Frustration, confusion, and oddly enough even a bit of panic.
What's my "thing"?!
Everyone has their thing. And everyone else knows that about them. Their obsession. Cars, a sports team, photography, dogs, cats, crafts, tattoos, cooking, stamp collecting, figurine painting, lawn gnome collecting, etc.
I was bothered that I couldn't think of anything that I identified with in that context. [Except....collecting gnomes could be fun...] But a gnome iPhone cover just didn't seem to suit me either.
They say that your passion is that thing that you cant go a day without thinking about. That thing that makes you feel like you shouldn't be doing anything else when you're in it.
What's my thing!? The only thing I've strongly identified with lately...is moving alot. But that cant be my thing anymore or else ALL of my mail (instead of just most of it) will be lost forever in the sea of Kirsten Melvie's mail forwarding history.
I don't have hardly anything in my daily life that is familiar in that it has been with me for years. I still only have the very few of my possessions that could fit in my Subaru for the move from Denver. All of my old friends are in different states. My jobs are new and not-so-fulfilling. Everything in my life lately is just still so new and so different.
Except running and writing.
I guess those are my things. No matter where I am, those are familiar to me. They are mine. I can take them anywhere I go.
Running makes me feel the most myself. It clears my head and keeps my emotions in check.
When I remembered that, I realized I've totally been slacking on running, so I signed up for my 3rd half marathon in May. I guess I just needed the motivation--because I've ran 9 miles this week and it's only Tuesday. And I already feel more myself.
And I also know that writing is my way of processing and expressing things. Otherwise it's just a jumbled mess of ideas floating around in my head--not really meaning anything until it's typed out.
Those are my familiars.
And yes, my faith is my familiar too, but even my faith is somehow different, which in this case is good--it is changing and growing. Same God, but new churches, perspectives, and situations.
(Kirsten analogy coming up now...ready for it?!)
Sometimes when you're in those parts of life that are filled with newness and mostly void of the familiar---it feels like you're standing still in the middle of a shaken up snow globe.
You become disoriented. Confused. Maybe even progressively more and more lost.
People keep telling you it will get better and everything will fall into place and become familiar again. And it probably will. But here's the choice we can make. We can sit back and hope that things settle again on their own, or we can be proactive and DO something to orient ourselves instead of just wallowing in our frustrating confusion.
I'm finally realizing I need to do the latter.
Plan of attack:
Grab onto the solidness of a familiar routine.
Run! My favorite love-hate relationship!
Intentionally and consistently spend time with my familiar God.
The tried and true solid rock in my life.
Give myself time and space to processes it all.
Pray! Talk! Think! Blog!
I'm hoping this will help me realize that my situation isn't really as chaotic and overwhelming as it sometimes seems.
Because really, that's just life. It gets shaken up. Things get messy. It might get a little blurry at times. But we will figure it all out and it will settle again. And then we wait for the next big shake up.
Because what ultimately makes a snow globe beautiful and interesting?
Shaking it up.
No comments:
Post a Comment