Metropolis vs. SmallvilleI often feel torn over where I should be living and what I should be doing…and how much time I have left to do it. Metropolis vs. Smallville. Experience vs. Relationships. Excitement vs. Security. Adventure vs. Lemonade Moments. I know that these things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but over and over again it feels like every time I choose to keep living here, I AM choosing one over the other.
In one moment I’ll feel a part of me pulling me toward a more exciting road, questioning what I am doing here in this small midwest town when I, technically, have no one to answer to—no one else to upheave as a result a move. I feel the press of time and try to fit as much as I possibly can into my days and weeks. In the next moment, I am overwhelmed by the need to simplify, to slow down, to focus more on the relationships I've been given and less on “what there is to do.” To live out my Aunt Janet’s sentiments in a recent family email, “I wish things could just slow down so we could sit on the front porch and sip some lemonade.” Lemonade Moments, I think I’d like to call them from now on (that’d be a great title for this, if only I wasn’t so married to my Smallville reference). They certainly aren’t filled with adventure. And they’re hard to have when you leave all of your friends and family behind to go experience another city or culture. Today I am screaming inside to get out and go “do” before it’s too late. Tomorrow I will remember how much I love my friends, my job and my church that God has blessed me with. Saturday I will be reminded that although not my biological sister, Vanessa would most certainly feel the effects of my absence. And in November, I’ll reminsce about Thanksgiving dinners from the past and wonder what I’d be missing out on if I was on the other side of the country, or the world.
My friend Rachel, who often wrestles with this same quandary, said something once that stuck in my head. To paraphrase her thought, “I keep thinking that I’ll just get out of here and move to a big city, and once I’m there, I will really be able to change the world. But then God asks me why it is that I can’t do that HERE.” In essence, if we’re not even trying here, what makes us think that we’ll do it anywhere else? God’s got a good point. So, until HE tells me to go (not my own selfish desires), all I can do is live by my new motto, “Serve everywhere you can, love those who around you right now, have as much fun as possible, and at the end of the day, pour yourself a glass of lemonade.” In the end it won’t matter how many frequent flyer miles I’ve racked up, or how exciting my life has been from the world’s perspective. A full life happens when you let God have his way, in the exact place where you are standing. If I let that happen, maybe I'll discover that Smallville is where it's at after all.
