Monthly Monday Musing

Last Friday I turned 34. The nice thing about a birthday in January is I take the month to think through anything I want to “resolve,” and then I can have my birthday as a second New Year’s Day. This year on January 1st I resolved to floss more regularly. On January 27th I decided I would try to learn the art of being a work-in-progress, and to practice that through Monthly Monday Musings. For the next year, I will work on pieces of writing. To embrace messy writing that isn’t quite what I want it to be. I’ll work on each piece for a month’s worth of Mondays. I’ll try to edit a bit each week and see what that’s like. Sometimes I may change a sentence. Sometimes a few paragraphs. Sometimes burn it down and write it again. I am a work in progress (Phil 1:6) and these will be Works in Progress (thanks, 2015 Sarah, for already making that the blog’s subtitle).

Dear 2010 Sarah,

I thought about you yesterday as we drove south down 441, through mountain towns, through Athens, and farmland. I thought about you most in Athens, of course. I had to pinch myself a bit to keep myself from going too far back in time. 

What were you imagining then? This car full of the glory of the ordinary would not have been anywhere in all your foggy, mostly British images. A husband? Maybe, one day, after quenching my need to live in big cities and travel. Children? I like children, I think, to teach and inspire and then to go home to independence, to doing what I want to do. 

There haven’t been any big cities, Sarah. Actually the towns have just steadily gotten smaller. There was no journalism career (but really, did you think it was going to fall into your lap or something?). There was a master of arts in education, meeting a fantastic man in Augusta, Georgia, teaching, marriage, now two children. These facts utterly surprise me with joy when I take a moment to step into your shoes, to see what I thought would be and what has been. Praise the One who gives us what we need, not what we want.

Love,

Sarah, 2023