Sometimes, I think the most interesting question is "how did we get here?"
I like it a lot more than "where are we going?", which, while important, often stresses me out because the future is really big and it's easier to stay in bed and watch old episodes of How I Met Your Mother, once again thinking about that first apartment we shared in Roanoke and the big old television we first watched it on.
I think about, with a bit of a laugh, how I had initially been a Psychology major, mostly because I took Intro to Psych in high school and got an A and I loved talking about people and what they thought and why. In college, it was fine for one and a half semesters, before I realized that Psychology was a science and I would most likely have to do some math.
As an eighteen year-old, I never knew what I wanted to do--I always assumed that I'd just work for my parents. I felt lucky that I didn't really have to be in school to get a job, even though I wanted to go to school and of course, my parents encouraged me to do so. And, even though I don't work for my parents today, I'm thankful for that slightly false security it gave me--encouraging me to study something I really loved, even if it didn't seem super practical.
I changed my course of study for the first time, from Psychology to Spanish. Another year passed before I made the switch to English, finally feeling that feeling you feel when you do something right, and your heart and your head kind of line up and uncertainty flees for a while.
The guy I was dating at the time said "You're not going to write," for whatever reason--maybe because I had broken up with him recently or maybe because he had already watched me jump from one major to the other.
But still, sometimes I feel as though I don't really write. Blogging is odd. But in undergrad and while getting my masters, I learned the value of reading and writing, and also of making connections with people on all kinds of different levels. You can do that through your words or a hug or the food you make. And all of it led me from Virginia to the frozen landscape of Minnesota to this never-ending summer in North Carolina, so thankful for Rob and this wonderful life we are somehow constructing for ourselves.
I will always remember visiting my alma mater in Farmville, sitting in one of my favorite professors' office with a cup of coffee in my hand, stressing out about the value of my M.A. as he told me not to worry so much about what exactly to do with a specific degree. "Are you reading?" he asked. "Are you writing? Are you happy?"
I'm still waiting for the moment where I let go of worry altogether, but every year I understand a bit more what it means to trust the journey.
How did you get here?
