God Speed

When I was 7 years old, I did my very first puzzle. It was a 12-piece, blue-background Tinker Bell puzzle. I remember being so excited and elated to have finished a 12-piece puzzle in under 30 minutes. I also remember being so upset and distraught when my mom refused to tape it properly and frame it for everyone to see.

At the ripe age of 7, I knew I was the type of person who had to know everything. I also had to know the why of everything. I also had to make sure everything worked in a specific manner. I know it's very standard for kids to ask "Why?" about everything, but my "whys" were a little too much. Or at least that's what my mom says. I don't think it's "too much" for a 7-year-old to ask her parents why God decided that it would be a good idea to drown the entire planet and tell a man to put a pair of each animal on a giant boat. Also, how did he get two of each animal on the entire planet? It didn't make sense that all of the animals on the planet were in one specific location. My mom said that sometimes things don't have to make sense. Sometimes things just are, and we just have to let them be.

I had a problem with that almost instantly. To this day, actually. (I'm working on it, I promise). My problem with that logic was that I was introduced to science very early on. With science, I learned that things are very yes or no. They aren't just "there," per se. You find a thing, you ask a question, you pose a hypothesis, you do the research, and then you either prove or disprove the hypothesis. My mom thought it was cute that I liked science this much. What she didn't think was cute was that I was using science to question priests and nuns at Sunday school.

I tried to grow out of this; however, the more I grew, the more this need to know why everything happens grew with me. So you can imagine how this became a major issue for me when major issues came up in my life.

Growing up in a faith-based home and having a science-based view of the world really put me through the wringer, to put it lightly.

When I was in high school, I had my first boyfriend ever. I then proceeded to get a restraining order against him 2 years into the relationship. This was my very first serious "why is this happening to me?" moment. I really did all the work. I identified the situation. I asked the question. I posed a hypothesis. I came up blank. Okay, fair. I went to church. I met a priest. I asked for a confession meeting. I told him everything and asked the question. He said things just happen. God has a plan. It was part of his plan. It was almost like I was 7, asking why Noah's Ark was a thing, all over again. It didn't sit right with me. I didn't like it. I didn't accept it.

When I started college, I was declared as a pre-med pediatric physical therapist student. I wanted to work with kids who had motor cortex disabilities. I always liked kids. They're fun, they're funny, they're kind, they still see the world with tenderness. I did an internship with a non-profit organization that was supposed to help families of low income get the help that their kids needed. The first week I was there, they turned away about 2 families per day because they averaged about $100-$150 above the accepted monthly income for the program to help them. I didn't understand why this was a thing. These children didn't choose to be born this way. These families didn't choose to be in these circumstances. Business-wise, it made sense, humanitarian-wise; why? I asked, I hypothesized, I researched, I came up blank. It was God's plan. It didn't sit right with me. I didn't like it. I didn't accept it.

I dropped the program and switched to Theater/Spanish Literature. It made sense. It felt right. I accepted it. During the last month and a half of my last semester, I was in a situation that backtracked all the progress I had made in all areas of my life. It has lingered into most of my day-to-day life. Right down to the minute of each day. Once again, I wanted to know, why? Why me? What did I do? Was it part of this grand plan that just is? For the hundredth time, I asked the question. I posed the hypothesis. I did the research. I came up empty. It didn't sit right with me. I didn't like it. I didn't accept it, at first.

Ever since I was a kid, not only did I need to know why; I also had to make sure things all worked a specific way. I had to make sure things stayed on track. Ran smoothly. Some call it OCD, I call it playing it safe. I needed to make sure that if things operated smoothly, then I wouldn't have to question anything. It would all make sense. It would all sit right. I would be able to accept it all. Yet here I am again. Not understanding. Not liking it. Not accepting it.

So I sat. I contemplated. I just was.

I told myself it was part of this plan. That I didn't need to understand. That maybe I didn't need to be so calculated. Maybe I didn't need to know why. Maybe I could just accept it. Maybe that's what they meant when they told me to go at God's speed.

I never believed in coincidences. I never believed in the grey area. It was always black and white for me, just like my wardrobe. They say that we, as humans, have a tendency to lean towards the colors that resonate with the way we see the world. That was always such an interesting theory to me.

Anyways, coincidences, they never sat right with me. But the day that I was thinking about the phrase "God Speed" was the day that I heard the song "God Speed" for the first time. There's this specific line that says "Only God and my mama know what I need". That line stuck with me for some reason. What did I need? I know what I have, what I don't have, what I want, but what do I need?

So I did what I do best when I want an answer. I ask the question. I pose a hypothesis. I do the research. The research for this specific matter was nothing more, and nothing less than a checklist labeled: Things I need in my life. Clean, cut, and straight to the point.

1. A stable job

2. A stable income

3. A boyfriend who is dating with the intent to marry.

4.

I stared at number 4 for what seemed an eternity. Was it possible that I only need 3 things in my life? There's no way my life is only amounting to a good paying job and a guy who wants to be with me for the rest of his life. I think I stared at this list for a solid two weeks before I brought it up to my therapist. She kinda does this

 thing where she asks me questions, and then answers the questions I ask to her questions, and then her answers kind of help me find the answers to the questions she originally asked me. It's a great dynamic, really.

Anyways, I show this list to her. She looks at it. She looks at me. She looks at the list again. She looks at me again, and after a 5 Mississippis', she says, "It's a shame that that's all you're living for." I felt a pit in my stomach start to form. That feeling was there again. The feeling that was there when I asked about Noah's ark. The feeling that was there when I asked the priest, why me? The feeling that was there when nothing made sense. Except this time, I was what didn't make sense to myself. Was she right? Were those three things all that I was living for? Why did they hold such priority in my life? Needless to say, this was a very dramatic session.

I drove home after that 1-hour meeting and played that freaking song on repeat the whole way home. I stayed up until 4 in the morning listening to that damn song. The next morning I asked my mom what she thought I needed in my life. Obviously, she said I needed to pray more and to just trust God. Very vague, but hey, an answer is an answer. So I did that. I went to a church. It was empty, and it was also a Thursday at 3 in the afternoon. I sat there. I just sat. I stared at the building, at the details of the images that surrounded me. At the hanging crucifix in the middle of a building and all I could think about was how there's historical and scientific evidence that Jesus was a living breathing person but God only exists in our faith. The same faith that Jesus had. The same faith that had Jesus killed. It was funny, really. It was almost spitefully hilarious how that was the only thing I could think of and it was the mirror image of why I was sitting there in the first place. Consistently going back and forth with faith and facts. Here I was, still doing the same thing in a place that demands your faith.

I thought about it. Long and hard. For couple hours, days, weeks. I met with my therapist again. She asked me more questions. I asked her even more questions. It was an endless cycle of not being able to pinpoint what I needed. From her, from life, from me. So I caved. I heard Godspeed, and I went Godspeed. I started working on realigning my faith. In God, in the universe, in something. Something that had to have all the answers. Something that had total control because apparently I wasn't supposed to have all control. All I knew was that I always preached that we all had to believe in something so we could stand for something. Yet here I was, struggling to stand and to believe.

It's been about 6 months since the incident that guided me towards wanting to reinstate my faith system. It's been 6 months of a constant internal battle with undoing and reworking. It's been 6 months of fighting the opposing sides of either saying "Yes, this is what I need to do." or, "You're literally wasting your time."

I like to think that "Godspeed" is independent to each person. That it's parallel to the belief system that everyone's process is nonlinear and there isn't a set timeline that is universal to everyone. That's the way I have to see it, you know, to help me ease the grip I have on trying to control everything in my life. I also like to think that maybe this is correlated to my love for puzzles. Wanting to know what the picture is going to look like and making sure that the process is as linear as possible for the expected outcome. Who knows? Just Godspeed, I guess.