But Not Crushed

"For the first time in my life I've stopped thinking of myself as a child imitating an adult."
"You feel that way, too?"
-While We're Young, screenplay by Noah Baumbach


I'm in need of therapy, so I'll write.

On paper, 2020 looks incredibly exciting. But let me get real with y'all: I'm terrified. Every day lately feels like one more labored step up a mountain with an unknown pinnacle. And my sherpa never told me where we're headed. I don't know how far away it is or if I'm on the right path.

I wrote a book. It's about to be published and there are loving people in my life asking me about that, expressing their excitement. But I'm at a loss for how to respond. Right now, Friday, March 6 feels 30% like this big, exciting milestone and 70% like a day I'm scheduled for major surgery. My heart's on the page in this thing. I intentionally chose to be vulnerable for the sake of both myself and the readers.

But I also know the world is full of both kind and unkind remarks. I've never been good with that second category. The same sensitivity I harness on the page and on stage also ensures I feel whatever comes my way. I think I'm about to feel a lot of different things.

The book is just one of several big, new projects that leave me feeling like a girl cut into eleven pieces and thrown up into the air. No, not a girl--a woman. 2020 is the first year I've said out loud to myself, "I am an adult." I pronounced those words over myself in the car a week or two ago, on the way to pick up my son from school. You'd think that moment would have come sooner, but it hadn't. Not until now.

Now--when I walk onto a high school campus and realize I'm one of the teachers.
Now--when I'm learning firsthand just how much it takes to make a theatre show happen.
Now--when my last grandparent just got sung to heaven.

Now has me reeling. Now demands dependence. Because I sure don't feel like the adult in the room.

Please, Jesus, I'm clinging to your pants leg.
Can you hold me?





2 Corinthians 4:7-9