Tonight I was packing up my room for the umpteenth time + all the STUFF (pointless stuff) I’ve accumulated over the years and I started to think, as one does....when I started to realize how much of myself has been collecting itself behind me, like a little trail. So I started to get a little nostalgic, because duh. I have so many journals full of entries like this one:
“Sometimes I just WANT to be married and sometimes I’m content being alone. I think I need to be with someone who makes me prefer not being alone, because I honestly really like it.”
Yeah. Yep. Did you know I was two days overdue because I was just too comfy in my mom’s womb? (sorry mom) The doctors even put her on Pitocin, but I would not budge. She got into a Jacuzzi and I floated around happily. #INTROVERT She chewed on ice chips through those contractions and I was like “No thank you, I’m not coming out!”
I’ve always kept myself far from change--as far as I could, anyway. But then 2014 happened. The Butterfly Year. Is that we call those? The year (or years) of life when you metamorphasize from a fuzzy, hungry, fat caterpillar who mostly sleeps into...A CREATURE THAT FLIES! (one is obviously better than the other) That was my year. As evidenced by those aforementioned journal entries (many of them stained with tears), that was the year God really tested me...at times to the point where I thought I would surely break.
I filled up word documents with quotes to help heal the wounds. And I wrote. I prayed, and I ran. Yes, literally running away from my problem(s) helped. I talked to my parents probably more than I ever had before. And slowly, I healed. But then I was a different person--a better version of myself. And that person wanted different things than Kenzie 1990-2013 had wanted. Or maybe she just wanted to obtain those things differently. I mean, nothing was working my way. I decided to bend.
“And we, ourselves, also, through the infinite goodness of God, and the manifestations of his Spirit, have great views of that which is to come; and were it expedient, we could prophesy of all things.
And it is the faith which we have had on the things which our king has spoken unto us [faith in Christ] that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceedingly great joy.”
Mosiah 5:3-4 (emphasis added)
I finally finished applying for grad school, after dragging my feet for ages. Seriously--I knew I should apply for grad school a week before I graduated from BYU-Idaho. In 2012. I took the GRE in Fall 2013. Didn’t bother looking at the results because I wanted to stay right where I was. But after 2014, I decided to stop ignoring those promptings I was getting and just see what happened. So I did. I moved to Logan without knowing a single soul there, save for Emily, who let me stay in her house for a week (I still love you for that, Em. And for the pillow chocolates). I lived out of my car for that week, too. I was so embarrassed to be driving around the town with pillows and lampshades and boxes in the backseat of my car. I didn’t eat very much because I didn’t get paid until October 1st (sorry mom...again).
I started teaching college English classes--something you never would’ve caught me imagining, let alone actually doing, not even a year before. I began to write again--for real. Words came out of me that I didn't know were there. I cried a lot. I kept praying, man. I didn't give up but I wanted to all the time. The insomnia that first semester of grad school nearly did me in (BaRF). Something funny happens after you turn into a butterfly--you don’t become invincible. Hard things still happen to you. In fact, their frequency probably increases a little bit. But dontcha see? It’s because you were never meant to be a butterfly or a caterpillar or any kind of insect because you’re a human, dangit! And humans are divine.
As soon as I began to let go of all the things I wanted to control about my life and give them to someone who knew me better than I did, my life changed. I changed. Everything about the last two years is still surreal to me. Every bit of it. I could’ve never guessed that any of it would happen.
And so, if you’re worried or anxious about your future, thinking that maybe something you really, really want isn’t in the cards for you...well, I bet it is. And it’s probably gonna be even better than you think, because you’re not a butterfly yet. Have I beaten that metaphor to death yet?
I re-read those journal entries from 2014, and guess what? I got everything I was mourning over/praying for, but it came to me tenfold.
Don't give up. Don't do it. It's a trick.
