2015 is 5 years later...Crazyy!

2015 is 5 years later…Crazyy!

Five years ago (in September), I had a job interview for Sales Manager of Kum & Go.  Foot in the door after dropping out of college 2 years into my business degree since I could no longer afford internet…or, y’know, food…?

I was nineteen and my arms were green and scratched up after a long day of hauling pallet jacks and packing my quota of picture frames into xmas displays to ship out to wally world.  I didn’t even have time to shower before the interview.  The man in the suit and tie asked me, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I remember making eye contact with him, they say that’s the right thing to do.  Could he tell how scared I was?

“To be honest, five years ago, I could have given you a definitive answer.  But my life has been turned so upside down this past six months, I’ve learned that life just doesn’t always go according to plan.  I can tell you that I will be five years older and I am quite certain that I will be in a better place than I am today, even if that only means that I am five years wiser.”

Recently I turned on the “facebook memories” option, where it shows your posts over the last five years as a little notification in one place.  By recently, I mean May-ish.  Because that was close enough to July for it to make me nervous but far enough away to give me time to get comfortable with it, to get back in the mind frame before the storm long enough to brace myself for the fall.  And genuinely to look back in awe over how Yah has changed me since what I’ve coined, “the dark times.”

May 20, 2010 – rawr!

June 12, 2010 – KOSHKONONG babyy!

July 9, 2010 – “If my heart quit beating, would it still hurt this much?”  I don’t think this will ever quit hurting.  <#3

A year ago, we were taking pictures of our new $350,000 generator for the newsletter and making plans to add one to the top 8 grossing stores within the next five years.

I am so blessed to be back at Sonic.  While we were stocking cups on my second or third day, I had told a girl I had worked there twice before.  She asked me why I kept leaving. 

“Well, when I was 17, I moved off for college.  And when I was 18, it was right after my dad died and I kinda went crazy for a while.”

And now here I am back, full circle.  Five years.  Five years since we moved out of a meth motel (we stayed to ourselves, but we would hear babies crying and arguments about light bulbs through the walls at night).  But we only moved because a fireman busted a hole through the ceiling right above our room and destroyed everything with flame-killing foam.   Five years since almost being arrested for grand theft auto (it was a big stupid mix up that we were going to laugh about later).  Five years since Shane and Jess died.  

Five years since the mess with mom.

Five years since I chopped all of my hair off.

Five years since James got sick.

2015 is five years later.

And Sonic, with all of its improvements, really hasn’t changed.  But I have.  And so much assurance comes from what Yah is using the experience to teach me about myself.  I’m writing this, up way past what has been my bedtime for roughly the last five years, just enjoying being awake with my beloved.  2015 makes ten years for us. ;)

But for everything else it seems, 2015 is five years later.

I’ve learned that life doesn’t always go according to MY plans.  I am five years older, five years wiser (and wise enough to know that wisdom only comes from The One Who Transcends Time) and I am in such a better place than I was then, full of shalom – wholeness and fullness of peace, walking with Yah, happy wherever I end up. 

Even when I am birthing a wisdom tooth.

“If your presence goes, I don’t wanna stay.  If your presence stays, I don’t wanna go…”

-Shane & Shane, “Without You”

I just couldn’t quit singing that today… :)