind me and my music up loud.
I am entirely on my own. And it’s all very adult and freeing and novel-esque.
I’m trying to appreciate life.
Trying to see Jesus in the wind and the static of the radio and the blinding rays of light that reflect off my rear view mirror. I want to live and live well and take in every second of every day, good or bad, because its all I’ve been given and I want God to be glad he gave it to me.
I have things on my mind. Hard things. And there’s trash in my car and my suitcase has exploded across the back seat and I don’t have enough room in my trunk for everything. I am going to run out of gas at some point and I spent too much money on Christmas presents that I’m not even sure my family liked. My contacts are dry but I don’t have any extras with me and I still don’t know where my roommates and I are going to live next year.
But I just take it as it comes.
Because this day was meant to be lived. And the Lord says he is satisfied when we are satisfied in Him. And I am satisfied.
I get lost in these long drives. My iPod has a way of drawing me into the idealism and romance of great music, and the clouds and the sky and the open road pull me in even further. And I roll down the windows and let my hair get tangled and my hands get cold just because I can and it feels right and free and normal. I feel like the star in a movie about youth and spontaneity, and I love it.
But then the radio stations change and my iPod starts to cut out right in the middle of my favorite verse. And I decide that it is, in fact, much too cold for the windows down, open road thing so I start to roll up my window only to find that it is, in fact, stuck. And my hair starts to painfully whip me in the face over and over and over again. And I’m so cold that my nose is running. And I’m almost out of gas. And I’m hungry.
Life just has a funny way of keeping my feet on the ground.
Like back at school when I’m stuck inside on a beautiful day studying accounting or business law and I decide that I’m just going to quit – just sell my books and write an apology note to my parents and pick up and move off to London to live in a sketchy apartment and wait tables and write what is sure to be the best novel ever written while living off of toast and black coffee – and then I realize that I’m only dreaming, I could definitely never afford that or pull it off and that I have to finish my degree or my parents will disown me, which means, for that moment, that I have to keep studying.
I am very spontaneous in my brain. But very realistic and boring in my actions.
And that has had a history of just really frustrating me.
But recently, I’ve started to see the beauty in living the planned-out, not so crazy spontaneous life too.
And it scares me.
For example, typically when I am back in Flower Mound, I hate everything about it and I count down the minutes until I can get the heck out of there. But the few days I spent at home at the beginning of this break were different. My heart was broken for that town. I saw a people and a culture that needed Jesus. I even caught myself thinking of what it would be like to be a witness in suburban America.
And I’m just really hoping that these new thoughts do not mean that the Lord is preparing me for that life. Because yeah, I know his plan is better than mine, blah blah blah, but I would just really like his plan for me to be big, cool, non-suburban things. And I’m sure he is laughing at me as I write this.
And I’m okay with that.
I guess I should appreciate learning to find joy in this every day, simple life too. Learning to laugh at broken car windows and messiness and my train-wreck-of-a-self is a blessing because those things happen a whole heck of a lot more often than the blue sky, hand out the window, moving off to London things.
I’m just maybe having a little bit of a hard time letting go of my romanticized dreams of living downtown and quitting school and doing what I’ve always thought of as super cool artsy things to do.
And I’m just maybe walking a little slower into the tentative world of embracing realistic dreams and normal life.
I’ll get there. It just is taking a little longer than it does for some people. And that’s okay.
But maybe until then, I’m just going to live up these 4 days of spontaneity and long drives and silly emotions and big dreams. Because I can. And when life brings my feet back to the ground once again, I’ll keep learning to live that up to. Because it’s all a gift from the Lord. Good or bad, big or small, London or Alpharetta. And I will choose to be okay with whatever hand He deals me.
