Fresh
in 2011, I travelled across the U.S. with my best friend. We were 3 months shy of our 1 year wedding anniversary and had completed 18 years of uninterrupted education. We followed “the rules” checked off the boxes, and survived, or were surviving, the big economic disruption of 2008 and President Obama’s first term. Chris, my husband, received a job offer in San Diego California, and I saw my dreams coming true. Finally, I would be returning to Sunny SoCal to live out my dreams of being a Cali Girl. So, we set out from Maryland, and took a route that “put a little smirk on the U.S.” We eventually put a smile on the U.S. after Chris accepted a better job offer in his hometown, causing us to treat San Diego as a rest stop and continue driving up the west coast eventually settling in Kennewick, WA home of the tremendous tumble weeds, open skies and anxious quail.
We arrived, and for the first time in my life, I had to face my insecurity of not being enough. I was confused and at times upset. I couldn’t find work in my field of study, had to start paying back my loans, and while my husband landed an incredible job making enough money for the two of us to live comfortable in a city with an incredibly low cost of living, I felt lost. I looked back over my life and had my degrees, I had my internships and networking, I had my discipline and determination, but I was young, educated and unemployed. That’s when I experienced what I then coined and have heard others refer to as a quarter-life crisis. I was 25 and not doing what I had envisioned for my 25 year old self. But after several weeks of doing nothing and fearing that I would start appearing as a mooching newlywed wife, I eventually hit a point of frustration with the way I spent my days and hours and took on a new challenge.
I was always a writer. I still have a few of my little illustrated stories that I wrote in kindergarten and 1st grade. Shortly after starting grad school, I decided to start a web log and yearned for the day when I could dedicate undivided attention to writing. I have over 20 journals that I’ve written in over the past 15 years and I can’t tell you how many blog posts I have written and what I have in progress that hasn’t been published. I. love. writing. So I decided to revamp my blog, even renaming it to “For Future Reference,” as a mile marker and time capsule containing artifacts of my young adult life and lessons learned.
During that time, I heard about this book titled, “30 days to Live”. I decided to take on the “30 Days to Live” challenge where every day, I wrote on my blog and shared answers to a few questions in the book. It was incredible and shifted my perspective on things. I can’t remember every lesson or idea that I was smart enough to type it up in a separate Word file so I could revisit my thoughts after shutting down my blog. Incredibly enough, after my 30 days of living as if I only had 30 days left, I received a call from the CDC offering me a position as one of 25 fellows to participate in a 3-year, post-graduate public health fellowship and residency program. After the initial excitement of being accepted into my dream job, followed by worrying about another relocation in less than 9 months, Chris and I packed our bags and drove right back across the U.S. to start life a new and come full circe in Atlanta, where we met in 2008.
Today, we live in Southern Spain, or SoSpa as I affectionately call it. It’s beautiful and a dream and a country that I said I wanted to eventually live in years before we both had a job, when we were two broke graduate students and newly weds trying to finish the final lap of our graduate and academic marathon. Here we are in the 12th month. I am currently unemployed and while that’s the standard for Military Spouses living overseas, I know it’s not my standard, nor am I worried about finding work or making money. Right now, I’m more interested in the end, crafting my mission statement and locking in to my “Why,”.
That’s because for months, I’ve been trying to figure out what I really want. And it’s interesting because I hired a life coach in 2016, who I will miss working with and who I love. Despite all the time we spent together, I feel I’m back where we started, except this time, I have a few more tools in the tool box and don't have to be stuck. And because God knows me better than I myself, He led me to a sermon series from Andy Stanley, a pastor that Chris and I have followed since attending his church back in 2011. So, to start off the year, Pastor Stanley asked us, “What Do You Really Want?”
And of course that was confirmation for me, because I couldn’t answer that question and soaked up every morsel of that message. Well it got me thinking. Specifically the exercise about writing our own obituary and the fact that life really is short. So, after hemming and hawing about whether to create a new blog site at the start of the year or wait until later in the year, I’m just going to do it! I’m going to write and share when I need to share, but I’m going to write this experience because:
- It’s time to castrate and eradicate the excuses so they don’t procreate;
- It’s time to stop living like I’m going to live forever;
- It’s time to write my story!
And to write that story, that I’ve heard God tell me to write for years, and even more so since arriving to Spain, I have to start with the end. I have to work my way back, from the cradle of the grave, where we all meet our fate, and ideally our loved ones will gather.
Photo: Edward Bowden
Before I wrote out my obituary, I watched this incredible scene from one of my favorite Netflix TV Series. On Grace and Frankie, towards the end of season 2, an old friend and neighbor, Be, returns to the beach community from yet another whirlwind adventure. She’s older, possibly in her late 70’s, appears to be single without children and she lived the proverbial life of a jet setter. She’s also living with cancer, which returned all over her body after having treated it some years earlier. In this episode, she asks both Grace and Frankie to honor her request of assisted suicide and a “party to end all parties.” She doesn’t want to live through more treatments and chemo, she doesn’t want to suffer the pain of cancer, she’s lived her life, has great memories and wants to end it on her terms. Of course her friends have to accept this reality even if they don’t agree to it. And of course that episode had me thinking. Had me thinking how I would love to have a life where I get to travel, meet people, see new places, inspire and be continually inspired and if cancer is the villain that must steal my life, I’d like to handle it on my own terms.
But before I get there, I at least want to have my story documented. I want to write it for my progeny and I want to write it as a memory, something to remind me of God’s hand in every step of my journey. That is the Bible in many ways. It’s the written journal and history of God’s work and wonder in the lives of so many. It’s the evidence of the things unseen and seen, known and unknown in written form. It doesn’t capture every detail, every waking breath. Even if Snap Chat existed back in that day, we, the modern consumer of the Bible, might need 5-year Bible Plans to get through it all. Instead, we have what we need and we need what we have and we receive inspiration, motivation and reminders through this text. So, I’m writing my story, and I’m going to finally begin because one day there will be an end.