"The moving walkway is ending... please watch your step."

When you reach the terminus of a moving walkway, you're confronted with the task of providing your own forward motion.

Phoenix Sky Harbor has the strangest moving walkways. They have an audio tape that blares, "The moving walkway is ending... please watch your step."
As I've said before, I listened to those words for four hours on layover recently. And as annoying as they were, they never got old. I'd never really thought of life from that perspective.

Here's graduation. The days of others planning what I am to do are... over. My degree plan is complete. Someone else made it- Lord knows I didn't appreciate it so much at times.

But now, there are no more "supposed to do" items. No more checkboxes to fill in.

The moving walkway is ending. And, as we do at the end of all moving walkways, I have to carefully time stepping onto the stationary floor to keep myself from stumbling. And then, I'll walk just like everyone else in the world does. But it'll seem new and difficult to me, even though adults have been doing it for years.


The other thing I wanted to blog about today is unrealized ambitions.
It came to my attention over the weekend that this thing is over.
Anything that I wanted to do in college, and have not done... won't be done.
It's too late.
Which is sad.
Because there are several things that I never found the time for.

My opportunities are over. All friends have been made. All grades are soon to be in. All extra-curricular activities have been done. All trips have been taken. All weekends have been used. All lessons have come. All hurts have happened.

Turns out, I won't go skydiving while I'm in college. Nor will I own a new car. Nor will I get married. Nor will I take a friend to the Grand Canyon. Nor will I successfully water ski. Nor will I get my pilot's license.

And as I sit here, teaching myself a new piece on the piano, I remember a warm, dark night, over a thousand nights ago. That was the last time I tried to learn any new music. Since then, I sealed off that part of my life--that talented portion of my past.
I'm not very confident in my musical ability; though I won most every competition I performed in, I never did learn to sight-read. Subsequently, I have abandoned the rigors of convention in favor of the creativeness of modification. The pieces I play are not played as they were written, but rather as I have chosen to modify them to suit my own mind.

My motivation for learning this time, though, is far different from the last time. I'm not learning to impress anyone else. I'm learning to impress myself.

But the flashback made me sit down for a second and ask, "In what ways am I different than when I came here? What have the last four years done to me? Do I like that? What could I change? What can I not change?"

Lord, You know the fears of my heart. You know my greatest horror. You also know my heart's desires... strengths. And weaknesses.
Will You use them to Your advantage?
Because lately, I feel like I am standing still in a world that is spinning at hurricane-speed. Like the world is passing me by.