green

Holy cow, I am young.  As in, fresh out of the gate.  I'm 25, running around St. Louis like I know what I'm doing, hoping to God that nobody discovers that I don't actually know what I'm doing with my life... that some days I feel like I'm drowning, barely keeping my head above water.  That yes, I know how to teach piano and I can accompany just fine and I'm not too bad at either but man... have I got a lot to learn.  "Whippersnapper" is the technical term, I believe.

I'm sure the ten of you who keep up with my blog on a regular basis are aware of this (including but not limited to my grandma, my friend Savannah, and one of my old friends and mentors, James who was in grad school while I was at Mizzou... all of these out of state, who use this blog as their basic means to keep up with me -- to which I am deeply grateful)... but apparently I was not aware of my own greenery til recently.  Or at least not consciously aware of it.  Or perhaps I was aware of it, but not yet ready to fully embrace the fact.  Well, I'm embracing it.  I'm as green as they come.  A whippersnapper in the truest sense, since it's taken me seemingly forever to come to grips with it.  But it's ok because it's a better place for me to be than disillusionment and discontentment, which is what I've been battling the past couple of weeks.  Green and ready to learn?  I will take that attitude any day.  Learning is a great place to be.

And maybe that's why I've been struggling with the desire to go back to school recently...?  Not entirely sure but I know one thing, and it's that plateau (both as a pianist and a teacher... and good grief let's face it, as a person too) is not fun, not by any stretch of the imagination.  No wonder my students struggle with it so much... it hits you without warning and, whabam, there you are unsatisfied and going nowhere.  And it's all just been my own pride that's been eating me up recently, masquerading itself as disillusionment and discontentment... always wanting more, wanting to be better, thinking I've mastered where I'm at.  Ugh.  Nasty business, to be sure.

This all came to a head this weekend when I had to deal with a professional situation for which I was not prepared.  I tried to handle it as gracefully as I could but it ended up messier than I wanted and not at all how I would have envisioned.  Definitely a learning experience for Katie.

I believe "growing pains" is the other technical term applicable here.  A severe case of them.

Dr. Doriani had plenty to say about it in yesterday's sermon... something my heart so needed to hear.  He preached on 1 Cor 7 (vs 10-17 and 20-24), where Paul addresses people who feel stuck in certain unfavorable situations like a bad marriage or slavery...

"Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him..." (17).

Stay put??  In a crummy situation??  Seriously?!  Yep, seriously... and I'm not even in a crummy situation.  I just kept thinking I was ready for more when clearly, well... green.

Turns out our inner feelings do not necessarily entitle us to do whatever we want.  Our culture totally advocates and glorifies the idea of finding yourself... we all seem susceptible to it.  I know I particularly am.  Because it seems like a very beautiful, free-spirited idea.  "Eat, Pray, Love" is a prime example of this even though it's one of my favorite movies.  But my green little whippersnapper self will testify that the constant striving and leaving and searching and trying to find... whatever it is you're trying to find... well it leads you in circles... and to nowhere but discontentment.  At least that's been my experience, anyway.

This is not to say that Paul advocates passivity or a lack of learning.  If an opportunity presents itself, there's nothing wrong with giving it full consideration and potentially moving on.  But I paraphrase from my sermon notes, "Our culture desperately needs to stop looking for the next thing and embrace the place we're already in... we do what we're called to do when we're just doing what lies before us.  We don't go looking for our calling.  It's right there in front of us."

Yes.  The striving will kill you... it's been killing me recently.  There's something really, truly beautiful about doing the hard thing, settling in, and just doing your best at what you're doing now.  And in doing so, you may find out you have a lot to learn.  Or you may realize just how valuable your current experiences are after all.  Or you may realize that you're still just 25 and you've only been out in the professional world for a year now and you're still trying to get a handle on being an adult, let alone running your own business... you're still just a baby, you sweet, restless girl.  It's a good place to be, this realization... one that I hope to humbly own for yet a while still.