August 14, 2009

  • pluto (no dogs or planets allowed)

    So I saw a bumper sticker on Facebook the other day; it said "hey, do you remember back when Pluto was a planet? Yeah, those were the days." For some strange reason, it made me think. Maybe it's a combination of this being a bit of an odd point in my life, and the fact that I'm spending the week at the beach with plenty of time to reflect back on myself and how much life has changed recently. Either way, it really made me laugh a little bit when I thought about what life was like back when Pluto was a planet.

    On August 24th, 2006, Pluto was demoted from a planet to a "dwarf planet." (Thank you, Wikipedia). I was just starting my senior year of high school. My heart was in shambles, my faith was rock bottom, and I was still fighting the same self-esteem issues I battled throughout middle and high school. I didn't understand a lot about life and what was important. I still barely tolerated my younger brother, and my grades were pretty miserable. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Essentially, it was a time of uncertainty and there was a lot that I didn't understand.

    But at the same time, there was a sense of blissful ignorance; a lack of knowledge of the challenges life still had in store for me over the next three years (give or take a few weeks). The struggle of finally learning to embrace school and perform up to my potential and actually begin to work towards a career path; the experience of truly having my heart beaten to shreds (for a number of reasons) and the joy in standing on my own two feet and finding my way back to the surface again. I could continue with a number of other things, but that isn't the point of this. I guess I just saw that bumper sticker tonight, and really realized that we have absolutely no idea what life has in store for us. In three years, I could be anywhere. I could be living in another country, I could be married, I could still be living at my parent's home in Bowie; heck, it's only through God's will that I'll be alive, if I am. We really have no way of predicting the challenges or obstacles we will face.

    Part of me is scared by this; thinking back, I'm not sure if I would have done everything the same if I knew some of the hardship I would experience as a result of seemingly innocent choices. But I'm learning each day to trust God more, because I really have no other method of maintaining some sense of calm. You don't have to agree with my faith or even see the reasoning behind it; I take no offense to that. But for me, it provides a calm in stormy waters. For some, an 18 credit semester may simply seem like a minor trial. But for me, an 18 credit semester with four evening classes, combined with a job, responsibilities at church and a strong desire to be involved in the lives of the youth at Trinity, as well as the occasional time with friends, is terrifying. There's so much that could go wrong and it will be incredibly easy to become overwhelmed. Yet, I find calm in knowing that there is an exact plan for my life, and I am simply living each day to discover it. I can't help but question it sometimes; that's just my nature. But at the end of each day, I can lie in bed and know that I have some purpose for existing.

    So thank you Pluto, for all the good times back when you were a planet. I can't wait to find out what else life has in store for me, and you. Who knows? Maybe you'll earn your planet status back someday.

    I'm rooting for ya.