On Thursday I read a quote my Michelle Williams cited in a magazine published, as life would have it, by the very same company that just that day offered me the position of a lifetime, the type of position any recent graduate would dream of. The quote says, "I don't believe that life is linear. I think of it as circles - concentric circles that connect." And now, just days away from turning 26, my life truly has come full circle. A circle that consisted of 12 odd years, 5 different homes, visits to 7 different countries, learning another language, sweat, tears, excrucating pain and indescribable joy, friendship, and recently, love. These are the 12 years that my family has been living in the United States: 5 years of high school, 4 years of college, 2 years of grad school and time in between. For 9 of those years I lived in North Carolina; for about 8 of those I was itching to leave, dreaming of my life in a perpetually warm climate. Now, however, after 3 years spent in continuous summer, the good Lord has found it in his will, it seems, to send me back to where i couldn't wait to leave to begin with, with an opportunity for work I'd be an idiot to turn down. Just when my future was sitting at the crossroads of "Bleak" and "Utterly Depressing" I found an alternate route that has turned my world up-side-down. Life is ironic. After the job offer, I was left having to make a decision that was 100 times harder than any other I've made in my entire life. Do I pack up my life for the 6th time in 12 years, leaving behind family, new friends, my dog, and venture out into the world alone, again? Maybe 'alone' isn't fair. This time I'll just be leaving one family to be closer to another, and closer physically yet surely further away emotionally from love. What would life be, though, without its twists? And what would
my life be without its hard decisions? The way I see it, the Lord has blessed me with the ability to adapt to my present needs or situation, to thrive there for a time, but then to always find my way back to the loving comfort only my home and family can provide.
Maybe moving back to North Carolina is just the next stepping stone towards the future I set out for myself and that, hopefully, is in God's plans for me.
I'm not without my fears. In fact, this time I'm petrified. But what's that they say about overcoming a fear? Tackle it head on. Maybe I just will.
