Between seventh and eleventh grade, I grew six inches taller. Growing pains racked my shins. In that time I don’t remember ever taking Tylenol for it. I do remember mentally embracing the pain, because it meant I was getting closer to 6’3”—my goal height.
That was 25 years ago, but I got a flashback last night. I felt growing pains in a new place: my heart. I’m an ibuprofen guy now, but I knew not to take it. I wanted to sit in this ache, because it’s getting me closer to my goal height for my soul.
But it sucks.
Up past my bedtime last night, I was chatting with two of my sisters about what Enneagram number they contend I am. If you don’t know what the Enneagram is, ask a white woman in Hans Solo boots at a Target Starbucks. (She might be holding her flavored coffee with both hands like a praying mantis. She’ll definitely recommend two books and three podcasts you should try.) In short, the Enneagram is a numbered, life-analysis system that lets you know how, why, and when you or people you care about are in a healthy emotional place.
My sisters suggested that my changing behavior might be skewing my Enneagram diagnosis. They told me that I’ve grown a lot over the past few years. My baby sister said she didn’t even foresee us being close friends three or four years ago. “You’re so much more intentional in your relationships now.” She told me Mom had seconded that statement a couple months ago.
Those should be encouraging words, right? They were meant that way.
But the inherent truth of that affirmation is that I have years of unhealth stacked up underneath my booster seat at the grown-ups table. What has felt internally like incremental improvement at best, hasn’t seemed so glacial to the people I care about. The growth is good, but the contrast is painful. It means I have regrets.
I’ve pushed away friends and love.
I’ve lost clients and income.
I’ve missed moments of transcendence.
I can’t shutter at what I didn’t know, but I can cringe at my lack of self-awareness or my lack of acting on what awareness I did have. From what I’m told, I apparently know better now. But that means ignorance was not bliss. I hurt people. Maybe myself.
I don’t want to go back with Marty McFly and shake the gray out of my developing Polaroid. I’ve had truth in my life for decades and didn’t absorb it. I couldn’t accelerate anything. I couldn’t push my wheelbarrow further up the Monopoly board. I had 3 Doors Down turned up too loud back then: “’Cause it’s not my time, I’m not going.”
What’s going to help me sleep tonight is another inherent truth: Jesus was waiting for me the whole time. He wasn’t wringing his hands. He wasn’t checking his watch. He wasn’t pacing the rug at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t check his Dropbox to see if there were any files in the Plan B folder.
My whole bleeping life he’s been assuring everyone who asks with “He’ll get there. You’ll see.”
He still is, because I haven’t arrived yet. I’ve just made it to the next mile marker. I still don’t know what I don’t know. I didn’t three years ago. I definitely didn’t a decade ago. If I’m doing life the right way, someone else I love will tell me in a couple years, “Man, you’ve come a long way.”
I’ve been wearing glasses for only six years now. I remember the first time I tried them on, and everything looked like 4k HD out my windshield. Signs were easier to read. Graffiti on passing rail cars had texture. Flower petals and tree leaves had crisp edges. And I thought about all the roadside beauty I had missed over the years.
Today, I’m on that same drive. It’s bittersweet—regret swirled with gratitude, remorse silver lined with affirmation. The difference is that this time, the road isn’t familiar. I don’t know what’s up ahead or how many miles it is to the next scenic overlook.
I just know I’ll get there on time—probably with an unopened bottle of Aleve.
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Stock photo purchased form iStockPhoto.com
