Fear of Missing Out
People used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up –
saw the mountain ranges in my eyes and my curious hands
heard my voice full of wonder and questions
and figured I had dreams as wide as a child’s smile.
They were right.
By the time I was 8 I had the perfect answer
for anyone who asked me about my future.
I said I would be the world’s first
mom-vet-astronaut-president-author-
teacher-lawyer-doctor-popstar-journalist-
that solves world hunger and climbs Mount
Everest and maybe wins dancing with the stars.
People would laugh as I jammed infinity into the years
ahead. They did not realize I wasn’t joking. Some
deep part of me really believed I had enough
life
to live every adventure I could pluck off the TV screen
or out of a book. My bucket list became the whole globe.
Future me danced through rainforests and explored
every cathedral. Met dignitaries. Restored dignity.
Dug for treasure. I figured that if God had created the wide
world and called it all good, well then, I wanted all the good.
This thirsty heart.
This soul unsatisfied.
Time and realistic adults started to whittle down my life
choices, until I was left to grow up with a backpack full of
big desires and no idea how they’d be met. The black hole in
my chest sounds like cracking every book spine.
Sounds like a pencil scratching relentlessly. The constant
click of keyboard. An engine always whirring. Sounds like
shaking every hand. Greeting every person.
It’s not that I’m afraid of being alone.
It’s that I fear leaving the world with unturned stones. Untold
stories. Unsolved suffering. What do I do with the gaping
hunger in this body? The lifetimes it would take to
live the life I want? The littlest soul.
She said that God would not give us desires
He couldn’t meet. So when God held this heart and
set it beating, He left fingerprints the size of
everything
And I arrive at today still searching for the hands
that shaped me needy. See, you and me? We
were molded by Infinity, and in
our simplicity we begin to worry that nothing will
ever fill those fingerprints. Start to worry that we can’t fix
all the pain we break for. Or find all the adventures we dream
of. I don’t think God would give us timeless hearts and
limited time just so we’d leave the world empty. No.
The echo between our ribs cries out for songs beyond the
brittle world. It says, “Leave your broken water jar.
Child. Don’t you realize I’ve got fountains for that
parched soul? Don’t you realize all that
hunger in your belly will not be fed by bread?” And we.
We slow down. We take off our backpacks. We find
the map God plotted in fingerprints long before we breathed
because we don’t get to
catch every hurt
take every trip
see every beauty
live every life.
But hey.
Isn’t the one we’ve got just what the world needs?