I often joke that the 16-year-old version of me would laugh if you told her where she would be in 25 years. But recently, I have decided that she wouldn't laugh so much as be entertained by her own rudder. I think that no one who knew me then is terribly surprised when they find out the directions I have gone in. I am sure that every guy I dated, and lectured on his and my own lack of morality, is not surprised at all that this is where I went. I have always had this in me. There is not a teacher who wouldn't be surprised that I express myself, most often, in the written word. I talked constantly in school. But I also wrote. An essay test answer from me was sure to go on... and on.
My religion teachers knew me as the one who always had a question. If I didn't have a headache preventing me from participating, I was right in the fray. I wanted to know everything about every religion. None of that has truly changed. I still do. I still struggle to "get" homilies. I keep wanting to make them relate to me. I often discover that it is me who needs to do the relating. That hasn't changed either.
The biggest part of me that hasn't changed is my fear of letting myself be exposed. I still fear letting the world see me in all of my yucky sinfulness. I still don't want to write when I don't feel up to it. I still keep ideas in my head, and in my ipod recorder; ideas that I am afraid to put out there because I might offend. I still haven't changed in many ways from that 16-year-old. I still want everyone to like me. Silly, I know. And pleasing people will not get Truth revealed. That is likely one of the only things that would shock 16-year-old me. "You aren't going to like the Truth sometimes, and neither will others. Deal with it."
