I am beginning to worry about the future - something I have, quite honestly, not done much of in the past. I know I shouldn't, yadda yadda yadda. But I'm at a point where I feel old. I'm twenty, right? Right. Not that old, I know. Here's what I figure, though. The average life expectancy of a U.S. female is eighty years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That means that I have lived a quarter of my life, statistically. These twenty years have flown by! And I feel like I've wasted a lot of time.
I don't have anything to show for... living.
Letters on my third grade report card don't matter. I should change that to second grade, actually, seeing how I don't even remember anything from that year... Having learned to color inside the lines hasn't turned out to be a big deal. When do I even get to color these days? Never! Alright, so I was always the best speller in the class and prided myself on that. Big deal. I hate watching the National Spelling Bee, but I always end up doing so anyway. I didn't keep up with dance, softball, or swimming. I loved them all and was fairly decent in each, but when I started getting to the point where things had to take a turn for the serious, I didn't want to push myself to work hard and get better. "It wasn't fun anymore." And my parents didn't push me, either. Which I appreciated at the time being, but now I wish they had.
So at this moment I feel like I haven't done anything. There are kids half my age who are far more accomplished than I. I mean, good for them! They've got their talents and abilities and that's great! But seriously. This is a 'me' moment, and I'm not afraid to let it show. Obviously.
I just don't have anything to capitalize on, you know? I'm 'okay' at a number of things, but not 'great' or even 'good' at any certain thing. Writing. I would love to be published somehow, but how that would ever happen, I don't know. Critically acclaimed? Yes, please and thank you! Speaking. I want to be influential. Motivational. But I'm me. I'm... just Nat. What have I got to say to others that hasn't been said before?
I don't feel like I've ever been anywhere and I don't feel like I'll ever get anywhere. I want to be a missionary. Great. But what do I want to do? I have no idea. I want to travel and meet people and see new things and experience anything and everything that this beautiful, big world has to offer. But I feel so stuck. And I have this dreadful feeling that even after I graduate, that's what I will continue to be. Stuck.
Awful word, isn't it?
It's so ugly.
I don't like the sound of it.
I don't like the look of it.
And so I certainly don't like using it to describe my situational feeling.
I just want to fly!
Wrench my legs out of the mud I'm standing in, dash forward as fast as my legs will carry me, and smoothly take off into the air. Sail on the breeze to someplace where people don't know my name. Don't know of my failures or accomplishments. Don't know of where I come from. I want to land on a hot, black tarmac in the middle of nowhere and get around by the kindness and hospitality of strangers, with a bit of sheer dumb luck added in.
Idiotic? Oh, absolutely.
Could I care less? Probably not.
That's how desperate I am.
I just want to get out there and get to know people and learn of their histories. Their cultures. Their passions. And really just love them for who they are, as children of God. And, in the process, maybe throw out Jesus' name here and there and see where it gets me. I'd be smart about it, of course. Do my research beforehand and whatnot. But I don't want to be spoon-fed anything and I don't want to be told exactly how things should be done, if I don't truly need to be.
I wish I could just spin a globe,
press my finger down,
and book a flight to the country it lands on.
I would leave tomorrow.
I wish, I wish, I wish. I'm so afraid that I will spend my whole life making wishes, and that none of them will ever be granted.
I wish I could go here.
Or there.
I wish I could do this.
Or that.
I wish I could get married.
I wish I could have a couple kids.
Remember what I said at the beginning of this post? That I'm beginning to worry about the future? Yeah, well, here's the deal - I'm worried that I'm not going to get to do any of what I want. There it is. And I just want to beat myself up for saying all this. I am so prideful, so selfish. It's all about me and what I want. But then I figure as long as I somehow twist it the slightest bit and add something about God or Jesus, it makes it alright.
Not true.
What a creature I am. But honestly, neither saying something nor not saying anything will make these thoughts go away. So it's really a lose-lose situation. Thus, I figure I might as well just get them out there and [hopefully] off my mind for at least awhile. Seriously, though. What am I going to do with myself? I feel like I'm about to go crazy.
'Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.'
[Psalm 55:22]
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