a bit dicey

Reminder:

"the life you've been waiting for is happening all around you.
This is it,
This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around us
disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events.
But pull off the mask, and you will find your life, waiting
to be made
chosen
woven
crafted."

--Shauna Niequist



It's interesting to me how predictions can be so wrong,
i.e., the weather.
Today it was predicted that it would rain. If I noticed correctly, it mildly sprinkled for 5 mins earlier this morning. But the rain could still come, for the day is not yet over. So sometimes it's not about predictions being wrong but that they are wrongly timed.

I've avoided making many predictions for my life. Well maybe that's not true. I haven't had many specific predictions for my life. I think I remember having conversations at the age of 16, saying I wanted to be married by the age of 22 and have my first baby before 25. WHAT was I thinking?! Approaching the ripe old age of 23 this year, I cannot imagine that life for me. Possibly the marriage part, but definitely not the baby-making part. I am coming to terms with the fact that everyone's stories are so, so different. And we cannot predict or define what is best for us, for only One knows that, and His ways are very unconventional.
Unpredictable, in fact.
[ note: looking up "unpredictable" in the Thesaurus, I found "hanging by a thread" and "whimsical" both as synonyms. I would never put those two together. ]

I've been obsessively and repetitively reading Shauna's speech to a group of college graduates. (see; above)
It fit for them on graduation day and it fits for me right here in a different graduation of sorts.
I'm moving on from the life of a nanny to working at an office downtown. I'll soon be living with not just one other person but two lovely friends. I am moving down from one layer of my heart deep into the originally created me, going scared but going nonetheless.
And when the going gets tough, I need to be reminded of truth like this:

"Commit to being a lifelong learner, a person of relentless curiosity.
And become a student of your own developing self. Pay attention to what moves you, what you love, what makes you angry, what makes you exhausted. There are no right answers to those kind of questions, but if you don't pay attention, you may find yourself several years down the road, living a life that looks good on paper but doesn't ring true to the deepest parts of you. That's a terrible place to be.
Become a student of what you love, because what you love flows out of the way God made you.

That wiggly, sometimes scary feeling like anything could happen and you don't totally know what's next, that feeling is called Life, and it would be best for you to make friends with that feeling
because it will be with you forever. It would be best, as well, for you to remind yourself that you're not the only one feeling it.

You are more than dust and bones.
You are spirit and power and image of God.
And you have been given today."