Seasons Turn (Turn, Turn)
Stopping to smell the roses in a world that rarely does.
My whole life is a series of full planners. I recently came across some of my old agendas from school, filled with color-coded homework assignments, weeknight and weekend rehearsal times, post-it note to-do lists, and barely any blank space.
I have never been one to slow down. Slowing down always seemed a weakness to me, free time was a myth, and sleeping? Merely a suggestion. My outlook on life has always been to live it to its fullest, most colorful completion, but in retrospect, I took this to an extreme. There's nothing wrong with being busy, but it's a balancing act.
I remember battling with myself and with God about staying in California for the next year after graduation, to find clarity, seek Him, and pursue acting in Hollywood - I’d just signed with a large agency in Los Angeles. But I am an Academic. I love school and acquiring knowledge and skill and being challenged in an academic environment. My friends were scattering off, and for me to remain here seemed a failure and like I was cheating myself of the school admittance I’d worked so hard receive. I was frustrated and scared and in constant prayer about it for a month, until I came to my decision at 11:50 pm the day of the deadline. Ten minutes to spare - about the same time I make all my decisions, if we’re being honest.
In the beginning, I was made consistently anxious by my lack of activity. I assume this is probably what withdraw feels like, and in stripping away my full schedule I felt bare. I had to sit for the first time in my own being, and come to the hard realization that perhaps I didn’t know who that was. So I set off to figure some things out.
“Everything has its season”
The most crucial nugget of wisdom I learned is that everything has its season. Some seasons are for us to enjoy and recuperate in, and others are busy and cramped, but either way, there’s something to be learned. While it was hard initially to accept this year as a season of rest, once I did, I was allowed to fall into a rhythm of taking what I was experiencing and soaking it in with only the sweet sort of appreciation that comes with the decision to sit back and just absorb. While my schedule eventually did fill up again, I eliminated the excess that was unnecessary for me and my goals, and filled it instead with things that were able to shape me into the woman I saw myself becoming in the future. That’s the thing about a full schedule; it isn’t bad to be busy, but there’s a difference between activity and productivity.
“There’s a difference between activity and productivity ”
Another thing I’ve learned is that sometimes your path doesn’t go alongside everyone else’s. This was hard to digest. All of my friends were off on new adventures in big cities, and here I was, in the same place I’d always been. For a long time, I looked down on taking a “gap year”. It seemed lazy and unfulfilling to me, for people who couldn’t grasp any semblance of who they were. But to be honest, it ended up being the best decision for me and my own road, because at the end of the day, it wasn’t anyone else’s life but my own. Without this time to breathe before I embarked on the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be as grounded, I wouldn’t have known who I was apart from the roles I was playing or the grades that I earned or the friends I had. Now I get to go full force into the future with a firm grasp on who I am and who I have yet to become.
So many unexpected and wonderful things have come out of my year spent here. Wonderful, warm relationships, countless adventures, travel, and a renewed joy in my relationship with Christ. He has shown me that in Him I can find rest and redemption through all seasons, fast or slow, and that His joy is perpetual and sustaining through it all.
The fact of the matter is, life doesn't slow down. Time will never slow, so the only choice we have is to slow our own pace to enjoy the time as it moves around us.