Molting - what a gross word for a profound stage of life.

Spending the week in Binghamton was like a breath of fresh air.  Surprisingly, it wasn't the kind of breath of fresh air that comes from adjusting to a new environment or getting into a new rhythm of life or the invigoration of meeting new people or spending time with old friends.  Maybe it was a little part of it - there's always a sense of excitement or thrill with new beginnings and the potential for great things to happen - but the more I think about it, the less it seems to fit the description of how I feel.

My first instinct is to say that it's like I'm a different person when I'm on Binghamton's campus.  To say I feel like a different person on campus makes me think of when I first began to encounter the friction between my life as a college student on campus and my life as a college student back home in NYC.  You can read the frustrations in some of my old blog posts as I tried to untangle the complexities of oscillating between an environment where change is often stimulated and an environment where change is more often stifled or takes much longer to permeate.  

I've come a long way since then, and it's a continual process even at this point as I've graduated from college.  But honestly, I can't say I'm the same girl I was when I first graduated high school and headed to Binghamton.  My world has changed in ways I can't even verbalize accurately here or in person.  God has changed the way I see the world, the way I see His people, and the way I see the purpose and direction of my life.    

Even though I've lived my whole life in Queens and the NYC area, I've never really considered myself a city girl.  Yes, I'm enjoy the familiarity of the areas I've been to, the comfort of my connected community, and the thrill that there is always something new to explore or experience, but when it comes to the core of my being, I feel like I don't really belong here.   

So while I was away this past week I realized that it's not that I feel like I'm a different and better person - I actually just feel like I have the freedom to be who I've become, to explore what it's like to embrace this transformed life that God is shaping out of this malleable piece of clay.    

Now when I thought this to myself, it also crossed my mind that this sense of freedom to be myself may come off as an indication that I feel like I've been suffocating for the past 21 years in the environment I grew up in - giving a negative connotation and implying that I was ungrateful for all that my community has done for me or that they've unnecessarily constricted or sheltered me.  But none of that is true.  I think it's just time to find a new shell because I'm outgrowing this old one.

I'm kind of like a greeting card sent through the mail.  The envelope is like my NYC life - incredibly important in getting its contents safely from one place to another, giving a sense of proper direction and protection along the way in life.  Envelopes can have their own sense of unique identity - they may get a bit run-down from the bumps of life; they can come in all colors, shapes and sizes; they can be unique and eye-popping or they can be plain and boring.  

But when someone receives that kind of mail, it's not the envelope that the recipient is looking for or finding value in - ultimately, it's the greeting card inside of it.  The greeting card isn't meant to stay in the envelope, no matter how snug the fit is.  That's what it felt like when I was starting to settle in at my new apartment, walking around my alma mater campus, breathing in the familiar and not-so-familiar air of adulthood.  I was always meant to come out of the envelope.

Okay, so it's a lame-o metaphor, but come on, it gives another dimension to the phrase, "Push the envelope," doesn't it?