Then vs Now

Call me a softy, too sentimental, overly nostalgic, a little narcissistic, or just plain weird. But one thing I love to do is to visit old places from my life. I like to go back to places that were once common in my day to day life—an old college classroom, the gym at my old church, a particular spot in my library—and just reminisce.

To me, it’s like time travel. These places rarely change, and all the sights, sounds and even smells immediately transport me back to the minutia of life at that moment. (I told you it was weird.)

I did that today. I crossed the 16th Street Bridge over I-25 for the first time in two years. I don’t know what compelled me to take a picture of the highway on February 6, 2010. But I did, and as I crossed the bridge today, I had to take it again.

Maybe it’s the dichotomy between how little this sleepy little highway has changed in two years, and how much my perspective has. But there’s something compelling to me. To follow my footsteps from LoDo to the Highlands, to wander around the neighborhoods remembering what was in my head on a cold February day 2 years ago. Life seemed so certain, I was about to graduate college, was carefully considering which job opportunities to pursue, and where to live. I thought I was moving to Denver. I thought everything was figured out, and that everything would work out marvelously.

Well, it did. But nothing I thought would happen actually happened. The best laid plans…

So as I was retracing my steps today, I had to laugh. Nothing had changed in Denver, but everything had changed in me. God has shown me, and used me and changed me more than I could have ever expected one cold day 2 years ago. I could write volumes on what has happened in my life in the last two years. Most of it good, all of it unexpected.

I have been thinking a lot about what life looks like for me for the next 2, 5, and even 25 years. Maybe it’s a side effect of turning 25. Maybe I am just too sentimental. I have a lot of plans. I think I know what I want. And I can’t wait in a few years to walk over this bridge again, remembering my present day plans and how none of it went the way I thought, and all of it went beter than I could have ever dreamed. These locations are like a time machine, connecting my past to my future. And I can’t wait to discover that future.

“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”