Today, Tim and I met with a potential client in a coffee shop. The meeting went well and when it was over, I looked around me and noticed all of the other patrons in the shop who were sitting alone at little tables being so studious. They were buried in their head-phones and laptops and textbooks, all silently going hard after big things in life they really wanted, and for a second I remembered exactly what that was like and I deeply missed being in their shoes.
I had 6 years of that season of relentless pursuit. For most of that time, I worked a full-time job while taking a full-time load of coursework, and it was so hard. It felt like it would never end. Tuition ate up all of my money, but I could somehow always afford a cup of espresso to get me through the next studying session at the coffeehouse, even if it came from scavenged quarters and dimes dug up from under the seat of my car. Those days were glorious. They were full of questions that weren't light and I cried so many tears for the not knowing and being alone, but that work it did on my character was profoundly good and I am proud of those years. They felt long at the time but they're a vapor now, and I had no idea they would end so darn quickly and everything would change.
I wouldn't do them all again, but I'm not a "do it all again" kind of girl. I can't forget the bad stuff like the details of the heartbreaks and the not having enough money for haircuts or new tires with winter snow fast approaching. But still, they were good years.
Now I'm in a different place that feels more like coasting on all the stored up energy I worked up when I thought I was getting nowhere. And it's nice. Truly. I'm not discounting the fact that I get to travel and love my husband and start a family. This was the point of all that work.
I just never thought that wooing clients, sealing a deal, and making money would for a moment seem less fun than working my arse off to get a diploma and try to find myself by thinking existential thoughts fueled by coffee.
Oh, life.
Wherever you are, don't wish it away.
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Well said. It's an important lesson. I actually just started another blog/private journal of letters to my future-self with this theme in mind of not wishing away the present. I wrote my first letter and right away had the realization that no season i life is "easy". Each has different challenges, and different highlights that simply vary over time, but no one season is better or easier then another. All of them serve a purpose and are divinely orchestrated to mold us into who we are. I bet in five years you will be looking back on those wonderful days when you are Tim were just starting your lives together, and you didn't have children to care for yet, and all that comes with that. But even then, that will be a good season :)
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see you as a mom!
Hi Bethany,
ReplyDeleteHere I am popping up again on your social media radar.
Thanks for sharing your stories, I really benefit from them.
I feel like I've always been "wishing it away" but in all reality, the things I hate in my life right now are there to form strength in me to carry the things I want in the future. Just like weight training: resistance produces strength.
You're awesome and so genuine.
Thanks for being honest,
love this.
ReplyDeleteamen sista.
ReplyDelete