The Man in Plaid

Last night Daniel invited me along to dinner with his new found friend Max. Max has a resume as thick as a book, but is famous in the internets world for his blog All Plaidout. Daniel thinks very highly of him, so I was excited to be invited along for dinner. Luckily I was already wearing plaid that day, but I did pull out the iron in honor of our visit with the plaid connoisseur. I'm writing about Max because he lives his career life the way I would like to live mine. Most of my readers know by now, but for those anonymous followers out there I'll fill you in on what's happening with my job. I'll post more later, but after 6 years on YL staff, the only real job I've ever had, the only career I ever really envisioned myself having, I am leaving my job this summer. My leaving is a long story, but I'm leaving on great terms and will stay with Young Life as a volunteer leader (new job permitting). I love the organization and what it has done for me personally and what it allows me to do in the lives of kids. My transition shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who reads the blog faithfully as it's written between the lines in so many posts where I talk about "remembering who I am", "waking up from a slumber I didn't know I was in", and not wanting to "put my dreams on hold".

The short of it is that God is stirring me to delve into more creative fields of work. This little blog project of mine has opened the floodgates of creativity and freedom in me and I am changing through this process. I thought it would help me to work through my fear of failure, but I had no idea how much freedom I would experience as a result of letting go of that fear. I am not who I was a year ago, heck even just a few months ago. I remember having a conversation with a friend where I scoffed along with her as she told me about another friend who was quitting her job without knowing what job she would do next. You can't just quit your job! You can leave one job when offered another in its place. But to leave before knowing what is next? Well that is simply unacceptable. Now here I am in a similar place, certain of only one thing: it's time for me to leave. I have no idea what is next, no idea what job(s) I will try to pursue, no idea what life outside of Young Life looks like. And you know what? Not only do I feel peace about this unknown, but I'm actually excited by it. Hattie from a few months ago would have been terrified by all this, panicked, and staying in a comfortable job despite not belonging there anymore. I mean this is the worst job market our generation has seen and I'm quitting my job. Call me irresponsible, 3 months ago I would have said so. But the Hattie of now sees a world full of possibilities, multiple jobs (not even necessarily careers), and experiences waiting to be adventured through.

So back to my new found friend Max. His resume and list of contacts is intimidating. He's only one year older than me and has already done things I would put on my bucket list and still never accomplish. He's lived in The City (you know the one that doesn't need to be specified, the city of all cities, the capital of the world, the one I long to live in someday). He tried acting and was in a few movies. I had to press him to name which ones specifically. Though he's in the background, let's just say he referred to Philip Seymour Hoffman as "Phil". You see though his experiences are intimidating to a small town gal like myself, his lack of any pretension is completely disarming. Within 5 minutes of sitting across from him in our little booth I felt like he genuinely cared about me and Daniel's life despite our lack of credentials. (Maybe I was duped and he's just a really good schmoozer.) He moved onto editing at Conde Nast. And you know someone's not name dropping when they feel the need to explain that Conde Nast is a publishing firm. (Yeah, I know who they are.) For him it's not about touting his accomplishments, just answering my questions of where he's been, what he's tried, and what he's up to now. His now is fashion design and sales working alongside a lot of innovative and respectable collaborators.

This being said I kept pondering during our conversation how someone goes about life accumulating experiences like these all before age 30. Like an inspirational poster he quotes, "Life is about the journey not the destination." But when he says it, after hearing about where he's been, what he's seen, and who he's met, the cheesiness of that saying is replaced by an authentic embodiment of that truth. Every part of me was battling to not ask him, "So ultimately what do you want to do?" I wasn't getting it. Sure he has ideas about things he'd like to do in the long term, but understands that truly successful and innovative people are usually able to accomplish those things as an overflow or product of their collection of experiences.

Daniel brought up my blog which I was terribly embarrassed by feeling incredibly inadequate in front of such a successful blogger. After explaining the premise of the project he quoted Eleanor Roosevelt this time with the idea "You should do something every day that scares you." It like he's got this stock pile of go-get-em inspirational cheers. (He must own a daily Successories calendar or something.)

Everything Max said and his life as an example was simply a confirmation of the desires God's been stirring in me. It was like God was showing me that yes indeed I can live a life made up of a variety of adventures. If I want to write, I can write. If I want to try my hand at design, go for it. If I want to front a band at weddings, then sing my lungs out to Celebrate Good Times.

I've talked about this briefly before, but at some point I started stifling myself, quieting those urges to do the impractical. Things have changed though. I'm feeling brave. For the first time in years I'm excited about the future. I'm relieved to know that God has new things in store for me beyond the path I always pictured. Now I'll be the one to quote someone...Rob Bell in Drops Like Stars presents the common sentiment when tragedy hits, "I never would have imagined my life like this". He then flips that on its head saying, "Yes it's terrible that she got cancer, that he left me, that she died" and "I never would have imagined my life like this". But out of tragedy and pain and the most bizarre of circumstances, sometimes good things happen as a result. He's by no means saying that God is cruel and in each case causes those bad things to happen in order to bring about good. But sometimes when stuff is already terrible, he can redeem it and use it. So the quote now reads, "I never would have imagined my life like this (It's never what I expected or planned on, but it's more incredible than I ever could have imagined)." That's where I'm at now. I never expected to have any job outside of my current one. But I am hopeful and eager about what lies ahead, even though I can't see it now and have no idea what that future entails.

So thank you to the Man in Plaid for embodying what God has been trying to tell me.