"I'm in no hurry," was what I told the Starbuck's barista when he was having difficulty locating a lid for my drink, back in December. I realized as I said it that I wanted to live this year like that.
But, not just this year. I want to live my life like that, in the sense that I am not in a hurry. Not in a hurry to get somewhere because I am running late. Not in a hurry to be in a relationship, be married or to have kids. Not in a hurry to buy my first house or my dream car, or to do anything that I'm going to look back on and think, "Gosh, that went by too fast."
Because slowly but surely, that cliché phrase, "good things take time," is making a whole heck of a lot more sense. Why would I want to wish away some of the best years of my life by wishing I was older or wishing that I could get to the so-called important moments of my life? I've learned and changed so much over the past year, why would I want to disown it and wish for something else that I think might be better? Sure, I kind of wish some things would have turned out differently, but that's life, and oftentimes you learn more on the journey than you do at the destination. What you are given in the end will be ten times better than anything you've lost on the way.
Some days I wonder what it would be like to have already attained or accomplished certain things in my life, somehow thinking that my life would be better then.
But, I'd be wrong. These are some of the best years of my life, because they are quite possibly some of the ones where I will grow the most in such a short amount of time. They're the ones that are making me a better person. You know, "patience is a virtue," and all that.
I want to embrace each moment, and live it to the fullest, because I will never get that exact moment back, whatever it may be. Things don't happen the same way twice, and even if they do, they always look a little different.
I was talking with one of my friends the other day and his words kind of mirrored my own in the sense that we're both in a similar season of our lives.
"A season that is often thought about as the in-between or waiting season, depending on how you look at it. I'm starting to realize something a little different, however. It's not in-between because you're in-between relationships, or in-between important things in your life. Sometimes it's actually in-between you figuring out who you are, where you're meant to be and getting there. Other times it might be in-between figuring one thing out that you need for the next stage of your life, and then walking it out when you need to. In another aspect, it may be in-between you realizing you need to let something go, and the time and process that it takes for you to follow through with it."
When he and I were talking, he reminded me of something that sometimes I forget to remember: what's the hurry? We've got so much of our lives left to live, why does it all need to happen now? I'm not missing out on anything by not being in a relationship, or not knowing exactly what I want to do when I graduate college. As long as I'm taking the steps to figure out where my destination is, it will all work out in the end, and I'll grow even more while I'm at it.
"Sometimes the journey is the destination." -Unknown
