Life is Kind of Like Colouring...

You always look at a place, at a thing, see a person, differently when you are first getting to know them.
When you are unfamiliar. 
As I drove home the other night down 85 S, passing the exit signs, the same landmarks on the side of the road I've seen for over 4 years now, almost: I thought of this. Whether it's been here while newly moved to Atlanta or prior to that, traveling to all parts of Atlanta for gigs, I have watched this previously unknown place of dozens of traffic signs, exits and 6 lanes of traffic expand in my mind to something so much more than just a sight for my eyes.

Truly: how different this place is to me now.
I have passed these exits that I get off at, passed the Chamblee-Tucker/Mercer University exit countless times in the past for gigs and never even noticed. They meant so much less to me, because I had nothing solid to associate them to. No people, no places, no activities. Just a drive to work or a long drive home. Just another gig in this big city with the bad traffic.

Now, everything is different. I know this place. Suddenly, these exit signs and city places that started like blank coloring sheets have been coloured in and brought to life.
These exits have significance and meaning now - people I know live at those exits, that's where I go to swing dance, my school is off one of those exits, that exit is the one with the good Walmart and that's the place with the Kroger that has the gas station with the cheapest gas. It's all so significant now, and now I'll drive by and think of memories and thoughts as I pass these places and names.

How amazing that is to me, to watch the transformation. I've seen it before - I saw it in Macon, too. But it's especially amazing in a city as big as this, because never have I lived somewhere so incredibly vibrant and large and exciting, not even Orlando. I came here alone, and when I stop to think about it, that's a crazy thing. I came here alone, knowing almost no one except a single friend or two, who was kind enough to start showing me around. My family is all home in Florida, and I've watched as I was just a girl recently graduated from high school, never lived alone start to figure things out, piece a life and pieces of herself together to make something lovely with her very own hands.

I am in love with it all. I feel intoxicated with life, happy even in the midst of my saddest days, my downtrodden mood or my discouragement, which I have a lot of those. Sometimes I just sign and feel old. Too young to deal with it, too old to complain: old enough to know I have to put my head down and push on through, no matter the struggle. Sometimes I'm over it. If it's not one thing, it's another, as we all know so well.
But you know what? That's ok. Because I'm here now, and I'm making it, and I've done it. I've set out on this adventure and I have reached it, and now I am experiencing that thing that for so long I could only imagine as a vague and distant dream. And it's so much more than I could have ever imagined. Never would I have guessed that I would stumble upon so many wonderful things: Friends, farmers markets, favourite coffee shops and parks... random passerby's with stories to tell, a perfect place to live, a blossoming and successful business and (one of my favourites): dance. I am so overwhelmed by happiness for all of these things, despite the fact that I could also never have imagined how difficult PT school would be, or that I wouldn't have health insurance anymore, or that I would still be struggling with getting my Blood Glucose nailed down after all this time. It's hard... it really is.

But I'm making it.

God has taken me on so many journeys in these past few years, and I'm so thankful. It hasn't been easy - these have been the hardest years of my life. The saddest. Some of the happiest, too. God has shown me new people along my way, people who have come to care for me as I care for them. God has shown me that although hardships will come my way, I have the strength to make it through. Faith in him, and faith in myself and the willingness to always reach for higher have been such important things to remember. The ability to accept the bad, reflect on myself and use my experiences to grow have been parts of growing up. Do bad things happen? Yes, they do. And truth is, I can't tell you why. That's just the way of this world we live in. God doesn't promise us easy lives, and as I've grown I've certainly seen that fact come to reality.
But he's also shown me his unending love, his greatness through the things that have happened, the people I have met, the events I have witnessed, the obstacles I have overcome.
It is enough.

In light of this being midway through the semester and I've been talking to a lot of my fellow classmates, or just friends not in PT school in general who are feeling a little unmotivated, I just wanted to think on these things today and reflect on how beautifully things do come together even in the midst of a struggle.

Hard pressed as we are, struck down as we are, the important thing to note is that we aren't destroyed. We are capable. Strong. We are weak. Emotional. We break down. But we will and we can, push through. That's the way life teaches us, the way new things are revealed to us. Does everything happen for a reason? Does it really? Every little thing, I don't know. But I know this:

Perhaps most important is what you choose to do with the things that happen both to you and around you. That makes all of the difference.


" 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned;struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."