Tapas Bar

This is it. The year I will turn thirty.  A strange concept, considering I never thought I would live past eighteen. Here I am, no closer to where I thought I would be and no farther away either. The truth is, I had no true idea of what I wanted to do with my life. All I knew is that I wanted to do something “big”.  Honestly, I haven’t done anything big. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t accomplished anything.

            I remember over the years, I figured that if I accomplished something big, that it would make me worth something. I began to have a Savior Complex. I believed it was my job to save the world. Yes, I’ve tried. It was just this last week that it finally hit me that it wasn’t my job.  So then what is it that I am to do?

            I think part of my pursuit of doing something big meant that I have always been in search of what I am good at. I used to look at my siblings and see the things that they were good at and be jealous.  It seemed that everything that I was good at one of them could do better. I even began burping; yes burping, just because it was something I thought I was better at. Took a little while to break that habit.  My joke was that they were dipped in the gene pool and I was dunked. I have told people that to this day.

            This is the year that ends. I may not be really good at one thing or even pretty good at a few things, but I am even better at being average at a lot of things.  I finally have peace. After 29 years, I am perfectly fine having a small amount of talent in multiple areas. I am like a Tapas Bar.  I am not meant to do some big astronomical earth shattering feat such as solve world hunger, end the AIDS epidemic, stop relationship violence or invent an alternative fuel source. I am here on this earth to do small acts that make a difference in the people’s lives that I meet day to day. As I do these, I will be a few steps closer to the person I was meant to be. I will be a Tapas Bar.

            

It's all in the Name

It is funny how much of who we are can be tied up in a name. My name is Bethany. For years, I have never understood why. I’ve been in a name “crisis”. My siblings all had really neat names, and I felt that I had the common bible name. Or so I thought. I even had a problem with what my name meant: house or place of the unripe figs. What the heck does that mean?  Today, I figured it out. I am no longer in crisis; instead I am finally, at almost 30, ready to embrace my name.

            Unripe fig resembles where I am at in life. Just like a beautiful fig on a tree, I am sitting here waiting. As I wait, I am growing. I spend my time soaking in the sun, drinking in the rain, and growing. Always growing. I am green because I am not done yet.  I still have growing to do. I am still not sweet enough.  And when I am, then it will be time for me to be picked and enjoyed by the one who made me. Yes, you may put it on my tombstone, ripe fig. Until then, I am unripe, otherwise known as ripening.