and now life really begins….go to it.

When I was about 13 my mother gave me a CD of A Chorus Line. For those of you less familiar, it is a musical (which I still haven’t seen) about a group of actors auditioning for a musical. One of those play-within-a-play things… except the opposite. Throughout the show you see into some of the characters’ pasts and begin to understand more about who they are and perhaps why they went into performing.  In the middle of the sound track there is a three track montage where all of the characters recall their teenage years. The montage begins with Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love and includes one of my favorite lines, “Gee, I’m almost ready! But what for?”

I remember listening to this soundtrack for the first time on my walkman (remember those?!) during one of my family’s annual car trip from Alabama to Pennsylvania.  Now, at 13 I was a bit shocked by some of things I heard, specifically in this montage.  There was lots of sex, some homosexuality and plenty of teenage insecurity. I still remember sitting in the back seat silently shocked and worried that perhaps my mother had forgotten about these things (she hadn’t) and I wasn’t really supposed to be hearing them. I now use this as a humorous picture of what it was like to grow up with my mother. There wasn’t really any censorship but somehow I was still very certain that were I to act out any of this behavior there would be Hell to pay.

Now finally to the point. One of the final lines, “and now life really begins” has always stuck with me. The characters have just finished recounting all sorts of interesting, inappropriate and somewhat horrifying pictures of their adolescence and the last thing they say about it is, “and now life really begins, go to it.”  All of the horrors and struggles were preparations, making them the adults they grew into. Those struggles weren’t the point. 

Adolescence is an interesting time, there’s so much growing and changing and every new challenge seems like you’re fighting for your life. Every challenge feels like it’s the END OF THE WORLD, but really, it’s just the beginning, preparing you to be an independent thinking human being. I began a blog by this title directly after college assuming that it was the beginning of my life. I was an adult now. I would get a job and a place to live, pay rent and bills and somehow all of that would make me a “grownup.”  I’m now well into my twenties but I still feel like I’m only just beginning to grow up. I’m a long way from feeling like a “grownup,” and every challenge still feels like THE END OF THE WORLD.  I’d like to think that it’s because all of my life, not just my teenage years, is merely a preparation for the life I was meant to live. I will always be growing and changing into the woman God wants me to be. The life I was created for is not this one it one much grander than I could imagine. This side of eternity I will only get pictures of it, but if I can remember that this life is merely preparation for where I am bound, perhaps that will help my perspective. And hopefully help me gain wisdom and understanding from the challenges and the triumphs that life on this earth has to offer.

So I am naming this blog as such because really, life is always only just beginning.