Here’s to 25
Saturday, August 4th, 2007As my 25th birthday draws to a close, my heart feels very full. I have felt so celebrated over the past several days: multiple gatherings with friends, delicious food and drink, red dresses aplenty, wonderful gifts from my family, and this afternoon, a tumultuous boating outing that left me with my head hanging over the deck in the “almost barfing” position for several hours. How quickly I forget the cold sweat and uncontrollable shaky hands that accompany nausea – and how rapidly I am reminded that it is absolutely the worst feeling in the entire world. Except, perhaps, having my hand blown off by a grenade – that would probably be worse. But how very bourgeois to have the opportunity to “go boating”! Just one more thing to add to the list of “reasons I am stark raving mad to be leaving Seattle.”
Looking ahead to what the coming year might bring, I’ll admit that I am increasingly freaked out. It is incredibly uncomfortable to have no stable plan, and to not have a set “itinerary” to share with the people in my life. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. I don’t know when I’m coming back. I have no idea what the hell I am doing, except “going”; what that entails is yet to be determined.
A now ex-boyfriend once told me that he could not be in a relationship with me because I was “too much of a wild card.” In a scene straight out of Dawson’s Creek, I responded with a set jaw and a resolute, “You know what? I hope I’m always a wild card, because that means I will always be open to whatever it is that God has for me,” and proceeded to peel out in my Honda. For all of the drama involved in that exchange, I have held fast to those words. I hope I am never too comfortable. God forbid that I settle into the humdrum of an immovable life and routine, simply for the sake of safety and convenience.
You cannot learn to swim on the shore, and you cannot swim laps in the kiddie pool. Life is meant to be lived in the depth and width and breadth of God’s fullness. This involves taking chances and being risky and putting your heart out there with no promise of it being returned to you in the same original condition.
But it helps to know that no matter what – no matter if I fall flat on my face, if I go bankrupt, if the feelings are unrequited, if the dreams are popped as effortlessly as bubbles in the air – my worth remains the same. I am loved infinitely and unfalteringly. And so are you. No matter what happens in life, we are a precious and beloved creation – and nothing will ever change that.
So don’t worry. Take the risk. Say the words. Live big. Love. That’s my own personal hope for this year, the year of 25, the hottest thus far.
