Essay on Arrival

If we could all pull out the map that lead us to the selves we are today, what would that journey look like?

I imagine mine filled with pit stops, some planned, and some accidental.

A lot of adventure, a lot of getting lost, and yet, somehow, through a shortcut in the wilderness, I’ve arrived exactly where I was meant to be, right on time.

I’m 37, and every year I say, “This is going to be my year.”

But if I’m honest, it often feels like a rerun of the last one.

At Thanksgiving, our family reuses the same tablecloth each year — the one covered in doodles and notes from everyone who’s ever sat at that table. I always add something funny, a little wink to the fact that I’m still sitting there solo. A tally mark for every year “she’s still single” I think we’re up to six years now. Maybe seven. I’ve lost track.

All of that to say — our maps may look like wild rides at first, and then long, flat plateaus. But what I’ve learned is that every year I’ve spent waiting for it to be “my year” was really a waiting game for something, anything to happen. And the truth is, it can be your year. The only difference is intention.

Be intentional about the small things, eating better, moving your body, writing, building tiny habits, and actually keeping them. Don’t wait for something to happen. Make something happen for yourself.

This upcoming year, when the clock strikes twelve on December 31st, I’m declaring it-The Year of Bravery.

By next October, I’ll be taking myself across the world to Paris and living out my dream honeymoon without the “when I get married” condition attached.

For years I told myself, “One day, when I get married, I’ll go to Paris.”

But why wait for permission from life to live it?

The other day I found an old journal entry from when I was 21. It talks about how one day I will go to Paris.

At the time it was a dream, I knew I was blowing smoke. When you’re that young it seems like catching a star that you’ll never reach.

Especially when you’re that young without an ounce of financial education. A lot of lessons have been learned since then. I’m sure you could fill in the blanks, because no one goes through life without getting lost even if you followed the GPS.

Still, it was easy to keep saying, “One day, when I’m married,” as if the dream depended on someone else’s arrival. A husband.

But I’ve realized, it wasn’t just Paris I did this with.

I’ve doubted my own future ambitions, treating them as if they weren’t truly mine to claim. As if my reflection couldn’t possibly resemble who God called me to be.

But He calls us toward the thing burning quietly inside us.

For me, that call is writing, adding feathers to words, turning my thoughts into birds.

I know that’s my calling because it mirrors the Creator Himself. If I am made in the image of God, then creativity is not only allowed, it’s sacred. It’s DNA.

This year, I’ve confirmed the call upon my life when I went through old bins of journals and found poems and essays dated back to teenage years. When I found the journal I blogged when I went to Haiti in 2015, I hand wrote every detail. I journaled every day I spent on that trip and looking back at those types of things now just solidifies it for me. Because if I’m being honest, there’s been many times where I’ve wanted to quit and find some new map for my life.

There have been countless moments when I’ve questioned why I keep chasing journalism, or why I keep sending submissions into inboxes that may never open them.

But these journals really put it in perspective for me. I really can’t quit something that I didn’t realize I truly was all along. The essence and framework of my being.

Surely, I will continue to live that out.

Not to prove its worth to anyone else, but to stand in awe of it and say , wow, I already know it’s worth.

Just book the flight.