Capable

Well it’s the beginning of February and I’m finally sitting down to write about my word for the year. I’ve done this for I want to say the past four years now. If you choose a word for the year, you can make it as important or not important as you want. I look at it as kind of a grounding word. This year I chose the word capable. I’m not sure how I landed on it, but it just sort of felt right. This year will bring a lot of change for me. I’m currently in my last semester of college which I cannot truly process. College has been an exhilarating ride full of highs and lows. For starters, I never thought there would be a world wide pandemic for the majority of my college years.

It was such a weird period of time that it almost felt like a pause on reality. The future was a big question mark so I kind of brushed it off and powered through. Now all of the sudden the play button was hit and the four years of this chapter are nearly over. It’s leaving me in a state of question and quite honestly anxiety. I know what I love to do and what I hope to do, but right now the rest of my life seems daunting. It’s no longer what do you want to be when you grow up and now it’s you are grown up, so what’s next? While I think we can give vague answers of what we hope for our futures, the truth is none of us really know and I’m slowly learning to be ok with that. I’ve put this pressure on myself to land a dream job day one outside of college. And that’s just truly not reality. So we can make plans, check off milestones, and achieve goals. We can hope and dream and aspire. But we don’t know where life will take us and that’s ok. You don’t need to answer for the rest of your life. It’s ok to wake up and figure it out a little more every day.

Anyway here’s where the word capable comes in to play for me. I think sometimes we limit ourselves because we aren’t sure we are capable of doing things. You scroll past a job listing because you aren’t sure you fit what they’ve looking for. You don’t sign up for the new activity you’ve been wanting to try because you aren’t sure you’ll be any good. You walk past the girl you’ve seen on Instagram and felt like you could be friends with because you’re not sure she’ll like you. The list goes on because we constantly doubt ourselves. I am always telling myself reasons why I can’t do something. But this year I really want to try and challenge myself to believe I am capable of trying. It’s ok if things don’t work out like we hoped. But it’s also amazing when they do. There’s no perfect map to life. But we are worthy of trying the things that we dream of.

I’m leaning on the Lord this year to help ground me in these feelings. In Him we are free to try our best and still find peace.

So the honest truth is, I have zero clue what life looks like for me after graduation. But I’m excited to figure it out. The change is hard and uncomfortable. There are goodbyes in this next semester that I am not excited for. But I know that I am capable of facing it. You are capable of anything. And that doesn’t mean you need to be perfect at everything. It just means believing in yourself enough to try. There will be fails and great joys. But I hope through it all, you know you are truly capable.

Sending big hugs!!

All the love always, Annie