Okay. Listen, Blog-tember. You and I need to have a talkin' to. Next year, let's not have everything explode during The 4th Annual Blog-tember Challenge, k? I know you like to be eventful and whatnot, but let's calm it down, shall we? The first year, I started grad school. Yeah, that was big. The second year, I was directing my thesis show. I know, I know, you wanted attention, and you got it, but this year? Did we HAVE to get strep AND cancel my fall show AND start a brand new show AND have all the things on the calendar? You're about to make me start listening to Christmas music... and it's only September! So... going forward.. let's be chill. Pretty please? Thanks.
Thursday, Sept. 15: What is the craziest adventure you've ever been on?
I have had my share of adventures. I am so blessed to have traveled through many states and countries, exploring with family, friends, and alone, and the adventure continues today. When it came to this prompt, I had several ideas, specific trips I wanted to mention, but then I came down with strep so we're keeping this short and sweet.
So far, the craziest adventure I have ever been on was moving to Seattle, Washington for a year. When I was preparing to graduate from Baylor University with a degree in theatre, I expected to stay in Texas. That had always been the understood answer to the question, "What are you doing after graduation?"
My junior year of college, I really felt called to attend a discipleship training school at a church in Oklahoma after graduation. I knew it in my heart and felt it SO DEEPLY that I was headed there, degree in hand, taking a year off from doing theatre to dig into whatever the Lord had next for me. This was March of 2012.I prayed through this, planned for this, for almost a year. In January of my senior year, I got a call that they were not planning to offer the discipleship school the following year. WHAT?! I panicked. My heart pounded, my shoulders sank. The plans I had made and told so many people about were no longer to be. It was then that I decided just to look at the summer. I could plan for June and July, then the rest would take care of itself.
Now, June and July are HOT HOT HOT in Texas, so I figured I might as well try to get out of the state for a few months, do some theatre, and enjoy some cooler weather. It was then that Seattle became an option. Several friends visited there the summer before while I was studying abroad, and I had heard nothing but good things about it. I looked up a theatre company and applied for the summer internship, and booked a weekend trip out there with a friend for after spring break.
On my first day in the city, I HATED it. I mean I was SO not moving there. I didn't vibe with the theatre company, I got so confused by the public transportation, and it was so far away. I had already arranged with a family (a friend of a friend) about possibly nannying for them over the summer while doing the internship, and I tried to cancel our meeting. I had written Seattle off as an option, right, so why go?
But they insisted that we still do breakfast, and Y'ALL. That breakfast changed EVERYTHING. They were (are!) the sweetest couple with such great kids, and it was over breakfast that Mel offered me an internship with her company. I told her I'd think about it, but in the moment I shrugged it off. Within minutes of that offer, she made another: a directing position in the fall. Again, I shrugged it off. I wasn't moving to Seattle.But then I did.
That weekend, I was texting my mom when she asked, "Are we moving you to Seattle?" and I said, "Maybe." But on the way home, I wasn't sure. I'm a Texas girl and I had never planned to leave. Yeah, Oklahoma was in the mix, but it was Oklahoma. Just a quick jaunt up the road. Seattle on the other hand was practically the farthest corner I could get to in the US. I remember praying, "Okay, God, if you want me to go, you'll have to convince my dad."
And He did.
Seattle was my adventure year. That's what I call it and that's what I'll always remember it as. I graduated on May 18 and I boarded a plane for the Pacific Northwest on June 7. We then drove my car across the country (now that's another story entirely!) in September, and I called Seattle home through the following July. I had one year in The Emerald City and it forever changed my life.
What about you? What's your craziest adventure?
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