Measuring Success - Part One

I am a measurer, 

I measure everything, the time it takes me to get to work on different roads, the amount of liquid I drink a day, the steps I take, the tasks I complete. I measure, I review, I consider, I make new plans, I make new goals, I achieve them or I let them go. I am methodical and detailed in so many ways, and in a similar fashion to how some treat the new year as a measure of where they are, what they’ve achieved and what they want to achieve: I treat most days. There are dates and milestones in my mind everyday, questions circle my brain ‘Where was I a year, a month or a day ago?’ and ‘where I am going?’

A year ago today I was boarding a plane, well three actually, on route to the United States of America. I was ten years old when I first started dreaming about America, to me it was so many things, it was a far away land full of beautiful cities, complicated history, and people, people I wanted to meet. It was also this place of inspiration, I felt inspired just knowing it existed, and maybe it was just all the movies or the country songs about the long highways, nights full of love, stars and forgetting your past that made me feel like America was somewhere where I could belong. 

If I was to measure this year I'd start with the increase in my willingness to follow dreams, to overcome fear, surpass peoples negative opinions and conquer something. From things as small as climbing a tree again; something I threw out of my skill set after primary school to things as big as sharing my poetry/writing openly, honestly, not from behind a mask but with my name plastered all over it. I could measure it with the dreams I lived, the small ones, the writing in my  journal in Central Park, seeing a squirrel, talking to a cowboy in Texas, listening to country tunes whilst travelling on a highway. I could measure it in officially launching a website.

I measure the pain I have felt this year, the months I spent in burnout, unable to be motivated enough to care for myself but somehow still motivated to care for others. I record the number of hours I spent crying nursing a broken heart, a lonely soul, a failure of a dream. I measure the lengths to which people let me down, ruined my plans or told me I couldn’t achieve something I knew I could. Measuring things like this only makes the victory of being present in the current day sweeter, not to hold on to the negative but to be proud of my accomplishments through it.

I record the hours and hours spent tirelessly trying to write, to make sense of the developing story that so badly wants to flow out of me but is so stuck. When I think back on this year I think of the words I have backspaced but more importantly the brave steps I have taken to show people my art. I can tell you exactly how many books i’ve read, how many places i’ve been, how many planes I have caught. I could walk you through the community events, or the planning meetings. I could give you a detailed review of what it is like to do my job, including the milk run. 

I record the amount of times I fail, the diets I never do, the weight I still haven’t lost. I could tell you the distance in which I have run and well.. walked. I could tell you about all my failures, my fears, my rejections. I keep them all in my head. I could tell you all about having to say goodbye to some of my favourite people, I could measure how many times I got to cuddle my favourite small people, I could count up the stick figure drawings I’ve received. I could measure the encouraging messages, the texts, the ‘keep going’ whispers from my friends. 

But here is the thing in this very moment the only thing I really care about evaluating, is something I could never dream of measuring; The amount of times this past year, over and over, that our God has screamed, shouted, whisphered, and sang that he loves me. Through all the ups and downs, the disappointments, the celebrations, the flight delays and the bad co-workers, He has shown me His favour, His grace, His truth and His love.

I am unmeasurably loved by my creator for eternity. 

I know that now way more than I knew it a year ago. 

e.d