Winds of Change

Do you ever return to a place that once meant so much to you and think how did we get here? How did we get so far a part? Well that happened for me today. I went to the jewelry store that I worked in for four years during college. It still feels like home to me and couldn't help but see the "help wanted" sign in the window and not want to go behind the counter and re-organize the cases. And while this place is still a place of comfort for me, so much has changed. This store was once the place I went to work everyday, just to fill my truck with gas. It was once the place that my best friend and I would goof off decorating for Christmas. It was the place where I fell in love with said best friend and thought that one day we would be the couple buying our wedding bands out of those cases. Well as life would have it, that is not the situation.

Life has a way of surprising you. I couldn't help but stand there today and think of all the memories there and all that has changed in just two short years. I think back to the 18 year old that I was when I first started working there 5 years ago and how that person seems like a complete stranger and very distant memory. Part of me wants to cry and the other part of me is so grateful for where life has taken me. 23 has been, to say least-rough. I think they call it the 23-blues because lets face it, "no one likes you when your'e 23."  It's a very strange age and I have literally felt like I have been having a quarter life crisis. The highs are many but the lows are very deep. I have been at my job now for over a year and while I am beyond grateful for it, I feel myself yearning for something more. Being at my job for a year, means I've been living back at home for well over a year now. And while I adore my parents and love the money I am saving, I feel myself yearning for a place I can call my own again.

Everyone around me is having babies and getting married; both of which scare the shit out of me. Which I've learned isn't completely out of the ordinary for a 23 year old, even though sometimes I think I am on a Island all by myself. Is this really where I expected to be at 23? In case you were wondering the answer starts with a big F NO! If you would have asked me even a year ago about where I thought I would be, this is not it. I find myself confused more often than not about virtually every situation that is thrown at me.

But this, as I have learned: is life. That God is going to use this time of complete confusion and feeling lost to reveal something that I never expected. I had a plan but somehow the course was completely changed. Two years ago, I had planned on marrying the boy that I met in the jewelry store and now I have no idea how he is doing. Two years ago, I had planned on pursuing a career in sales and now I am working as admin at an accounting firm. Life has a way of not going the way you planned. You think you are set on one path for a particular destination and end up on the complete opposite side of the road. Life has a way of disappointing you and surprising you in ways you never imagined.

I've found myself in this funk lately and feeling very pessimistic. I've kept my head above water and just keep swimming because I know that this very weird time in my life is serving a greater purpose than I am able to understand right now.