For months of my life, I felt panicky. Constantly. The whole spring semester, if not longer, - as cliche as it is to say - I felt like I couldn't breathe. Months of my life.
Then the semester came to a close. My grades were to determine my plans for the fall and rest of the next year, but I didn't care. I could not bring myself to check them. For weeks. Because for the first time in so long, I felt freedom. I felt my chest loosen up, and I could breathe again.
Until just the other day, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. How did I get to this place? How is it possible that I am content with the idea of risking time off? How is it that I'm really planning on going on a [legitimate] missions trip? How is it that I have a pile of debt I can't even begin to pay with my tiny wage, and yet I'm at peace with where I am? Amidst all of this, how am I this comfortable with so much unknown?
It's a further example of that whole "give it up to God" thing. See, I was trying to do both. I was trying to give it up to God, but keep acting; keep making my own moves, and hoping God would lead me through it, and guide me. The only guidance I got was to stop trying to do what it was I was trying to do! I thought it was my dream, my passion; but in reality, it was just a fluke. I think somewhere along the way, He got me. I had been thinking, writing newspapers is beneath the amount of heart I have for people.
Maybe I'll still write magazines, or books, or columns...but news? News is tragic, and constant! It is a constant reminder of how much evil and brokenness is in the world! It is an echo of that constant panic. For someone as optimistic as me, that probably would've worn me down real fast.
I mostly chose journalism because it involved writing, but it's kind of no-brainer. It's facts. There's a formula to writing a news article, where there is so much more room for creativity in...creative writing. I was scared of trying to attempt something that would require actual talent, as opposed to just learned-skill and a large vocabulary. I was scared of exploring my own potential, and of what creative writing would bring or not bring.
I was running into the wind, trying to make happen what I now feel I can say with confidence wasn't the right thing for me.
Within the last couple weeks, I came to the realization that I am at peace with where I am. And I fell in awe of how I got there, because I don't even understand. I feel free.
Not being in school (even if just for the summer). Working a job I love, that I know was a God-send. Going with the idea of not going to school in the fall. I have felt so free! I have felt like I can breathe again.
It's one of the more beauiful things I've experienced in my life. Being freed from something that looking back on it now, felt like it was suffocating me. The panic is gone.
And I don't know how in the world I got here...but it is quite beautiful.
