When I Was 19

I wrote the other day about how I always get big ideas when I'm about to leave for work. Another place where my mind really just goes wild is when I'm driving. I'll be headed to school or work or wherever I have to be and all of the sudden a phrase or image will pop into my mind. It's often inspired by the music I'm listening to. Usually it has something to do with whatever big decisions I'm trying to make at the time.

Yesterday, as I was driving home from school, I was thinking about college and UVU and my ever changing ideas about what I want to do with my life. I was thinking about how big of a change I'm going to be going through in about six months. Then I realized... Everything that I'm doing right now, all of my big dilemmas and uncertainties, they're all going to be stories one day. When I'm older and have everything figured out, when I have kids that are facing similar issues, I'll probably tell them about how I was absolutely clueless about what I wanted to do during my freshman year of college.

I'll be able to tell them that it isn't necessary to have everything figured out when you graduate high school. I remember thinking that last year. I thought that I needed to have a specific plan. I also thought that I was ahead of a lot of other people that I knew because I was sure of my path; I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. That couldn't be farther from the truth these days. I've changed my mind about everything this year. I want to be a different kind of person, I want to go to UVU, I don't want to be an English teacher. These things are all big in their own right and they all leave me with dozens of new things to figure out. I'm not really close to having any of them straightened out in my mind.

That's ok, though. There's nothing wrong with having to take some time to figure things out. I'm still in school and I'm still working. That's the important thing. I don't need to have things figured out completely as long as I'm still moving forward.

This whole thought process was at least partially inspired by Jocelyn's blog that I mentioned a while ago. It was her idea first that these are the things she will be telling her children one day. So when I'm old and have found my place in the world, I can tell my kids that when I was 19 I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with my life. But I figured it out.