quirky full circles

i used to think being able to see the future would make things better. then i waffled back and forth with whether i'd like that or not, before finally reaching the point where i am today: content with where i am. and laughing at the idea of wanting to see the future, knowing that i probably would not believe it if i saw it.

sometimes life comes full circle for me in the funniest ways. on friday at work i was sent on an errand to buy cigarettes for someone (not even kidding). it was the first time i ever bought any (still not even kidding). i was embarassed to be buying them actually - smoking disgusts me. when i see politicians smoking in front of the capitol, i want to tap them on the shoulder and say, "really? it's 2012 and you're still smoking? you do realize this makes it ten times more difficult to take what you say and do seriously, right?"

i brought the cigs back to the conference room, interrupting a meeting to give jack his fix as he thanked me and the man next to him said, "hey chelsea's going to be a reporter, she'll write stories about you so you'd better be careful around her." (i got a full-time job as a reporter and start next week! woop woop!) then he told me he has a summer home in holtwood, along the susquehanna and wants me to do a story on the waterskiiers.

would i have believed it if someone had told me when i was growing up in holtwood that someday i'd be working with someone who had a summer home there? if someone had told me as a kid writing my pretend newspapers out on lined notebook paper with crayon drawings and who knows what news headlines, that someday i would be a real reporter, what would i have said?

driving into church this morning it struck me again how much my life really does intertwine. the sign at the elementary school where we meet read "good luck to our spelling bee participants!" i squealed and got excited for all the kiddos. that was the same stage i stood on each year for the district spelling bee.

in fourth grade when i took second place and my pal brittney won, i felt like i had eclipsed the sun. life wasn't about the hokey pokey - this was what it was all about, and i had made it. second place in the district spelling bee, and another year had passed where i wasn't one of the kids who put the whole thing on hold by puking on stage, and i couldn't ask for more.

a moment where it sure seems like a glimpse of the future could have offered some beneficial clarity is at my seventh grade spelling bee. i evidently had a very stupid idea that being smart was not cool. i was one of the top two finalists, but i panicked about how dorky i'd look for winning the spelling bee and i spelled abdomen wrong on purpose. ugh.

i like to think that seeing my 24-year-old self would have been encouragement to embrace being smart. maybe then i would not have worried about what my fellow middle-schoolers were thinking - which probably wasn't much of anything since they were most likely in the same boat of self-consciousness as me.

i read about a lot of people in their thirties and beyond who say they love their age and being out of their twenties, because your twenties are rough. i love my twenties, but when i consider the clarity and growth that has come in the past ten years of my life, and continues to come, i can certainly get excited about what lies ahead.

i can laugh at the quirky moments life feels like it's come full circle. i can smile at how much i've grown and how much has happened. if someone had told me that i would not only get to go to hawaii, but live there for one and a half blissful years, i wonder what i would have said? it makes me want to dream about the next ten, twenty, fifty years.

i like making predictions when i go to a party, like - "well i guarantee if so and so is here, he will not remember meeting me and will ask for the twentieth time if i know the bosley twins and i will groan and tell him again that yes i do." (repeat conversations are the worst!) maybe i'm cynically writing people off as predictable, but predictability can be completely endearing and i love it when it's not repeat conversations.

as much as i love goofy predictions, i am not going to make predictions of my future. but i am going to dream and wonder what will happen that will be absolutely amazing and make me want to squeeze God and everyone around me for how blessed i am!

what dreams are lying dormant inside of me, waiting for the time to be released? what will happen this week and this year, that will make me go - wow God, you really did hear my prayer! You really did see my heart and you gave me the thing i was hesitant to even ask for! maybe God is smiling at me, and the angels are cheering for me, knowing that i will become such a famous actress that i will have to hide out at my summer home in holtwood ...