You can't always get what you want.

Something that I'm finally figuring out as I'm getting older is that I don't know anyone who has it all and I don't know anyone who has nothing. By all, I mean joy, faith, money, marriage, true love, children, career, education, free time, house, car, etc.. There are people who have some of these things (a few may even have most of them), but I don't know anyone who has all or nothing. What I'm also starting to realize is that the things that a person wants more than anything else in the world are usually the things that will be the most difficult for them to attain. The things that don't matter much to them will often come easily and without much thought.

Some things have come easily to me and I have barely thought about them because they weren't things that I was super concerned with. I live in a beautiful house with my room facing a canal and it's across the street from the beach... I'm always amazed that I ended up here because it wasn't anything that I was looking for or that I cared much about. I've always been more concerned with having a roof over my head than with what the place looks like or where it's located. That was never anything that mattered much to me and I think the reason I ended up here is because I didn't care and I got to appreciate that GOD was blessing me. It wasn't something that I controlled. I didn't look for this place, it just happened that Chris needed 3 other roommates and she asked me to be one of them. It also ended up that I discovered great friendships with the other girls who live here.

This has also happened with a few of the jobs that I've had. When I first got out of college, it was really difficult for me to find a job that I felt at peace with and I remember searching for 8 months to find a place that fit what I was looking for. It ended up that I started working with adults with developmental disabilities and found that I loved it. Finding that first job was incredibly hard, but everything after that has fallen into place because I found my niche in teaching people with disabilities. I haven't had many worries about my career path since that period of time when I was 22 years old because of knowing what I need to do as a career.

I look at friends who are dealing with infertility and it's so devastating for them because all they want during this life is to have a baby of their own to love. There are others out there who didn't care much about whether they had a child and ended up pregnant as soon as they decided to try. I look at the kids at Royal Family Kids' Camp and think about how so many of their parents didn't want to have kids and didn't want to take responsibility for them. Those kids were born into abusive, neglectful families, yet it was so easy for their moms to get pregnant with them.

I have spent the majority of my life wanting to fall in love and get married more than anything. It's something that has even been an idol at some points because I wanted to know what it was like SO badly. I keep trying to surrender it, but then a nice guy comes along and I think, "this might be it and it's finally going to be easy." It never is, though, and there's always some curveball that gets thrown in there to prevent anything from happening. It has become very discouraging and I don't think it would be that way if I just didn't care about it. Instead, I usually end up thinking that God is laughing at me when it comes to this area of my life. I know He's not, I know that I need to trust Him, and I know that it truly will be easy when the right man comes into my life. He really is protecting me, but I still tend to get upset about it because it just keeps happening over and over in different, random ways.

I guess my thoughts on all of this are that God truly does give people the desires of their hearts because He is the one who plants them in there. I think our deepest desires are usually the ones that are the most difficult to attain because God wants us to appreciate them more once He eventually does give them to us. I just need to keep my focus on God by depending on Him alone and not having my thoughts dwell as much on the things in my life that I want to happen.

Humbled

As I've gotten older, I've realized that there are all sorts of different ways that people handle life. Some of them are what I like to call "paper people," and then there are the rest (I don't have a name for them, but maybe I'll think of one by the time I finish writing this). I want to talk about the paper people because I'm beginning to think that I became one of those for awhile. They are the ones whose lives look great to outsiders... they have the degrees, the career, the house, etc., that make people think that this is a great person. It doesn't, though, because the thing that is missing from all of that is depth and love. This is not to say that everyone who has those things is shallow and/or hateful, it's just to say that there's more to life than what we have accomplished in the eyes of other people.

I have my master's degree, I spent the past 3 years as a special ed. teacher, I volunteered for 4 years with a boy who lives in a group home, and I live in a beautiful house with 4 other girls who are amazing individuals. All of these things sound great to other people and look good on paper, but I let them define who I am when they really didn't matter. I spent a good portion of the past year being unhappy because I was trying to live up to a set of expectations that no one cared about and I didn't want to quit anything because I was afraid of failing others. It ended up that I was spending so much time doing things for others and I wasn't taking the time to love them or get to know them. I was so caught up in trying to do the right thing (while burning out) and I failed at the thing which is the most important (loving others).

Right now I'm working at the Beach Pit BBQ and I love it! My coworkers are great and I'm always surprised at how kind they are to everyone. I've heard about 3 negative comments from any of them about anyone else during the 6 weeks or so that I've worked there. They're people that I probably never would have gotten to know otherwise, but I'm so thankful for it because it has shown me that a person's accomplishments have nothing to do with how they treat others. That's what is more important than anything and I'm learning it by seeing the actions of people who are still in high school and college.

When I'm there, there's a part of me that's thinking about how I used to be a teacher. It's a profession that people usually think pretty highly of because of making a difference in the life of a child. When I think that, I realize that I was defining how valuable I am as a person by my career choice. The other part of me is thinking about how I'm having fun doing this, even though it's not a job that's going to change anyone's life (although the blueberry cornbread is pretty amazing and can bring a lot of joy to others). Then I look at the people around me and realize that I'm learning from them. I'm learning to treat others equally, to realize that what they've accomplished doesn't matter, and to find out what they're like as individuals.

It's funny because we're going through the book of Galatians in bible study right now and a lot of Paul's writing has to do with God's grace and the fact that we can't earn our salvation. Galatians 3:5 says, "I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ." That's what I've been doing my entire life... trying so hard to do the right thing, follow the rules, etc., that I'm taking everything into my own hands and not putting my faith in Jesus. I don't have to accomplish anything in my life for Him to love me because I have His grace. I'm finally experiencing His grace by letting go of the things I held onto for so long that were causing me to burn out and by taking on a job that is causing me to learn more about Him and love for other people.

This summer has been one of the happiest times in my life because of learning these things, getting to spend quality time with friends and family, finally being content with being single, and being excited over this new adventure that is most likely going to take place in Kentucky :). I've finally realized that I'm one lucky girl who is loved unconditionally by God.

The Plan

I decided to quit teaching this year because a) I was completely overwhelmed and b) I was feeling led to do missions for at least a year. I ended the school year not knowing where I was going to go or what I was going to be doing, which was really scary. I've always had long-term plans for my life... even when they didn't turn out the way I expected them to, there was still always a plan. When I was 15, I knew that I was going to go to college, major in psychology, go to graduate school, get my MFT degree, and spend the rest of my life as a Christian counselor.

Those plans changed as I went into my last semester of college because I realized that my career would be spent in an office, listening to people's problems. I still love listening to people's problems, but I think one of the reasons I love it is because I'm not getting paid for it. I enjoy being a good listener, but I think I would have become resentful about helping people with their problems if I had chosen it as a career. I also don't think I could have worked in an office. I worked in the alumni office at Vanguard while I went to school there. It was only 8 hours per week, but it usually felt like 40. I felt claustrophobic the majority of the time, I stuffed envelopes, filed things, copied things, etc. All indoors, never seeing the light of day (now I'm just being dramatic). The gist of it is that I found I needed a job where I'm able to move around a lot and all of them since then have been that way.

I graduated college with the BA in Psychology in hand, started looking for jobs in group homes, found that I would have been eaten alive by the teenagers in group homes, and ended up working with adults with developmental disabilities instead. I fell in love with this population of people and that ended up leading me down the path to becoming a special ed. teacher. With that came a lot of joy (i.e. the students, field trips, the students, pep rallies, watching kids from general ed. becoming friends with the students, the other teachers, supportive parents, and did I mention the students?) and a lot of trials (i.e. endless paperwork, parents who yelled at staff, advocates, cliques within the staff, etc.). There were a lot of people that I met over the past 2 years who became like family to me, but I also knew that it was time for me to leave busy, materialistic Orange County.

After a month or so of not having a long-term plan for the first time in my life, it appears that I'll be moving to Eastern Kentucky. There's a place called the Christian Appalachian Project and I have felt that God is leading me there for this period in my life. I've applied to be a long-term volunteer for 9 months beginning October 1st and I'm really excited to see what's going to happen during my time there. I'll be living with other volunteers in a community house, sharing meals and prayer together 5 days per week. They have a lot of different service opportunities, but I'm hoping that I'll end up as a respite worker for adults with disabilities or that I'll get to work in their program for 3-5 year olds. They could end up placing me somewhere else within CAP, but those were the two that really piqued my interest. There seems to be a plan again (as long as I get in) and I can't wait to see what will happen!

Vahdan

I'm going to write about some of the people who have inspired me over the years from time to time and write some of the reasons why. Maybe they can help inspire others who haven't met them yet :)...

The first person is Vahdan. He was my favorite student at NHS (even though many of them hold a huge, special place in my heart) and he's definitely in my top 10 for favorite people in the world (this list includes family members, so it's a big deal that he's on it). The reason I think he's one of the best people EVER is because he lives life better than anyone I know. There's some phrase about how people should dance like no one's watching and that's the kind of person he is. He lives life without inhibitions and doesn't care what people think of him. He knows how he feels the majority of the time and he knows how to express it, which is better than most people without disabilities can do. When he was happy, he would joke around and have fun. When he was sad, he would cry. When he was angry or frustrated, he would pout and tell the person he was mad at exactly what they were doing to make him feel that way.

There was one time when he was picked to be in a hula hooping contest in front of the entire school during a pep rally. He went up there, circled the hoop around his waist a couple of times, then it would hit the floor. He kept doing this during the entire contest and didn't care that he was losing because he was having a blast up there. Once he was finished, he took the microphone from the pep rally commissioner and started cheering into it, "Go Northwood, WOOOOO WOOOOO WOOOOO!!!" (or something like that... it was all very school spirited). How many 10th graders are able to do that without shame? I'm pretty sure he's the only one.

My favorite memory of him was from my 28th birthday. He was going to play "Happy Birthday" for me on the piano, but he felt he needed to do something else first. He held up his water bottle and said in his Armenian accent, "We need to do a toast." I nearly died while doubling over in laughter because I was not expecting a toast from a student at 9 in the morning. Then he said, "How old are you?" Brett said something along the lines of, "It's not a good idea to ask a lady her age," but I answered, "28." Vahdan gives a toast which basically consisted of, "To Miss Boyd, at 28," and I continued laughing hysterically because I NEVER knew what to expect with that kid.

To summarize, here are a few of the things that Vahdan taught me:
1) Don't care about what others think because you'll have more fun in the process.
2) Know how you feel and express it. No matter what the emotion is, it's probably better than keeping it bottled up inside.
3) Remember to celebrate people because it makes them feel loved.

I hope that one day I'll be better at applying these things to my life. I'm glad that I got to see his example for the past 2 years, though.

Blog 1

Well, I'm going to try and be consistent with writing a blog because I haven't done that very often. My plan is to write about some insights that I have in life and talk about what I've been learning. Also, writing some about the things that God has been teaching me in the past few months and years. Who knows whether I'll do this on a regular basis or if I'll even let people know that I'm keeping one of these, but hey, it's the thought that counts.