What you can become

Never be afraid to give up what you are for what you can become.

I don't know who said that.  When I was a freshman at Baylor University, it was on a poster on the wall of the BSU, along with a butterfly. The day my parents left me on the steps of Collins dorm and drove away, I knew I was giving up everything I was and becoming someone entirely new. I was terrified. 

That poster resonated so much with me that I embroidered the quote and a butterfly, framed it and kept it on my dresser for years. Tonight I found it as I was rummaging through a drawer. I put it back out on the dresser. 

It's funny, I've lived here in the same place for more than half of my life, but I've constantly given up "who" I was to move on to the next thing placed before me. And right now there is change in the air.  Ben is graduating. Matt is moving away to college. I'm about to be a grandmother again. Of a girl!  Today I bought a pair of pink baby leggings. It was so strange to stand there in the aisle with those pink baby things. 

What will the next part of my life look like?  I don't know. But I won't know if I'm not willing to give up this part of my life. 

Life is changing on some of my friends, too. I suspect they're afraid. I just want to say with all my heart:  Don't be. 

I remember when I was pregnant with Ben; my mother-in-law was with me when I went for the sonogram and found out it was another boy. Not the girl I was so sure I was meant to have. Alice Ruth was quiet all the way home. Just as we pulled in the driveway, she asked, "Honey, are you disappointed?"

No, I was hacked. I always got what I wanted, and there was nothing I could do about this. 

But look what I got. And all that has become since then. 

Eighteen years ago I could not imagine my life today, just as you could not imagine yours. Becoming requires faith and courage and risk. Endings and beginnings. Death and new life. And kindness. And time. 

Today I finally bought pink baby clothes. So who knows what could be next?