Still growing

Last year, I got the birthday blues in a big way, and this year, days shy of 25, I can feel them coming on, even though I swore I wouldn't be sad on my birthday this year.  After all, I do not want to be ungrateful.  As the famous quote says, growing old SO beats the alternative, and who the hell am I to be crying about turning 25 years old?  Anyone older than this will probably stop reading this now in disgust, and that's a risk I'm willing to take! 

At the same time, birthdays are a time when people tend to reflect on where they are in life, and both years (last year and this year), I can't help feeling stagnant.  Like I'm in the exact same place I was a year or two before.

It has been about a month since I really, seriously committed to accepting the call I believe God has on my life, going to Latin America.

I am aware of the what involved with this (serving communities, helping children, orphans, widows, whoever will have me), but am still unsure of the how.  My constant prayer is , "Here I am.  Send me."

I want so badly to believe in committing to the beauty of our dreams, in co-creating with the Universe, in a God who makes all things work for the good of those who love Him.  I believe God puts dreams in our hearts for a reason...  but that doesn't always mean they come true, at least not in our timing.  Anyone who has struggled with anything, and/or has watched their friends do so, knows this.

And yet I continue to search for organizations and schools where I could be used, to reach out to friends, family, anyone who might have some clue or some insight into how I can make my dream become real.  (And to search for a therapist to help me not go into cardiac arrest the first time I encounter a tarantula in my house!)  People may continue to accuse me of being unsafe, careless, not smart.  What I don't want to be accused of is not trying, or of settling for what I like, when I know I could have aimed for something I love.

One year ago, I was crying in my apartment because I was not engaged/ married.  This year, I am questioning whether I am in the right country.  Part of this may be that we are never truly done growing.  (Something that for over-achievers, and recovering perfectionists, like me, is hard to accept.)  But the other part is that some of us have such a hard time believing that where we are is perfect.  And that one day, when we get our dreams (and I am chasing around 5 kids, in the Dominican Republic, with my gorgeous husband... if we are to be sharing dreams!), we will look back and see that each birthday was part of the plan, that it wasn't an easy journey, but it was worth it.  And maybe, just maybe, we'll be jealous of our 20-something-year-old selves, having a birthday alone, without complications of kids, marriages, and dogs to walk... maybe!