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My How Far We’ve Come: Perspective from a New Year

Posted on by Kaylin Stravalli

Over the holidays, I had the chance to catch up with one of my best friends. She is living abroad for a year for her job and is traveling as much of the world as she possibly can. It’s a dream come true for her – quite literally. She has been dreaming about and working toward this opportunity for several years.

It finally paid off.

Now, that is not to say there weren’t a few bumps in the road or obstacles that needed maneuvering. There were several. As someone who was along for the ride through all the ups and downs, twists and turns, I feel uniquely equipped to remark on just how far she has come in a year.

Of course, if you’re anything like me, this time of year typically involves a certain amount of retrospection as well as introspection. I take stock of the goals and resolutions I had set for the year and assess how many I actually achieved. I had just done a bit of this inventory when I met up with her. Like me, she is one to look back and take stock of the changes each year brings.

We ate at one of our favorite restaurants one night with another of our closest friends and caught up on all the latest news since the last time we’d all been together. We talked about her work and her travels. We talked about the differences (big and small) of living in a foreign place, where the language, food, culture, and customs are just that – foreign. Then we each went in different directions until we can be together again.

I went home and kept thinking over the next couple days about all the things we discussed going on in each of our lives. Between the three of us, there had been changes in work, travel, relationships, marriage, relocation, and the thought of kids.

Then, it occurred to me just how much had changed in 365 days, how much we had changed. While we could only steal a few hours here and there, the difference was evident, and I told her so.

My how far we’ve come. It seemed what we gained most from the past 365 days of experiences was…perspective.

As we like to remind each other, “The Man has a Plan, and He knows what He’s doing.” And He does. While it may not always be clear to us or easy to trust and put all of our hopes, dreams, and faith in, what we gain in the end is the perspective we need to see just how far we’ve come. If we’re lucky, we find ourselves in a better place, and we see exactly how and why we arrived when we did rather than when we thought we should.

All the hell we had been through to get here (whether in the past year or many years) makes much more sense to us now. It was all preparation to guarantee we were truly ready, in every way, for the things ahead. That process ensured we truly appreciate, enjoy, and savor them in a way we couldn’t have had we not gone through a bit of hell to get there.

It may have seemed chaotic at the time, but looking back, we can see how every bump in the road or obstacle that made us change course acted as a stepping stone on the path toward reaching our goals and dreams  – or at least brought us much closer to them. All those obstacles we maneuvered had led us here. Thankfully, “here” is a good, perhaps even better place than we’d originally been trying to reach. The road may have been long and winding, but we got there all right.

So as we start this New Year, we do so “looking down from 30,000 feet” and realize “life’s been good to me.”

Leave or Be Left Behind

Posted on by Kaylin Stravalli

So here’s what I’ve been struggling with lately…

It’s five years after high school graduation, two years after college (at least for me) and my friends are scattering. Friends from grade school. Friends from high school. Friends from college. They’re all going and doing different things. Some are graduating from medical or physical therapy school. Some are off to law school. Others are getting married and still others are finding jobs and/or moving away.

Things are changing and I just don’t quite know what to make of them. That is not to say that I expect everything and everyone to stay the same as they always were. Not at all. Actually, I expect them to change and want them to as well. Change can and most times is good (although sometimes only in retrospect; you know the saying – hindsight is always 20/20). But these changes are the biggest yet and the fact that everyone around me seems to be having some life altering changes occur in their lives while I have yet to have any of a similar kind is creating some tension and frustration in my life.

There are times when everything seems fine and normal. I go about my business and try to figure out my next moves at a comfortable pace. Then I see of my friends old or newer, who are doing one of the aforementioned wonderful things and I take a look at my life.

I’m not using my degree. I am living with my parents. I’m hanging out with roughly the same people I have for most of my life, with some great additions. I take a look at these things and think to myself, Well, I may not use my degree at work much but I use it every time I write something or read something and mentally edit it and when I think through problems and scenarios, analyzing them and breaking them down to the best conclusion or next best question I can. And thank God my parents let me live with them or I’d be broke and living out of my car. And how great it is to still have people in my life from various stages, who know me and have seen me in every facet good and bad of my being and still love me. But then I wonder. If I’m so smart and capable and I’m in such a good place and I have such great relationships, then why do I feel as if I’m going nowhere and doing nothing with my life?

Then rational or not the answer comes:

Basically, my life is not so different than it was at 13 or 16 or 18 (with the exception of not having a curfew and being able to drink). And realizing this makes me feel as if I’m being left behind, as if everyone else is moving on, moving forward, accomplishing their goals and conquering their dreams, and I’m….here. In the same place I’ve been for most of my 24 years.

It’s not as thought I’ve not done some of the accomplishing and conquering myself. I managed to graduate college early, paid off my student loans already, and bought my first car. Yet I feel stuck sometimes, like I’m not accomplishing as much as everyone else I know or those my age. I feel like I’m not doing what I should be.

Then another part of me speaks up and says, “None of the greats ever went down the path most travelled. In fact, they all but said screw it and did whatever they wanted and achieved greatness in their own way, in their own time.” That is a comforting thought that I hold near and dear to my heart, that is until the next time I see one of my friends I haven’t in a while because he or she is off doing spectacular things with his or her life, and I’m right back where I started. I know I’m not the only one to ever feel this way but…

I still feel like my choice is leave or be left behind.