Crap. Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
It took until about the second week of 2018 that it hit me. Crap. This May is the 20-year anniversary of when I graduated from college. Crap. Not high school, but college. Crap, crap….you get it.
Twenty years. Twenty years? How on earth?
In so many ways, it feels like yesterday. I still remember outfits I wore on dates, crazy pranks we played and the names of the sweet souls we played them on, and the dreams we all had. By we, I mean my pack of fun, amazing, blessings I was lucky enough to discover in college and call friends. I still see two of them regularly and we have shared the best and darkest days of the past two decades.
I remember the smallest of details, but yet that amazing season that ended almost twenty years ago (—-!) seems like a lifetime ago. That twenty-years-ago-girl – yes, girl – more than likely would not recognize the twenty-years-later-woman – who still thinks she is a girl sometimes – and I wonder what that 21-year old would think.
First, I hope she’d be thankful. Thankful for friends who were instrumental to her college experience and who are still a vital part of her life today. For a career that has been rewarding, meaningful, and, some would say, had a few sprinkles of success over the years. I hope she’d be grateful that her parents are still alive, in good health, and a part of her life because some of her friends are not that lucky. And, most importantly, I am certain she’d be thankful for the two blessings added to her life in 2008 and 2010 – and that God fulfilled her deep desire to be a mommy and did so with a boy AND a girl…just like she planned around 1998.
I also think she’d be sad. Sad that she’s not a size 4 any longer and that she can’t eat the Shoney’s chocolate fudge cake with wild abandon these days – and obviously, that’s only because Shoney’s aren’t as prevalent as they were in 1998. I think she’d be sad over loved ones who have passed and friendships that have not been maintained for a variety of reasons. She would be beyond sad – crushed, heartbroken, devastated – to know that sometimes the “right” love doesn’t last no matter how hard you try, how much you pray, and how much you believe in the institution of marriage.
But, I also think she’d be hopeful. She’d cling to her theme verse from college – and really everyone’s theme verse from college – Jeremiah 29:11.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
She’d know, intuitively and admittedly a bit naively, that she clings to this promise regardless of if plans are evident in the moment. She’d, again naively, tell the twenty-years-later-version-of-herself, to hold firm… that God knows you and loves you and has always had plans for you. And that, no matter how off the rails things seem, and how far off the 21-year-old anticipations things are, they are still hopeful. And they still have a future that will not ultimately be harmful.
Now…anyone know where I can find a Shoney’s?
