expectations...and pinterest quotations...

I apologize for the strange formatting...I've tried a few different things that just aren't working...so please bear with me...

I just repinned a thing on pinterest. One of those simple quotations in a straightforward font, on a plain background. It read: "A year ago, I would've never pictured my life the way it is now". And it's true. I probably wouldn't have repinned it if it weren't true; if that sentiment isn't always true. The thing that strikes me, and sent me to blog about it, is that the person who pinned it, from whom I repinned it, was pinning it out of a place of delightful surprise over her current circumstances based on her previous circumstances and expectations; which is how I would have pinned it a year ago. I imagine that a place of delighted surprise is also how those who pinned it previously, and those who pin it after me will continue to pin it. While I'm certainly not saddened by my current circumstances, they are not what I was expecting and, at the moment, not necessarily delightfully surprising...

But perhaps that's because a year ago I wasn't thinking as far away as a year from then. That's strange for me. Not that I spend hours each day dreaming about where I'll be a year from this moment. It's more that, for what felt like so long before, I'd had something a year or two out to be excited about; to be expecting. 

To be honest, a year ago, I wasn't thinking much about six months ahead, let alone a year; there are a few reasons for that, actually. A year ago I was lucky if I had moments in which I believed that a time far enough ahead, when I would no longer have a dissertation lingering looming overhead, existed. My mind was full of sources, theories, genres, authors, page and word counts, and deadlines (little ones that were slipping by, being edged back, and one big one that would not/could not be pushed or budged or imagined away). But it was not just a paper that was keeping my mind in the present. It was the fact that once that paper was done (which seemed impossibly distant) I'd have to pack up, say goodbye, and do some sort of re-starting somewhere new or new again. So, again, my mind didn't much get past November (what with the Color Run planned). One year ago, I was looking forward to the little accomplishments, getting finished with the coursework; going to see Rhys Darby with Becky in Dublin, figuring out how to start my dissertation, writing that first sentence, first page, first chapter. 

During that time I thought ahead generally, about what I might do, what I would rather be doing, what else I could be doing. In fact, I had to set boundaries around my thoughts of planning; knowing that planning would have inevitably become an easily justifiable excuse to not work on the then dreaded dissertation.

Had you told me a year ago that I not only would have my dissertation finished and handed in on time, but a bit early, and that I would indeed graduate, I would have nodded kindly (thinking that you were quite possibly insane) and then possibly, hesitantly, believed you, but then gone right back to worrying. If you had also told me that because of finances I would not be able to attend graduation, I also would have sadly believed you. If you had, on the other hand, told me about some of the crazy jobs I've had the opportunity to apply to, or about the month and a half that I worked in a warehouse in Downtown LA digging my way through mountains of books, or about that certain week, earlier this year, during which the number of dates I'd been on in my whole life nearly doubled, I would not have believed you.

At first glance, looking back to where I was a year ago makes this current place and season seem a little bleak.  Remembering the stress of a year ago, however, makes me grateful that it is past. Knowing what I accomplished in the time between then and now makes me proud, and thankful for those who supported me, and prayed for me through it all. This quotation isn't simply about where I am now compared to where I was then, or even about how I may have pictured now when I was then. The truth that struck me into blogging about a pinterest quotation is that I won't be in the same place that I am now, or that I was then, in another year, and that keeps me looking forward. Knowing that God is, was, has always been, and will always be in control of it all makes me hopeful, and thankful all over again.