I've been thinking about this post for a long time. Much longer than when I first learned I'd get to be a part of 25 Days for Peace, even before I moved to Columbus. Call me a narcissist if you'd like, that's alright.
How often do you look back at who you used to be and wonder what they would think of you now?
This was me:
I'm probably twelve or thirteen in these shots. I loved those camo pants. I found out later that a couple of my peers used to try and toss erasers down the back of them during classes - I was entirely unaware of that game. Tom boy was definitely the look I was going for. I embraced my middle school awkwardness with gusto. I was shy, but not uncomfortable with who I was. I had no reason to be, no one in my life had ever given me a reason to.
This was the bad year - as little as these pictures probably show it. A better hair cut, contacts, more make up, those were the signs of my insecurity. An experience the summer before I started high school sent me spiraling into a depression I couldn't control. In an effort to fit in with a handful of people and to somehow express what was going on inside of me, I embraced heavy eye make up, dark clothes, and darkened hair. I was questioning everything and carrying around a lot of anger. I didn't really want to be alive anymore. It was too hard.
But God, in his unbelievable grace and mercy, rescued me. He completely wrecked my world, brought me literally to my knees and in the midst of my tears lifted me out. It was, to this day, the most beautiful moment of my life. Once I gave up trying to fit in, it was easy. The people I had tried so hard to connect to finally saw me for who I was, and while I got to keep them for a time, God had better in mind. I made amazing friends those two years. My sophomore and junior years were goofy and silly and wonderful. I had committed to the dark look, but now I did it for other reasons.
I wanted to make people look twice. My smile was bright, I was coming out of my shell in leaps and bounds, but my make up was still dark and my hair over my face. I wore predominately black, when I could manage it. I loved to see the confusion on people's faces when I opened my mouth and a personable, warm, energetic kid came out, rather than the sullen adolescent they were expecting. I wore my pseudo-emo style with pride. Behind it, I was a rule-follower, through and through, rarely questioning authority.
My youth group was my world these years, and I was sure I would never have better friends than them. I was usually surrounded by boys, and I was comfortable with that. Girls usually caused drama, in my short life experience, I did not have patience for it. The few girls I let in were precious to me. The theme of these years was floating - I made choices, usually good ones, but didn't think too far ahead. I had been through my fire, and I thought the worst was over. God had changed me, and this is who I would be forever.
God had a very different plan. My senior year of high school threw me into a place I never imagined I'd be - something an outsider might call popularity? For any of my high school classmates who may read this, please, feel free to laugh. It's really quite funny, looking back. But for years, my friends and I had been self-assigned dorks/geeks/nerds/losers, whatever term seemed fitting in the moment. We were the drama club, the band geeks, choir nerds. We had slumber parties and movie marathons, we didn't go to parties or concerts. We were in the mezz for sporting events because half of us were in the pep band. We didn't date and didn't care if others did. I felt invisible at school, for the most part, and I liked that. It was comfortable and easy and no one questioned it.
Then suddenly I was somewhere else. I had entirely different friends, I went to basketball and soccer games because these friends were on the team, and had the time of my life there. I had school spirit, for a hot second, before it was replaced by a new kind of rebellious energy. I felt like people could see me for the first time. I wasn't just the quiet kid. I was one of them, one of the people other people noticed, talked about. The whole thing was extremely high school, every part of every thing I was feeling. I loved it. I felt energized, I mattered, I could make a difference. I wasn't looking for it, but now that I wasn't in the shadows, I didn't ever want to go back.
Remember the eraser throwing? Yeah, the guy with the yellow 0 on his chest was the main culprit. Almost ten years after the fact, and I won't ever let him live it down. You're welcome Jake.
I was still me - the voice of reason when my new friends got hyped up about one thing or another, still a little more withdrawn than the rest, still a rule follower at my core - but a very, very different me. I still loved my style, and wore it like a badge of honor. It took on a new edge, something that came with my new frustration with school authority figures. As the year progressed, the outside edges softened while the inside ones sharpened. I started letting go of the residual tomboy instincts and the need for my appearance to be so stark. I lost weight too, not a lot, but enough that I didn't have the same baby face. Now I wanted people to see something sweet on the outside, but with more attitude on the inside. All of these changes brought new confidence I didn't realize I had been lacking.
I think that may be what started my fall. Senior year had me on top of the world, but it's also when I started thinking I knew what was best. I started making choices that I wouldn't have even considered before, I was hiding things from my friends at school and my parents, which never would have crossed my mind. I started taking steps down a path of supposed self-sufficiency that led nowhere good.
The summer before college was hard. I had ended the year on top of the mountain. Then I was alone. High school friends don't know how to be friends when there is no more high school, which is no one's fault. The youth group I had been so close to wasn't going to be home anymore - I think it hadn't been home in a while. I was in a secret relationship, that even when it came to light, still wasn't something anyone in my life approved of. I felt it was wrong, but I was so determined to make my own choices, consequences be damned. One of my closest friends told me he didn't want anything to do with me anymore, he hated who I had turned into over the last year. I got sick - really sick. I dropped 30 pounds and couldn't walk across my living room without stopping to take a break. It took the rest of the summer to be somewhat normal.
That's where I started college. Feeling like I had lost my whole world, my whole identity. My only support was my romantic relationship, which after only six months was starting to turn toxic. (The school had recommended that my parents not call me my first month on campus, to help me become more independent. A suggestion they make to all parents of freshman, with good intentions, but it wasn't what I needed at the time.) I didn't know how to make friends, didn't know how to define myself anymore. My hair fell out, I struggled to eat normally, and I spent all my time in my room.
Thank God for these women, who made the first steps toward healing me. My freshman room mate and the girl who would be my future room mate - they befriended me, the best way I didn't know I needed. They didn't ask much from me, but gave so much. Their love gave me the courage to branch out. The relationships I built on the floor gave me a foundation to try new things, start reshaping my identity. I was the quiet girl again, but my insides and my outsides finally started to match. I was a little off-beat, a little quirky, but warm and bright. I wanted to be known, although I still didn't know why, or how to ask.
Sophomore year of college was a year of change. I was making the best friends. I was learning more about God and about myself than I thought possible. But I was still stuck in a toxic relationship. I lived on a roller coaster that year. My relationship kept me stuck to the person I was, someone I hated, while my life at school was shaping and forming me into someone I loved. When I was with my friends - my girls from my freshman floor, my campus ministry team, and my friends from the ministry department - I was overwhelmed with joy and love. When I was alone, I was terrified. I knew I had to get out of the relationship, I knew it was killing me and killing him.
But I was scared. I had promised to love him forever, and I didn't know who I was if I broke a promise like that. I didn't let myself think about it. I blamed it on Seasonal Affective Disorder. I was panicked all the time. I felt like God had abandoned me - he never did, not for a second of it, I just refused to listen.
Finally, God worked through someone entirely unexpected, and she gave me the strength to break free. For my own health, and for his.
So here I am. That's my story. Why tell you all that? If you made it this far, you are likely wondering what this all has to do with peace (as well as why I pasted 800 photos in this post).
I'm trying to make peace with myself.
I'm still all those people. I'm still the carefree child, the hopeless adolescent, the rebellious teenager, the quiet kid, the uncertain young adult, as well as the healthier, somewhat more at ease young woman I am right now. All those people exist within me, all at the same time. It's exhausting sometimes. It's confusing too. The psuedo-emo definitely hates my borderline hipster style. The small child wishes I would spend more time reading and playing with puppies. The freshman in college me wonders why my boyfriend of a year and I aren't ready to get engaged yet. The girl I was as a sophomore in high school really hates the girl I am as a senior in college; I question things too much, I'm too open, I'm too liberal, and I change too much. I'm not what anyone expected me to be - at least, not what I expected to be.
This experiment is about searching for peace. While I've tried to write about topics outside of myself, topics that will interest and engage my world, I keep getting lost, getting stuck. When I started writing this - 8 hours ago - I wanted to make some peace within myself. Make connections between all these people I feel warring inside my head, give them common ground.
I think this is what I found:
God always knew.
He knew that imaginative child would hit so many roadblocks to grown-up happiness. He knew my first wrestling match with him needed to come early, because there were scarier things ahead and I would need to know how to hear his voice. He knew I needed to feel unexpected, because all too soon the world would try to mold me in its image instead of his. He knew I needed to learn to love and then be left, to love and then have to do the leaving myself, because I will spend my life walking beside people who have done felt both.
Thanks for reading. If nothing else, I encourage you to do this yourself. Find some old pictures and ask what the person in that photograph would think of who you are now. Why did God bring you through that stage of life? What did you learn? Maybe you won't know yet, and that's ok. But if you're like me, you might find some peace in just looking at the pieces spread out before you.
25 Days for Peace is a cooperative blogging experiment between myself and five other artists, designed to explore the facets of peace, particularly centered around this season intended to experience the peace of Christ. Visit this page to see the other contributions to this journey, and like it to join with us in exploring what peace means.
