Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Grown up. For real. Sort of.

So here's the deal: I'm way spoiled.

For 19 years, my parents (mostly Mom--Dad is a whole other, equally as important ball game) bought groceries, cooked, did laundry, stayed on top of homework/activities/lives for three children, and managed to have a social life. And now I'm taking care of one and I'm like "THIS IS SO HARD." Grocery shopping, actually making real food, knowing what needs to be refrigerated and when things spoil...food is overwhelming. And then you've got to fill up with gas and go buy your own medicine when you're sick and do annoying grown up stuff. I didn't think I was prepared for this.

But I am. My parents have done an exceptional job of preparing me for the real world. Because I won't call my Coppell house home for much longer. I'll never go back to someone consistently buying and making my food. In a few years, I'll be paying for my own gas and insurance and bills. College is four years of practice before I get pushed out into the world with a diploma and some handy lessons that I picked up.

Yesterday was an excellent example of my growing adultness.

So I have this real weird version of hypothyroidism (translation: my thyroid doesn't work). So when I'm put on new medicine for it, I have to get my blood drawn to make sure it's actually working. I've never done that by myself before. Until yesterday. I got up early, got dressed, and headed to find the College Station Medical Center. I checked myself in (successfully spelling my name wrong at first), filled out my insurance info, and waited until my name was called. They took my blood, I drove to class. I felt like a regular grown up! Weird!

Then, my roommate Myles and I needed to go to Goodwill after class in search of Hawaiian clothes. We got in my car and it struggled to start. I have one of those weird keyless cars that you just push a button for and it just was not working as well as it should. So I was a little concerned but not too much. Then, as we emerged from Goodwill with our purchases and climbed in the car, it just stopped. When I want to start my car, I push the brake all the way down while pushing the button. The brake wasn't going down. But I didn't panic! A shock to both Myles and myself. I called my mom and asked what to do and she just said to call the Nissan place in College Station. So I called them while Myles got ahold of a friend who knew more about cars than we did (thank you Ethan!). The Nissan guy (Johnny) gave me instructions to push the brake as hard as I could (meaning that Ethan pushed it as hard as he could) and--tada! The car started. And I promptly drove it straight to the Nissan place.

Moral of the day: I didn't panic. A year ago, I would've been freaking the heck out. But I wasn't. I've been equipped with the ability now to think clearly and rationally through situations before getting mad, panicking, or something just as unproductive. Growing up might not be so bad.

Shout out to my parents for being awesome, to Myles for sticking with me, to Ethan for temporarily fixing my car, and to Joy for picking us up at the Nissan dealership. My friends and family rock.


Friday, September 7, 2012

"Don't ever change" and why it's bad advice

Remember when you were in middle school and high school and everyone would write "You're soooo (insert positive adjective here)! Don't ever change!"? And you had your little ego boost because you were reading all about what people like about you and you vowed to never change because, look! You had so many people who loved you exactly how you were!

Well, yeah. That's true. But imagine if you stayed a fourteen-year-old forever. Perpetually stuck in 8th or 9th grade emotionally, mentally, and physically. What if you never grew up? What if you never learned new things? What if you never tried and succeeded? Or tried and failed and learned from the failure? Can you even imagine being stuck in puberty for the rest of your life? Sounds like a nightmare.

But seriously. Changing from the awkward-middle-schooler to the figuring-life-out college student (hello my life) to the real-adult (not quite there yet) is what makes life so interesting.

Here's the deal: we need change. It's unavoidable. It's good. It's, hopefully, growth. Do not fear the change.

But I wish I could say that I followed my own advice. I hate change. I don't adapt well. I'm comfortably stuck in my ways and it would take a force of nature to avert me away from them. And I typically don't react well when such an event blows through and scrambles my life up. Events like moving. Or college. Or when God decides that he's had enough of my shenanigans and shakes things up to wake me up. You know, all of those things. But the most effective change I've ever seen has been at the hand of Christ.

When we fully let Christ take control of our lives, He makes all things new (Revelation 21:5). Making something new would require a change. My least favorite thing. But I have seen myself changed and refined more in the past year than I have in my whole life. In my bubble that I grew up in, there wasn't a lot of wiggle room.

College. A&M. Good, Godly friends. Wiggle room. Room to grow. To change. To learn. To fall and to get back up. And to run. Flat out after Christ. And it was scary as heck. But I'm embracing it now. And I'm not afraid. Will it hurt? Probably. But you know what? I'm going for it. Because I can either cower in fear of the divine change or I can fall into His sweet and protecting arms to pull me through. Growing up is hard, but I don't have to do it alone.

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7

(post inspired by Myles Osborne)