22.
Twenty-Two. This time last year, I went home the weekend before my birthday and gathered with my California friends around a huge table for dinner & laughter. Back in New York I spent the week visited by a dear friend and my mentor, and the weekend at my first real bar excursion. I remember feeling that 21 opened up many new things, but the wisdom was found in learning that just because something is open, doesn’t mean I always need to go in. While that week was lovely and celebratory, the season it fell into was hard & dark. I thought for a while that I would certainly not be coming back to New York (a story for another time maybe?), but now, I ache for the city & can’t wait to return. 21 taught me to wait out the storm and assess the wreckage after. Sometimes the damage is incredibly fixable, but we never know if we let the storm force us out entirely.
There have been incredibly sweet moments over the past year, like seeing [gather] grow, meeting new, wonderful people, moving across the world to Paris, traveling to Italy, Spain, England, The Netherlands, and more. Interning at my dream organization under my role model, being a bridesmaid in one of my best friend’s wedding, leading a summer camp of beautiful girls, starting a new relationship. There have been hard things too - seasons of depression and doubt and incredible wrestling, the loss of friendships, the struggling to move past old insecurities. I feel different, but I know this change wasn’t the overnight turning from 21 to 22. I sat and reflected today on the things I feel I once was that I am not anymore, and the things I am instead, realizing that transformation isn’t instant - it’s built up by the little moments when we bravely choose to embrace change.
I wrote last year that my prayer for this past year was not that I would be suddenly and wildly different, but rather that I would be patient and peaceful and gracious in the change that would come. I didn’t ask or pray for massive circumstantial change, but something more internal, more lasting. So much HAS changed - I never thought I’d live in France, run an international ministry, be in the relationship I’m in. Yet what is most prevalent to me is I can see that there are things I have learned to lay down, ways in which I have grown far stronger, and I think these are the biggest things we can ask for.
In honor of a new year, I want to share some of the things I am working on this next year of life. Let’s make it 22 things. Just for the fun of it.
I want to work to -
make decisions with less time & caution - with more speed & faith
cast rational fear in an ensemble role, but not let it be director
not equate vulnerability with weakness
swallow pride & feast on humility
make presence my priority
speak encouragement more than I speak criticism
tell more people more often about the loveliness they possess
rise & sing praise, not rise & scroll instagram
pray over circumstances instead of let circumstances be over me
decide what is important to me - fight for them
know that just because something isn’t easy doesn’t mean it isn’t right
tell people what I need & expect instead of just assuming they somehow already know
be a fountain of grace, but hold to standards
celebrate the wins of others more often
see food as an instrument of pleasure & sustenance, not guilt & weight
not assume my solutions are right for everyone’s problems
express gratitude
spend less time editing life, more time enjoying it
not rely on others to push me to God, but to bring myself to the throne alone
cultivate deeper & more intentional friendships - know that distance doesn’t excuse un-intentionality
plant more dreams, then learn not to forget to water the garden
make big plans, have big goals - have grace in the space between their slow fruition & my finish line
May this be a marker to come back to in a year when that “2” is replaced by a “3”. By this time next year, I suppose there will have been more change, more additions and subtractions to this life I live. It’s wild to think that while we can’t control the external, the internal only has improvement to encounter if we really set our minds to it. Here’s to that. Here’s to 22.
