Moving, Control, School, + Feeling Scatterbrained.

Why hello there! It's been a moment, hasn't it?

There's been lots going on since I last wrote on here in July... I finished working an eight-ish week full-time job, visited a friend in Indiana, have still been working at the church (it's been almost seven months now! - something that I meant to write about on my six month workiversary but didn't oops), and went to the beach a couple times.

Grand Bend, July 2019.

Words have been few and far between, but thoughts have been many. I've been quite scatterbrained and I feel a little bit at a loss right now when it comes to my blog, probably because I have too many thoughts and feelings, and it feels like there's never enough time in a day or week or month for me to articulate them. Plus not all of them should or will be articulated online, for that matter. Ha!!

Tomorrow I move away from home for the umpteenth time. And by "umpteenth", I mean sixth. Four times for college, once for my Montréal internship, and now, for school again. It dawned on me today while packing stuff up that when I was moving out of Bible college in 2018, I turned to my roommate and said, "After this, I won't be sharing a room again until I get married."

Little did I know that a year and a half later, I'd be packing up to share a room with three people. It's funny how little we actually know when we think we have our whole future lined up and planned out for ourselves. As I'd said in my announcement post about going back to school;

"On April 26th, I said that I wouldn't be going [to school]. I wrote up an eloquent email, giving all these smart-sounding, well thought through reasons as to why I decided against this opportunity."

I'm someone who wants to plan out everything, so you can imagine my personal shock and surprise when I sent in my application for school on May 15th, after saying on April 28th of 2018, "I'm never going back to school", and declining the opportunity a year (minus two days) after I said "never".

My desire to plan everything has also played into my preparation for this upcoming school year. Seeing as this is the inaugural year for this specific Bible Institute campus (NO FOLKS, I'm not moving to Florida!), there are numerous times that I've heard and said sayings along the lines of, "Well, I mean, that's the plan, but we'll have to see what actually ends up happening."

Perhaps I'm feeling so scatterbrained because a small part of me dies every time I realize that I can't fully plan and prepare for this school year. 🤪

At the same time, it's been teaching me of my need to let go and let God, as it were. I badly need to surrender everything to Him. All the time.

It's an every day process, let me (probably not be the first person to) tell you. I'm one for quick fixes and, "Hey God, can I just give this to You now and then not ever have to deal with this ever again... ever?" But that's often not how it works... ever. Mostly.

It looks a little bit more like:

Waking up every morning and giving God my anxieties, my desire for control, and my longing to know exactly how every little thing is going to pan out.

It's catching myself feeling that anxious nauseous feeling in my stomach, and giving those fears back to God. Again.

It's getting some packing done, realizing I'm not quite sure whether or not I'm going to need a certain book, and realizing that it's okay not to know every step of the way.

Friends, I never want to give off an illusion that I'm publishing these posts because I think I have it all together and I'm so great and wise and ready to share with you from my vast well of life experience that I've gained in my twenty-three years of life.

Quite the opposite in fact. I don't often think that I'm wise or great or full of life experience. Today, I described myself to someone as, "pretty much always a hot mess." ✌🏼

I publish these posts mainly as an outlet for my external processor-ness, but also because in this day and age, there's far too much faux perfection all over the internet - people needing their Instagram feed to fit their theme and aesthetic; people cleaning up a tiiiny part of their house/room just so their picture will look neat and clean and perfectly pristine; YouTubers only vlogging the happy-go-lucky fun adventures for everyone to see.

We're so attracted to the "perfect" even though we, for the most part, know that it's completely unattainable for any of us! But we still search for it online, in our day to day lives, and that leads to us quickly and so easily comparing our reality to other peoples' highlight reels.

I publish these posts because I'm longing for real. I want to see more authenticity online.

And so, I post. I want to play my small part in breaking down that perfection façade.

Even when my posts are messy, scatterbrained, and few and far between.