twenty, take-two...

I've been twenty for more than six months, but celebrating Kate Day on Thrusday started me thinking about that number again. I was blissfully distracted for my own Twenty Day. Maybe now that I'm fast approaching twenty-one, I can finally think about what it actually means.

Two decades. A quarter of your earthly life, if you're lucky. Two times ten. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Your age seems a lot bigger when you write it all out like that. It's not just a single number, but one more added on to your story. The new number doesn't replace all the old ones, it extends them a little farther.

I've been hearing and seeing for twenty years, walking for nineteen years, talking non-stop for eighteen, reading for thirteen, writing nonsense for twelve, flying alone for ten, had all my teeth for nine, drinking coffee for six, driving for four, and out on my own for two.

But I still don't have it figured out. I'm still trying to figure out who I am, what I'm doing, and where I'm going. Twenty years is a long time, shouldn't I know all that by now?

I think perhaps our problem has been just that: trying too hard to find the myself. Our culture tells us that's all we need.

In Modern on Thursday [and you thought walking, bending, and stepping sideways was easy], Jovita was explaining a movement. The details were getting extensive when she finally stopped and said in her perfect Swiss-American accent, "don't think. just move." That was all we needed - to stop analyzing every little movement of the process and just dance.

I think that I need to stop trying to know twenty years of myself, and focus more on knowing an infinity of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

and how could such a King
shine it's light on me
and make everything beautiful again
and i want to shine
i want to be light
and i want to shine
i want to fly