leader-follower

I was never very good at being me when I was a kid. I always had older friends who seemed to know what they wanted, and so their wants became my wants, and their likes my likes. I was a follower--but I hated every minute of it.

I remember one day, after our Unicorn Club meeting had been adjourned (I realize after typing this that I've never told any of you about my Unicorn Club days. But, that's right, yours truly was the secretary in The Unicorn Club. Think Babysitters Club, but without the babysitting--or any sort of purpose at all--except that our president liked being president and telling us what to do. I distinctly remember a unicorn journal, and we may or may not have put our index finger on our foreheads to greet each other...), we were all laying belly down on president April's bed looking at a magazine. Our knobby knees were bent up with our feet crossing and uncrossing behind us--our chins getting red marks from resting them on the palms of our hands. Jessica had brought the magazine over from her mom's house. It was a fashion magazine filled with beautiful ensembles and beautiful women.

It was always a treat whenever we got our hands on one of these magazines. We would flip through each page and examine each outfit carefully, commenting on which ones we liked best. Eventually this evolved into a sort of game. Everyone would have to choose which outfit they liked on each page--I hated it. I hated it because I wanted to be like everyone else, and making a decision on my own seemed like death to me. So I would sit there and be the very last to choose. I would pretend that I couldn't make up my mind, and always ended up choosing an outfit that at least one other girl had deemed acceptable. There were even times when someone would go to point and I knew where they were pointing and I would shoot my hand out from under my chin and say, "I like that one", just as the girl's finger would point to the same one. We would laugh and say "Great minds think alike"--conforming minds think alike too.

I've grown a lot since then. I now have a style that I like and my own (strong) opinions. I hate that the words "green" and "organic" are being used everywhere and that I, also, happen to really like the words and what they signify. I think guys with nice cars are not as attractive as guys with normal ones, and the rise of technology is legitimately starting to concern me. But I still feel like there are parts of me that aren't solid yet. I'm still floundering a bit with this "Who am I and what do I believe?" question. You would think at 24 that this would be mostly solved--but then I look at people my parents age and I think, "MAN, this is a process."

I'm excited about this next phase. I think I'll be growing into my own in that big city of Seattle. I'll be pushed and pulled and prodded and punched (hey, it's a sketchy city), and I'll come out more ME than I've ever been. I wrote a really introspective email to a friend when I was in Seattle last week. It was an emptying of the brain email and there was a portion that went like this:

"But, who will I become here? What will I hold dear and true and what will I throw out? I hope that everything I throw out is on purpose. I hope that it is a PURPOSEFUL throw--and not just a tossing of inconveniences. I hope that I become more ME in this next phase. The ME that I want--not the ME that just develops without hard work and sweat and tears. I want the ME that I choose. Intentional Me."

And that's what I want. I want to be INTENTIONAL in this next phase. I've got work on myself to do, well, God has work on me to do, really. I think I have a long ways to go before I become a force to be reckoned with for God's purposes (ultimate goal)--but I think that I'm on my way. I think that God is really leading, and I'm really loving following, for once.