Dear Jack,
I know I have shown you this picture many times before and you have heard the story behind it at least a thousand times, but this year more than before, I feel like the story bears repeating. As you know this is one of my favorite pictures of me with Nana and Papa, but I didn’t always feel that way. I was seventeen years old when this picture was taken and you are seventeen years old now. There are things I want to tell you about this picture that I don’t think you can really understand until you about to enter this next chapter of your life.
This picture was taken on November 19, 1988–34 years ago today (How did that happen, by the way???). The girl in the middle of this picture (me, your mom) had her whole life planned out. She knew where she was going to college, what she was going to study, what she was going to do when she graduated. She even had an inkling on whom she might end up marrying and she definitely knew where she would live after she married and started a family of her own. She knew she was going to return to her hometown in Alabama and if not there, the absolute furthest she would ever live away from that hometown would be an hour away in Birmingham. It was going to be a good life and it was all she had ever hoped for. The girl in the middle of the picture was seventeen years old and she knew everything, she knew all the answers, and nothing was going to get in her way. EXCEPT what the girl in the middle of the picture did not know was that a couple hours after this picture was taken, her parents were about to turn her whole world upside down. See how sad Nana and Papa look? They already knew. A couple hours after this picture was taken, Papa informed me that he had accepted a job transfer to North Carolina–500 miles away from our hometown and my life would never be the same.
I was seventeen when my world came crashing down that night and like most seventeen year olds, the world revolved around me. I was only concerned about how this affected my life, my senior year. Like you, I had lived in the same town my whole life. But my hometown was small. Most of my friends I had known my entire life. It never dawned on me until years later that my parents who were just a little over twice as old as me at the time had also lived in the same town all of their lives. That they too were leaving friends they had known their entire lives. My parents also made the difficult decision to live in two different states for several months so I could complete my senior of high school. Not until many years later when I was married myself did I fully comprehend how difficult that separation was. All I could grasp at the time was this the most horrible thing that had ever happened to me in my life.
A few months later, after I had graduated from high school, I started making decisions that would start to unravel all those “life-plans” I had at seventeen. The first being I chose not to attend college in Alabama and to move to North Carolina to be closer to Nana and Papa. Now as you know, some of those decisions were not my best decisions. For instance, I first choose a college in North Carolina that was not the best fit for for me. At eighteen I was convinced I had messed up my life and would never recover. I had moved 500 miles from home, hated college, had no friends, and my high school sweetheart was living his best life with a new girlfriend. I was terrified to tell anyone what I was going through because I was worried I would disappoint everyone. I thought I only had two options–1) continue on the path I was on and stay miserable or 2) drop out of college, disappoint everyone, and still be miserable.
But fortunately, I figured out that I was the only one that had set those expectations for myself at seventeen. I could choose and change my path anytime I chose to. I could even choose to return to that path in Alabama if I wanted, but at some point, I realized that was no longer the path God had planned for me. Had I chosen to go that route, I know I would have had a good life, but I also know it would not have been the life God meant for me to have. This is the life God meant for me to live. So I chose to go a different route and I made different plans. It wasn’t always easy, but now I am lucky to call both Alabama and North Carolina home, I found a college path and a career path that were the perfect fit for me and that I love, and I am blessed with many friends–many of those same friends I’ve known my whole life and many others that I have met along the way. Most importantly this path led me to your father and our greatest adventure, you.
I share all of this (again) with you today, because I want you to understand that while all of these decisions before you are important, they are not permanent. Please remember that anytime you can change your path. And always remember I will always be cheering you on no matter what path you choose!
I also want to share this with you because I want you to always remember that sometimes what you think is a bad thing can actually be one of the best things that ever happened to you. Which is why I have grown to love this picture so much over the years. For years, I always referred to November 19th as the “Day Avondale Mills Ruined My Life” but it’s actually the day that your Nana and Papa were very brave to take a leap of faith in God, their marriage, their family and careers and open a whole new world that none of us had ever even considered. So the life I have now is not the life I hoped for at seventeen–it’s so much more! Because I recognize that now, I love this picture. Not to mention the amazing 80’s hair Nana and I have in this photo!
Proverbs 3:56
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.
Love you to the moon and back,
Mom
Buddha, Bee and Me 