John Meyer didn’t just sing it in a song. A quarter-life crisis is a real thing. As I’ve floundered around aimlessly for the last year or more, I did not realize it had struck me until, well, recently. Yet it seems I have accomplished already a lot in 26 years, somehow often having the sense of knowing what to do next. Numerous mission trips throughout high school and college, traveling around the world, earning my Bachelors degree, marrying a wonderful husband, gaining my dream job as a nurse in a foreign country, learning multiple languages- it appears like I’ve had it all. However, last year I was somehow been unsatisfied, all the while trying to feel at home in world that grew increasingly foreign. On the one hand I seem to have achieved all these things but along the way in reaching my goals, I had lost sight of the true prize.
For over four months now this post has simply been edited and saved countless times, waiting on the inspiration to lead me to publish and officially begin the blog. And the motivation finally came. Last week I had the chance to meet a very dear young woman, a fellow American with Alabama roots, whose sweet and twangy accent had my heart yearning for my homeland. Our stories are similar in that she, too, will marry a man in the summer and move to his hometown in Germany. As I looked in her bright but questioning eyes, I found that I was looking at myself three years ago, remembering how terrified and yet excited I was, how I could not fathom all the joys and trials that would lie ahead.
This blog is actually a collection of thoughts- or rather outbursts- that I have managed to scribbled down since living as an American wife in Switzerland. In no way have I figured it all out, but my desire is to share my experiences and hope that it might spare others the pain of mistakes, guide those through the unexplainable shame in aimlessness, as well help those find a home when they feel they have none. Two years ago I had a strong impression to begin a blog; that the trials of fire I was and am experiencing needed to be used to help others endure theirs. Yet I have hum and hawed and for over a year and a half, jotting down thoughts when creativity or (most often) desperation lead. Despite procrastination, my intentions in beginning such blog have been and continue to be purified, my vision honed in on the future, not just the here and now. But procrastination and twiddling my thumbs is over, and my obedience to what I believe my Savior is leading me to do has finally won. At least today.
So although the passion of “new year’s” goals has rather dwindled, here is to new beginnings. Maybe I’ll review the pages of scribblings in my journal, or maybe I’ll share of the new that 2016 will bring. Probably both. Perhaps in 10 or 20 years I’ll be laughing at my silly quarter-of-a-century-old self, but I hope nonetheless that this blog bears fruit, and that others are also inspired to live a conspicuous and adventurous life.
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