From ballerina to southern belle: the growing up list.

I never really had an answer for the “What do you want to be when you grow up?” question when I was younger.  I’m sure there was the usual ballerina response given quite often, but that goal was crossed off the list when dance stopped being fun and started feeling like work.  When you’re thirteen, nothing you want to be when you grow up is supposed to feel like work.

When I stopped dancing, I joined theatre.  When I felt too old for theatre, I became a cheerleader (somehow as a teenager that seemed like a mature decision).   Performing and crowds and music were all I knew since I was four, and it was all it took to make me feel alive.  It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I decided to let go of a stage and try all of the other things that I often daydreamed about.  I ran track, took photos, wrote articles, ran for student government and volunteered at church.  I have always had this [slightly] irrational fear my entire life that if I don’t try everything I think I could love, I might miss out on finding my niche—the one thing that makes me, me.

When I left for college, my love for all things music landed me an internship at a small record label and found me declaring a major in Music Management.  It wasn’t long after that I found myself in a serious, three-year relationship.  For the first time, I felt like I had finally figured the future out.  I became head of a department at a music-merchandising company, getting paid to talk records and go to shows every weekend, and I found my perfect tour manager boyfriend.  Add marriage and children and a white picket fence to the “growing up” list and I thought in the next few years I would have everything crossed off.

But when you’re young, you feel infinite, and undeservingly feeling infinite ultimately leads to failure.  I gave up my job for my future husband, and my future husband eventually gave me up for a job.  Everything I ever thought about being when I grew up suddenly felt so far away.  I fell into these post-production jobs in the world of film and television—these very “L.A.”  industry jobs that brought an outer sense of importance and an inner sense of emptiness.  Fast forward a couple years and I found myself burned out and confused, giving it all up to move to the other side of the country and volunteer for a cause I believed in.

…Which leads me to this year and an ever-changing “growing up” list.  This has no doubt been a year of brokenness, growth, and learning who I am all over again.  With this season, I’ve begun to entertain ideas of futures I never would have considered for myself years ago in California: starting my own non-profit, becoming a missionary, writing for a magazine, and even going back to a record label.  Of course, Wife, Mom, and Southern Belle are still at the top of the list (Paula Dean is partly to blame for that one).  I have never been so uncertain of what lies ahead for me, but what I can be sure of is that God knows all.  And at this point, I’m so attached to Him that it’s as if I don’t have a choice but to want what He wants for me.  It’s a natural desperation; a plea for better paths. 

I am convinced that God doesn’t place desires in our hearts aimlessly, and that He longs for us to find ways to use those desires for the good of the Kingdom.  So, if you’re feeling lost or unsure tonight, take some time to talk to Him.  Like a father delighting in the triumphs of his children, the God I know wants more for our lives than we could possibly compile into any list.