Racing thoughts

Maybe

I think I spent an unspeakable amount of precious hours of my life planning. It all started when I was around eight or nine and I looked at adults and all the things they commented about how life should look like. I basically gathered all I thought would please my parents and leave people at awe in admiration of how good of a girl I was. I wanted to be the example the people in my family mentioned when they thought of "success". I wanted praise and admiration, and that... that idea made me super happy. And that's all we want, right? To be happy.

Except I forgot that in order to get a Nobel prize in physics and work at NASA and go to space, all while getting married to the love of my life and having kids at 25 years old, I would have to be... well, fictional. It's not that those things aren't possible (even though they seem extremely unlikely), but for someone to achieve all of that they would have to love IT. Love doing the work. Love getting home late and tired and hope for some time to at least put the kids to bed. Love studying basically until death and never stop working to learn more through research. Love all the math, physics and hard work that it takes to build an academic career, all of that with very very little money. For me to achieve those things I would have to love every step of the process, and in my little kids mind all I wanted was the praise. The end. The process didn't even exist in my tiny brain.

As I grew and I started noticing I was better at debating then calculating, I forced myself to be better at math. When I noticed I hated trigonometry and I started loving sociology and history, I told myself I didn't need to love all of math to work with it. As a matter of fact, I remember as clear as day the moment in my senior year God whispered in my heart and I thought "I want to study law".

Still, it didn't matter what I wanted or what gave my heart joy and satisfaction. Because when people hear "law" they go "oh okay, nice!". But when they hear "astrophysics" they go "WHAT? Are you insane? You must be a genius!".

Right now you're probably thinking "Isabelle, this is ridiculous. You are a pathological people pleaser. Why would you do this to yourself?"

Well... my thoughts exactly, mate. I don't know. I just did.

I went through with my application for astronomy in uni. I started studying it and rented a room in a different city. I was thinking "this is it. This is the start of it all. This is gonna be my year!"

Mind you, this was January of 2020.

When the pandemic happened and I had to move back into my parents place I was devastated. I was very invested in my astronomy 101 class, but all of the calc and physics was flying above my head as far as an airplane and I cried regularly while studying it.

I couldn't take it. This was supposed to be the rest of my life? My career? I was miserable. Why did I waste so much time? Why didn't I go to law school in the first place? Why did I put myself in this situation?

While these thoughts rushed inside my brain when I went to bed every night, the answer was clear and I felt terrible: because I didn't listen to God.

He had told me multiple times, in multiple ways. I was so darn focused and stubborn that I refused to acknowledge it, even though none of it happened outside of my own thoughts. I refused to see what was right in front of me.

If my plans had turned out the way I wanted them to, I wouldn't have what, today, I consider to be the most important things in my life. I wouldn't be engaged to the man I love, probably wouldn't even be together anymore. I wouldn't have discovered this side of myself that was completely unexpected and that loves to learn things and work at a computer and deal with documents and deadlines. I wouldn't have met some of my best friends that have my back in any situation possible. I wouldn't be this close to my parents, whom I have got to know more deeply and have learned things about them that I would never have guessed.

I refused, I learned, I rebelled (a story for another time) and then I've come to understand that the person I am is literally the person God has been revealing to me for years and I pretended I didn't see. I had one of the most challenging, difficult and best year of my life and I owe it all to Him and how He's been showing me a way I didn't even know was possible.

I won't tell you not to worry, cuz we all do. But when you do, stop and think about how God's been with you along the way, no matter the step you took. No matter if you were trying to find your own path or following the one He showed you. He is there. Looking at you, waiting for you, and taking care of you.

When the Bible says He'll never forsake you, it means it. It's never gonna be too late to take a deep breath and spare yourself a whole lot of trouble by starting with:

"God... show me what to do next."

And know that by doing that, you will find everything you've ever dreamed of.

Or maybe you won't.

Maybe you'll find something much greater than that.