They told me about how much there was to learn, to touch and feel and see and taste. To experience and hold and roll right around in.
They told me it'd be marvelous, the best sort of adventure.
There would be firefighters, they said, right alongside all of the teachers and preachers and doctors and lawyers, and don't forget about the princesses, of course.
Well here I am, all grown up and not grown up at all, stumbling my way through figuring life out like a toddler taking her first steps. I'm wobbly right now, but some day I'll find my footing.
One of these days, I surely will learn to walk.
When I was five, my ambitions were many.
I wanna be a teacher, or maybe a waitress because I like food a lot. Mama, I don't want to leave Disney World, and Daddy can I go and live with the elephants? You could visit me all the time.
Growing up wasn't scary back then; it was just the next big adventure. Well, here I am, on the other side of little, and life is really big. I'm not a Disney princess, though I very well might be a preacher one day.
Lord-willing and man-allowing, that is.
My ambitions are still many, though I like to think they're a bit more realistic (except that part about living with the elephants, I'd be okay with that lifestyle any day).
Discovering yourself, uncovering bits of who you are inside is what growing up seems to be all about.
I've always loved to paint, and I still love to paint. Broadening my horizons has taken me to places of drawing and singing and arting of all sorts, because somehow in those spaces I find a little bit of God.
Nose piercings are my favorite, and my tattoos capture my heart in the most whole way possible.
I'm convinced that birthdays and holidays and all other celebratory times call for a second glass of wine, please.
An awareness of the world has slowly but surely seeped it's way into the cracks and crevices of my grace-filled life, and I'm no longer the little curly-haired blond seeing the world through big, blue eyes.
My eyes are more downcast these days, because the world that I see is one full of hurting and pain and groaning of all kinds. There are so many dragons to slay, so many walls to crash through.
I'm not as naive as I was when I was a child, but I guess that's how it's supposed to be. As we grow, we change, and somewhere along the way we have to start living like we are aware of the world around us. A dear friend of mine once said it and I think it's really true: at some point we become accountable for what happens in the world. We see it, we take it in, and we either turn a blind eye or we engage.
At some point, we have to live the messy.
The messy is hard, but it's real and good and calling us close.
So here I am, at the corner of Grown Up and Still Small, attempting to live the messy as best I can and quite honestly doing a terrible job. Some days I ugly cry, and most days I smile at the little things. Tomorrow I'll double the eyeliner and try to take on the world, and I'll probably spend the rest of my week wishing I could be Queen Elsa so that I might freeze the patriarchy. On Friday of this week I will sit down and talk about my future with my oh-so-wonderful adviser, though by "talk about my future" I really mean ask the poor woman every question under the sun about how my life will turn out and why don't I know every answer and outcome yet?
A lot of people say to just pray about it, as if I spoke it out enough God would write my life how-to up in the clouds real pretty, but if we're being real in this space, I don't think that's how God works.
Maybe the not-knowing is a part of the life-trusting.
Maybe I'll pray about it real hard and still not know what tomorrow will hold. Maybe God will give me wisdom to make decisions, or maybe the Spirit will empower me to be real brave, but when it comes down to it, I think God wants me to live my way into it all, to take hard steps into deep, dark waters with courage and integrity and all sorts of noble fruits.
Maybe this is part of what it means to faith it.
Because when we are unsure of so much, we can be sure of what has been made known: to live in love is a beautiful thing.
I wish this had been my answer, so many years ago. When they asked little Lauren what she wanted to be when she grew up, I wish she'd said that: a lover. I want to live in love, because some days it's all that I'm sure of.
I want to be a dreamer, a Shalom-seeking warrior that sees this world through a lens of hope and redemption and sweet, sweet resurrection. I want to see beauty, because Ralph Waldo Emerson was spot on: beauty is God's handwriting.
My desire used to be to change the world, but I'm starting to move away from that life. What seems to be more realistic, what seems to be my calling (indeed, it is all of our callings) is this: to love real deep, one person at a time.
To learn the art of simply listening, because we all have stories to tell.
To quiet my own voice every now and then, and to fill that empty space with the voice of another, more necessary one. We're all shouting so loud that we can't hear each other speak.
To speak up when necessary, because sometimes my words are called for.
To love others well, because this is the life-giving path.
To love myself too, because self degradation has no place here.
To begin and end with Jesus, because if Peter can keep believing, then I think I can, too.
Oh it's so messy, this business of growing up. I hardly understand it all, but I do like it a lot. They said it would be marvelous, though they never explained to me what all that word encompasses.
They never said that marvelous could also be terrifying.
They never said that marvelous could be amazing.
They never said that marvelous would mean late nights and long days, high school jobs and crazy college memories. I never once heard about all of the flights I would take or the people I would meet, and no one told me about how I would fall in love with the world that is reading. I didn't realize just how intelligent I could be, that my limits would mostly be man-made, and I was never warned about every awkward circumstance I would find myself in, usually due to a simple act of idiocy on my own part. Who knew you could be simultaneously intellectual and also incredibly dumb. If I'd known about all of the heartaches, maybe I'd never let myself feel, but if I'd known about all of the good times to come, maybe I would've taken them for granted. I never realized that growing up actually meant growing down, that the bigger you get the more minuscule you begin to feel. You see the great big sky above you and those glorious mountains in the distance, and you watch documentaries like Cosmos and suddenly you realize just how very grand the universe truly is.
And we get to live among it all, in the midst of stars and solar systems and suns and black holes, all of us, both me and you and that person over there, get to live among it. We are even a part of it I think, because we are Children of the Earth.
From dust we came, and from dust we will return.
In a world in which I exist, in which I am cells and star stuff and some amazing sort of substance, I have one short story to tell. I'm living it out, day by messy day, and as each moment passes I am learning to mold opinions of what I think of it all.
My thoughts are many, though profound they are not. They're more for my own sake than anyone else's, because forming opinions of faith and growing up and culture and life helps me to make sense of it all.
To work it all out with "fear and trembling".
It's scary, this great, marvelous adventure. It is big and small and wobbly and real. Tomorrow I'll probably fall, though hopefully one day I will fly. It's kind of nice to look around and to see all of the other little birds though, all of us trying to seem so confident while we're likely all the same inside: feeling small and vulnerable, terrified and so uncertain. We need each other I believe, because no one should ever adventure alone.
There is so much I am unsure of, so much I don't understand. Most days it feels like pretend, like one, massive game of fake. Let's get all dressed up for weddings and decide to play house, because I still can't walk in heels and I giggle way too much. I don't know how to do this, can someone please teach me? Can we all figure this grown-up thing together, or better yet, can we all just build a fort of blankets and watch movies underneath it for hours upon hours?
I don't know how to do this perfectly, and I don't have all of the answers. I'm not sure anyone does (except maybe Beyonce, but that's because she rocks at life). Most days my life is held together by grace and lots of laughter, but I think maybe that's how it's supposed to be.
All I'm really sure of is this: growing up is some sort of beautiful.
This is me, today. This is the grown up, yet not grown up at all Lauren, through and through.
Who are you growing up to be?
