Twenty-One

I've been trying to write about my journey through my twenty-first year of life for an hour. Every time I begin, I erase it and start all over. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not yet ready to let go of 21, or if it's because there is so much packed into this past year that I can't figure out the most perfect place to begin.

So much simply changed this past year. I don't feel like I've grown a year older, I feel like I've literally evolved into a different person. Some parts of the "new" me, I absolutely love. Other parts, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with.

I look back to last October and it's somehow like looking into yesterday and back through a millions years all at the same time. I've gotten married, graduated college, found a job, moved into an apartment, had E deploy, lost friends, found friends, and realized what it meant to be a true friend.

I've wasted money and saved money. I've forgotten that I don't like to be blonde . I've missed school and in the same breathe thanked God that I was finally through. I've learned what weakness is all about, and how I am anything but it.

It took me until the end of my twenty-first year to finally realize that you can extend the most loving hand to someone who you have put all your confidence in, and they may still make the choice to turn you away. To these people, I have come to know that I must continue loving them, but I do not have to continue putting myself into a situation where I cause myself pain. I don't have to understand why because the why doesn't really matter. That has been a tremendous life lesson.

But I've also learned that the absolute best of friends don't have to talk every day. They may fight until what seems like the death, say things they don't mean and not talk for months and then one day, it will simple be over and you will realize that after the dust has been blown away, the foundation of a friendship didn't even crack. That has warmed my heart and reminded me that even though I expect the worst, the worst doesn't always have to happen.

I have painfully understood what it means to miss someone, and I have looked the concept of death in the face as I mourned silently - sometimes audibly - with a woman I have only met in passing as she learned of the death of her husband serving overseas. For the first time in my life, I grasped what could happen. I experienced the fear of someone knocking on my door, only to discover it was a neighbor who had no idea of what that noise did to me.

I have learned that the best day of my life was not my wedding day; it was the next day when I woke up and realized that every day, for the rest of my life, I will wake up married to the love of my life. I have realized that God conditioned my heart to love so deeply that I could never in a million years express exactly how I feel about my husband.

I have discovered a favorite quote. "People learn how to treat you based on what you accept from them," and this quote has changed the way I think about life.






Twenty-One, you will always be remembered as my year of Change. Despite it all, I wouldn't have had you any other way.