Redefine

How am I supposed to figure things out when the world holds all the cards?

People ask how I'm doing, or what they can pray for me about. That's all really nice,and I appreciate every one of these people from the depth of my soul. In response I tell them that life is crazy but I'm loving it, or that things are hard but spring break is soon. Sometimes I'll tell them a story about an exam from that day or weird anecdote from a professor.

These things are true, but when I'm by myself I think different things. I become more... demanding in my search for an answer the question of, "how am I?" ..

I will let you know how I am when life stops spinning at 75 mph. When is there a moment to feel okay? Is there any time to feel content? Any afternoon where I can sit in reflection absolutely guilt-free? No! Are you crazy?!

I've spent a nice portion of my existence feeling naive. My house was a place of filled love, comfort, and safety... and protection from the big bad world. How wonderfully blessed I have been; not deserving at all on my own. But this meant for a lot of learning in a public school. A lot of learning in the city. Shocked glances and nervous stammers... sitting quietly at a cafeteria table. Let me tell you, I hated not knowing. Even today I attempt to stand boldly in conversations where the other party has a clear home team advantage. I want the playing field to be even, and I certainly don't want you using your information against me.

So as far as figuring out my life? I have no clue where to head next... while it seems like everybody else does. It seems like everyone else and their mother and their mothers' super successful friends who are senators, surgeons, and new age theorists have an EXACT idea of what this life means, while I sit here in a plan where all bets are off. How do you decide what to make of your only life when the world seems limitless? Not only is it limitless, but you're supposed to willingly try to fight its evils while it jeers at you, holding out it's boxing-gloved fists.

It's even the mere desire to have a plan that's annoying. Part of me wants to call it quits. I won't need to figure out who I am if I wait tables at a beach-side restaurant in Oahu. That would be good enough, I think. Then I wouldn't have to worry about philosophies, interviews, school debts and theological debates. I wouldn't have to search my heart as I attempt to heal pain, I wouldn't have to listen and heed the charges to fight to make better lives for others. I'll just disappear from what I know altogether, concentrating on attaining a master tan and perfectly highlighted hair... However, in these flippant fantasies I still can't remove the image cemented into my mind. It's me carrying a blond six-year-old from last summer. Carrying her little heart. Oh right, I think. There's a reason I care about what is happening here. People like that spunky babygirl keep my feet on the ground.

God takes care of us, and he takes care of me. I know that. It's not the relational aspect that I don't understand. It's how to interact with the world in which we've been placed. I want to know that I am acting fully and well in a world where I know how to reach out to the man that is homeless on S. Wacker. Living powerfully and not caring to climb the ladder of the elites who dine before the opera. What a constant paradox we balance, that exceeds social order and class systems, family legacies and physical limitations; how to interact with a limited world in a person-hood created by Yahweh, the divine?

So, dear merciless world, who seems to have everything figured out. With your Ted Talks and wildly successful black markets, prized art, genetically modified foods, and talk show hosts who seem to know it all, just give me a frickin' break. I will probably need help finding the subway. I will probably buy enough frappucinos to equal the fabricated value of eight Louis Vuitton bags, and fluster over my words as I try to reach my new neighbor with the story of Jesus that demands our attention. Just don't laugh at my need to be taught, and if you could, PLEASE, slow the heck down.