About My 20's

I could spend days writing about life in my 20's and still not be able to explain these years adequately nor understand them to begin with. As a 20-something each day begins with a pregnant pause of anticipation-What's to come? What does this day hold? Who will cross my path? Moments pass by at a snail's pace, and then before you know it you're living an entirely different life than you were just 6 months ago. It's impossible to keep up with the days, each one abandoning me before I have the chance to get even the slightest grip on it. I know I am being shaped and formed into the person I will one day say I am, but there is no way now for me to tell you who that will be. You actually probably have a better idea of who I am than I even do.

20's are about so many things. They are about forging relationships and breaking the bad ones off. They are about being broken and rebuilt. They are about late nights with best friends driving down PCH with music blasting out the windows and about gaining and losing weight as if your life depends on it. 20's are about spur of the moment adventures with no one to answer to and road trips to destinations off the beaten path. In your 20's you scrimp by to make ends meet, and sometimes choose to forget you're broke and spend the money anyways. In your 20's there are a tears and college debt and more cartons of ice cream that I'd like to admit. From 20-29 a lot happens and a lot changes. Despite being one decade, both ends couldn't look more different.

Tonight, being a 20-something meant dancing in my living room to music blaring from my iPhone simply because that sounded like a heck of a lot more fun than a run, walk, or popping in some boot camp-kick-your-ass DVD. As you may have read, I went through a really difficult season not too long ago, although it's starting to feel further and further away from my present. I struggled and fought and cried in the shower until I could get myself together just enough to play normal.

But now I'm on the other side and I'm ready to have fun. I'm choosing to believe the rest of my 20's will be marked by joy. In these next few years I will laugh with friends and more importantly, laugh at myself. I will travel. I will sing as I drive at the top of my lungs knowing full well the car next to me bears witness to my insanity. I will dance in my living room on a Thursday night, music as loud as my little phone can manage, leaving a sink full of dishes and 4-day old pile of laundry to fend for themselves. I will do all these things in the name of joy, for the sake of my sanity and enjoying the life I've been given.

Jealousy and Joy

Part of growing up, particularly in your 20's, means discovering the best and worst parts of yourself. As I get older I become more and more secure about who I am as a person, what my gifts are and what I'm good at. At the same time, it's also a season where I am beginning to recognize the severity of my faults. I may be young and still have a lifetime of learning ahead of me, but after 26 years I've managed to spend a lot of time with myself and figure out a few things in the process. 

 

This week I've discovered both sides of the coin, seeing faults in myself that I've always known were there to some extent, while also seeing some of the unique gifting God has blessed me with. 

Growing up with very little I have always found it far too easy to compare myself to others, using their life to gauge how much or little I had. Not only that, but I use others to gauge my weight, my beauty, success, intelligence, gifts...you name it, I've compared it. In comparing myself I not only judge others but myself. Somehow I am always better or worse than someone else. 

This I hate about myself. 

So, after 26 years and a whole lot of comparisons, I've realize that I am a jealous person. I envy the lives of others, being ungrateful for what I have been given. "The grass is always greener on the other side" but it's true if you were in my shoes. At least that's what motto I've become victim to. It's like I have this perfect life in my head of what I have and who I am perceived to b and I'm fighting for all of it to be true. Instead of living the life I have and embracing all of it's parts, I see others and wish I had what they had. The job. The schedule. The boyfriend-fiance-husband. The kids. They home. The adventures. The life. In the process of wanting all those things I have become completely ungrateful for the life I have. It's an ugly thing and an ugly place to be. 

On the other side of the coin, I have moments watching other people "succeed" in life where I could not be happier for them. I literally have so much joy for them I cannot contain it, nor do I know what to do with it. In those moments---a new job, marriage, child---nothing about my life matters. All I can think about is how exciting this is for them, what a blessing it is to be a part of it, and how I cannot wait to see what God will do in the lives of these friends, near and dear to my heart. 

The joy I feel in these moments is totally selfless. 

Reflecting back on both emotions, it's easy to choose which way I'd rather feel. Jealousy or joy? It's not even a hard question. No person on earth would choose to feel jealous. But the thing is, although joy is the obvious answer, choosing joy doesn't give you all of your heart's desires. Choosing jealousy totally eradicates the possibility of joy. Choosing joy means giving up all sense of desire replacing it with a love that is selfless. When jealousy is present there is no joy, when true joy is present there is no jealousy. 

If joy is the obvious answer, why do I so often fall back on jealousy? Like I said, it's an ugly emotion no person wants or wants to be around. Honestly, when jealousy is present I don't even want to be around myself. 

I think it's time to choose joy. It may not be easy -- if it were I would have done it already. I don't honestly even know how to do this fully. But if the first step is acknowledging and accepting where my heart is at, then I can at least say I've done that. First step: check. Second check: Lord help me.