C-ville - Phase Two

Fair warning to all reading: I have just finished my second helping of frozen yogurt, the yuppy version of ice cream, and have been imagining myself on tour with Luke Bryan all week. This may be a bit more internalized than some posts. Proceed at your own risk.

I had a plan once. I was seventeen and entering college. My high school sweetheart and I had just rekindled our mildly tumultuous relationship, and this time, it was different. I loved him, he loved me, and we were going to be together. We were young and in many ways naive. But for a fleeting moment, that decision was real.

Our relationship followed the path of many first loves in that at some point, we realized we needed to experience the world, discover who we were outside of one another. Perhaps that exploration would bring us together, although we knew our paths would more than likely grow further apart until we were but distant memories faintly harkened by a particular song.

Indeed, our paths led us different directions. I would be lying if I said I did not have a moment of sweet nostalgia every time I hear "When the Stars Go Blue", but he is not what I miss. Our relationship was wonderful in its time, and I have been more than happy to leave it at that for many years. I do, on occasions such as these, post froyo and ensconced in country music, miss that brief period during which I had a succinct vision of what life would be.

Now I simply ask, "What is a five year plan and does anyone actually complete one?" Five years ago, I had a plan to go the whole nine yards with a young man. Three years ago, I anticipated getting a job in Cleveland and hopefully still living the small town dream with some lucky man to be determined. Instead, I was prompted to move to a foreign city for a job with a thriving marketing company. I had learned my lesson, though, and was going to be very conservative with this timeline. I would be satisfied envisioning myself at the company for two years - no guy in the equation, just working toward the top of the marketing world and enjoying my early twenties. The job was ideal. It was in my field of interest, office dress code included jeans, and the employees were young.

Last Friday, I quit. Reasons were plenty, but the most pressing was that of God's prompting. It was clear and unavoidable, and ironically, it was twenty months from my date of hire - not twenty-four as planned.

I am making a deliberate decision to let go of plans, as they seem often to go awry. I do struggle with the idea that in six months, when I am tired of serving at a restaurant and juggling whatever other part time gig I find, I will wonder what the next step is. When people appear to be following the illusive road of upper middle class idealism, I am guilty of momentary envy.

Mostly, though, I feel liberation and hope. Liberation from the burden of having to know where I will be in five years, next year, or even next month; hope that while I have absolutely no idea what God has planned for me, He does, and He will bring it to fruition despite my many attempts to seize control. And throughout that mess of a process, He will find a way to work through me and touch someone's life, if only in a small way.