Twenty Eight: 10. Catching Up

Cruising along the river, with my car windows down & the radio blaring, I screamed as loud as I could until the summer sun set. For the first time in my entire life, I was moving out of the house & on my own. I couldn’t believe it. Full of emotions I didn’t understand & desperate need to explore, I was finally making up for all of my lost time & free to play catch up in the real world.

Ten summers ago, I did my impossible & started growing without my family.

I didn’t need to feel this way. Feeling behind everyone else.

But after a lifetime of homeschooling, & a limited run in public high school, it was hard not to.

The world is big, & my only exposure to it for years was through movies or books at home.

The world got a little bigger, later, through youth groups & classrooms.

But while our world was spinning one direction, I felt like my own world was spinning the opposite direction.

Catching up had to happen if I was going to stay alive.

I’m not sure I’ve ever caught up fully, but the journey of catching up at all has been enough to save me.

Going to college, traveling out of the country, working several dozen jobs, living in a dozen different homes, falling in & out of love, losing or rebuilding my mind & body, meeting millions of people, & so much more …

The journey was wild.

I took whatever money or scholarships or support I could to do whatever sounded awesome.

My conflicting independence & co-dependency were steering all of my decisions.

I didn’t have a plan for a decade.

It was a blast.

It was also reckless.

& it was scary.

As you get older, perspectives change.

I see all of the situations & people & their blessings I would have died without.

I don’t regret anything I’ve experienced or done.

I do want to reward those people & their blessings one day, though.

The next 10 years is where I think this is going to happen.

Without the ache of feeling behind everyone else, I don’t need to play catch up anymore.

Knowing my place & my worth, feeling more whole, makes it simpler to begin spending more time being grateful & matching all of the energy & resources poured into me the last 10 years.

It’s going to be a slow process, but I’m excited for it.

I have some people in my court who have witnessed & fought for me & my worth for so long. They never thought I needed to catch up, they rightly believed I needed to confidently be me & thrive.

Some of those people are my new family & some of those people are the family I’ve always had.

As I settle into myself, I’m hopeful I can honour & reward what they’ve all supported for so long.

Since I’m all caught up now - now I’m settling in.

38 will be something else …