greater than i.

its 2012 & for some reason i am still weirded out by it. i’ve obviously experienced a lot of “new years” (usually like once a year haha) but for some reason the transition from 2011 to 2012 was especially trippy. lately, i’ve felt like i can literally SEE time passing. passing quickly. i spent a lot of time contemplating life over break (mostly because i was by myself a lot…..#biggestloner) & really couldn’t get it out of my head that time is PASSING! life is going by, people!! and we are sitting here tumbling, typing about it. ohhhh the irony. truly though, its been freaking haunting me. i can’t fathom how much of my life i take for granted.

something i was thinking about: last december (like, of 2010), i visited apu to stay with my friend taylor. we took the trolley to west campus (and i FREAKED out about how FREAKING cute the trolleys were) and going to chapel. i distinctly remember walking through the doors, framed by two green-shirt-wearing chapel monitors holding scantrons, and watching all the college kids nonchalantly grab their cards & walk to their seats. i was handed a card (lookin’ like a college gurl heeEEeeY) & legitimately worried about how n00bish i looked when i didn’t have to fill it out. the simple routine of going to chapel, grabbing a card, heading to a usual seat, filling it out, worshiping/listening to speakers, THEN heading to class was really SUCH a big deal to me! i was in awe of how “normal” it was to taylor. i really thought it was the coolest/most fascinating thing ever. (i clearly set my “exciting activities” bar really high). NOW! fast-forward nine months. i remember walking into my first chapel, sans-family. I was going with some girls from my hall, it was the first day of classes, and i was overly concerned about NOT looking like a freshman (wait having an apu lanyard/keychain & looking at my id card for my id number makes me fit in, right?). like deja vu, i remember walking through the chapel doors and taking a card….a card that i would actually NEED…and feeling grown up. i remembered the first time i had ever walked into chapel, and i was in awe of the time that had passed. i was in college. 


and that was my last glorious chapel-card experience.  seriously, i never even give the “normalcy” of chapel a second thought. as freaking cute as our trolleys ARE, i mostly find myself complaining about their crowdedness, or my lack of pushy-ness to actually get ON, or their awkward times where they don’t run. as exciting as eating in a dining hall USED to sound, i now view it with less-than-overjoyed thoughts. as overly & undeservedly BLESSED we are to be attending a top-notch christian university that not only gives us a sound education but helps us grow spiritually, i mostly worry about finding a decent seat in kaleo & figuring out how much reading i can avoid doing yet still get a good grade. i spent a huuuuuuge amount of my senior year (and life, i guess) imagining “college life”. picturing what it would be like to live in the dorms, go to class, live the lyffffe. now..i never give the whole, “i live on my own, in a dorm, at college,” a second thought because it’s SO normal to me. 

my sister, grace, has a weird obsession with keys. almost every time she’s with me, she will ask if she can hold my keys. she truly thinks that holding car keys makes someone look THAT much cooler/grown up. i laugh at her every time she mentions it, but i totally used to feel the same way. before i could drive, i was fascinated by people with licenses & cars. SO old, SO responsible. just standing there with there cell phone & car keys, lookin super cool. i used to daydream about the day that i could drive…SO!MUCH!FREEDOM! then i got my license. then i used to daydream about the day i could (legally) drive other people….SO!MUCH!MORE!FUN! now, i literally don’t even think about driving.

 i think just about everything in life is like this. we want something….we get it. we stop appreciating it and we want something new. why is that?! even now, i have to literally stop myself from thinking about how FUN it will be to live in the mods with my best friends next year. or how much i just want to study abroad already. (seriously south africa…just accept me.) large-scale, small-scale. we all do it. i can’t WAIT for christmas. done. i can’t WAIT to get back to apu. done. i can’t WAIT for break. AHHHHHH!!! all this wishing, receiving, unappreciating is a dirty cycle. it’s sad to think about how much i looked forward to silly little college freedoms that i now overlook every day. seriously, why do i give myself ANY room to complain, ever?! i’m literally living the life that i used to imagine. all the while, i am imagining a life that i have yet to live.

even though i seem like the kind of person that would, i really don’t give a ton of thought to what life would be like when i get married/have kids….but i think this vicious cycle is a lot like that. it’s not bad to daydream, it’s not bad to look forward to things & be excited about them. but….we’re all gonna get there eventually. in junior high, i thought i would NEVER be an old “high school” girl. done. in high school, i couldn’t even PICTURE myself in college…done. now, i can’t fathom myself being grown/having a job/having a family. but if my life is any indicator, i think it will happen eventually. SO HOW ABOUT I JUST APPRECIATE WHERE I AM…IN THIS MINUTE, IN THIS DAY, IN THIS SEASON OF LIFE!? 

 
i really don’t have a fancy bow to finish off this post with. i really don’t have a happy way to tie this up, leave with some happy promise about how i will never again be unappreciative about where i am in life. because that aiiiiint the truth, and i don’t know how to mend this little dilemma. all i know is that God must be a freaking WELL of patience, because watching us selfish little humans live SO ungratefully [yearn for things, get them, complain about them, ask for more, get more, forget what we have, STILL envy others, STILL want more/better/easier/faster/prettier] is probably the most tiring thing EVER. like, i can only handle babysitting in small doses….i tire of neediness, whining, and the constant need for attention REALLY quickly. Seriously, God, howdoyadoit?! at the same time though, i have a feeling he smiles through all of it… “silly kenzie. just SO needy. thinkin’ life is SO hard. always wanting more. thinking her plans are better……just wait till she sees what i have in store. better yet, wait till she REALIZES that what i have in store for her is TODAY & she’s wasting it by thinking about tomorrow”

time is passing & i’m not appreciating the chapel cards.