Fate

I have found that there are many iconic moments in life - graduations, marriages, births, deaths, etc... However, for some reason, I seem to collect a number of iconic moments that are on a much smaller scale, and yet still burned into my memory. Some of them are rather bizarre, like the fact that I can still recall the date when one of my high school boyfriends and my friend "Janis" broke down on the interstate at 1 in the morning (and then I subsequently got locked out of my parents' house!) or the fact that I can recall trying to sync up the song "Family Affair" on my computer, as well as my housemate, "Marcia's" so that we could have virtual "surround sound" as we got ready to go out one night. Oh, the crazy memories!

Tonight, I was reminded of another one of these memories. It was ten years ago to the day (today is/was my birthday eve) - and I can even tell you what I was wearing! I remember that I had a meeting on campus (I think it was at the Roost, for any Etowners reading this) and I was walking across campus on a beautiful, star-filled night. I opted to cross the Dell (for those non-Etowners, the Dell is, as the song describes, a giant lawn covering about 1/3 of campus) rather than taking the gravel path. As I walked and looked up at the night sky, I felt an incredible peace come over me. I knew I was going home to my favorite place (our Sauder House) full of some of my favorite people, as it was the first semester that I was living the girls who would grow to become my sister-friends. I loved my college, I loved my classes. Two weeks prior, the whole world had been brought to its knees during the 9/11 attacks and yet my life felt incredibly buoyant and hopeful. Later, I would learn about Maslow and his "peak experiences" and I can only describe this moment as one (as you can probably tell by this entry, I cannot even fully describe it). I remember thinking of how many things I had to look forward to in life - but how content I was in the moment. It didn't matter that I had papers to write, that I was single, or that I didn't get to spend my birthday with my mother for the first time ever. I felt incredibly blessed in life; that "my cup runneth over." I truly felt like that was the exact place I was supposed to be - and in hindsight, I was absolutely correct.

Tonight, this memory returned as J. and I drove home from our day in Lancaster County. Perhaps it was the Switchfoot song on the radio (how many times did "Only Hope" play in our house?!), combined with the Rhino fries in my belly, but I couldn't help but wax nostalgia about Elizabethtown. As I stared up at the stars (finally! a clear sky amid all these days of ark building), that night ten years ago came flooding back to me. Ten years. A decade. Nearly 1/3 of my life has passed since then. Someone once told me that my 20s would be the busiest chapter of my life and they certainly were correct. So many life changes have happened between then and now. Yet, I found myself comforted in the peace and serenity that I had found on that night walk. I didn't know the direction that my life would be heading in, but I was trusting of the process. The past few weeks/months, I have been ruminating so much on what is out of control in my life instead of remembering to just offer it up as I used to be able to do so effortlessly. Tonight served as a gentle reminder that life doesn't have to be perfect as you envisioned it to be for it to be perfect as it needs to be. It is incredible when the 19-year-old version of myself can continue to teach the "nearly" 29-year-old version of myself. I am even more blessed than I was a decade ago and my cup now needs to be a basin (or at least one of those king size Slurpee cups I saw at Shady Maples today!) to hold all the love and gratitude I have in life.

Coincidentally, I found a penny in Rockwell's tonight. My mother always tells me that whenever we find a penny on the ground that God put it there to let us know that we are exactly where we should be in life. Somehow I find great comfort in this thought.

So, with 5 minutes to spare in my 28th year, I toast to the wisdom that I have gained, the wisdom I have yet to gain, and the serenity that is always within my grasp if I embrace it (and an extra toast to those extra-special Etown sister-friends who I'm thinking of tonight!).