'Tis the seasons

I looked back at the Waffle House sign I could see from the interstate, and I thought… I’ll just pass on by this time.

There’s something funny about leaving a part of your life behind. One of the most evident moments of that for me was departing from college. For me, college was the first realness of building myself and the life I had always dreamt of. It was the first sink-or-swim demand I received by default. Growing up with the most amazing parents, seeking their guidance over everything, I finally had to trust my raising and curate a mix of drive, personality, faith-driven actions, and messy mistakes that made me a stronger human. When that soup hit a boil, it was time to leave.

I sat in the driver seat of my adult life. Boy, has that Nissan burned some rubber… figuratively and literally. There I was, just a few months later, passing the exit to Caddo Valley. Soon, the big window to the Waffle House where I used to spy on first dates in college (no shame in being nosy, right?) was hidden by semi-trucks. I just kept driving to Oklahoma to be in the arms of my parents for a weekend and resume dreaming up a new life.

I quickly learned the number one question you’ll get asked in the first year of post-grad is “do you miss it?” Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes it’s no, but I almost always end the sentence with “it had its season.”

And it did. Just as the 9 months in the womb did, just as the years playing dress up did (or maybe that never really ends), just as the constant cycle of finding high school prom dates and dresses did, just as sharing a bathroom with your sister did, and just as everything from this moment forward will. Life is a constant series of seasons, some are sweet, some are heavy, but all are meaningful with little nuggets of wisdom if you look for it. 

A time for everything. I can’t seem to get that out of my mind. My pastor told us that the Holy Spirit will bring to light scripture that you haven’t read for a while if it's sealed in your heart because He knows what you need. For me, I’ve needed to be reminded of seasons. Ecclesiastes 3 lays it all out perfectly:

“There is a time for everything,   

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die,   

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

    a time to kill and a time to heal,   

a time to tear down and a time to build,

    a time to weep and a time to laugh,   

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,   

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

    a time to search and a time to give up,   

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

    a time to tear and a time to mend,   

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

    a time to love and a time to hate,   

a time for war and a time for peace.”

Seasons are Biblical. How could they not be a gift? Every emotion invoked, every sunrise and sunset, and every breath of life and breath of pain. And to watch lengthier stories like my grandparents' be traced back to a web so intricately woven by the fingertips of God, I know each of my seasons, too, are far from mistakes. They may never be perfect, but they are always just right.

I shed some tears in my first apartment; I welcomed new friends to my apartment too, though. I made some pasta, a lot of it actually (we’re carb cutting in 2025), I watched marathons of Friends not even knowing where to go to make friends like that when your Southern Baptist roots will always leave you skeptical of bars… but then, out of nowhere, I found myself busy, and busy with more than just work. I couldn’t stop hanging out with friends, I was barely even home. I was busy indulging in life. 

Nevertheless, I’d be a bold faced liar if I said I have everything I ever wanted at this age. I end almost every day saying “it’ll all work out somehow.” Your 20s also come with lots of walking into events by yourself, the first signs of back pain, a daily ritual of pinching pennies, a lot of failed Pinterest recipes, and, hey, if you’re lucky, someone might even break in on you in the middle of the night, but honestly, the chaos lights a bigger fire in me than perfection ever has. Where there is freedom and failure, there is strength.

To be totally transparent, I am in a profession where I always appear composed, but what you don’t see on air are the hard pills I’ve had to swallow in this season of figuring it all out, but that’s the beautiful part. Out of all the seasons of my life, this is by far the hardest, but it’s also my very favorite. Even if I sometimes feel like none of my ducks are in a row, at least they're having fun trying to form one.

So to the young lady transitioning into a new reality, buckle up girlfriend, don’t bother tying your shoes, they’ll come untied anyway, just dance around barefoot in the mud. It’s gonna get messy, but you’re going to learn from the truth of this little chaos we call life.