26

When the clock struck midnight on March 8^th, 2020, I turned 25. I was in a tiki bar in Kansas, surrounded by my husband and our friends from grad school. I immediately started spouting off cliched things about a quarter life crisis and getting old. I did feel some anxiety about it, but I think I tried to pressure myself into being more concerned than I really was. It was a bit of an act and in retrospect, such an inconsequential concern considering the turn the world took in the following days.

Now, I view that night as a lighting in a bottle moment for me, romanticized to the n^th degree. It was the final moment of normalcy. We were with friends, no masks, talking to each other with our faces close together to hear over the music. We had attended a college basketball game earlier in the day, with several thousand fans. I remember everything about that day, what I was wearing, how strong the wind felt, the conversations we had over dinner with friends about career goals and investment opportunities.

We talked about the virus and all the rumors of cancellations and changes, but we had no way of knowing what was to come. I never would have dreamed that 10 days later, I would be working from home (and still am a year later). That I would start getting refunds for all of the upcoming baseball and concert tickets I had bought. That all of the weddings we were invited to would become postponed or transition into elopements.

For all of the challenges 2020 brought, I’m thankful for the prospective it provided. In a year where not everyone got to make it to their next birthday, I did. In a year where not everyone got to keep their job, I did. So, I am grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to turn 26. I’m dispelling my fear of aging every day and trying to live in the moment. To make hay while the sun shines.

26 is a pretty non-momentous birthday. But it is the 10^th anniversary of turning 16. A decade post coming-of-age. When I turned 16, things on my mind included getting my drivers license (I was terrified, but went and passed the test the next day), what kind of prom dress I would get, whether I would be a starter on the basketball team next season, and what college I would settle on to pursue a degree in architecture.

In some ways, the following decade went better than I anticipated: I’m still not embarrassed by either of my prom dress selections (a small miracle given the popularity of lime green and ill-guided cutouts at the time). I own a spacious home and am on my way to achieving my financial goals. I’ve taken a number of vacations to beautiful places. In other ways, it’s quite different from any guess about the future I would have made then: I have a master’s degree in Agriculture Economics, not architecture. Though I am married to a farmer, I’m not living on a farm and I don’t have any kids. The city feels much more at home to me. My most athletic days happened after high school.  Driving isn’t scary for me anymore. Within a few years of getting my license, I had driven in downtown Chicago during rush hour, something I never dreamed would be achievable for me. I certainly recognize bits and pieces of the person I was at 16, but 26 year old me has different priorities, different goals, different values.

26 is no where near as “adult” as I thought it was back then. Sure, I save for retirement and I’m married, but we still often sleep on the floor and couches when we go visit friends. I own not one, but two pairs of Vans, which according to the wardrobes on shows about teenagers on Netflix, are the cool thing to wear. And on that point, I still watch shows about teenagers (I missed it at the time, but now it is glaringly obvious to me that the actors on these shows are my age, not actual adolescences). We do stuff like fly to Vegas with the cheapest possible tickets, drive through the night, nap an hour in the parking lot, then watch the sunrise over the Grand Canyon. I still consider leftover pizza to be a breakfast food.

I wish someone would have told me that 26 can be like this. Being an adult doesn’t have to be all in or all out. I can succeed professionally, but still wear crop tops and ripped jeans on the weekend. I can still feel youthful, but also responsible. I can change my views on so many things, but still be true to who I’ve always been. So, to 16 year old me, 26 is better than you’d believe, but you’re just going to have to live it to understand.  

17 Years Ago

I had only reach the tender age of six when my first-grade teacher ended the school day by telling us some of the bigger kids on the bus might be talking about something that had happened that day. She told us not to listen to them until we got home and our parents got a chance to talk to us. Minutes later I was sitting in my mother’s classroom as she leaned forward in the chair across from me so that our faces were at the same level. I don’t remember a single word of what she said, but I remember the way her hands were nervously clasped in front of her, that her curls were still bouncy from the hot rollers she used back then, that she was wearing a long maroon jumper and her worn brown loafers. She had never delivered news to me in this way before. She sounded calm, but she was clearly shaken. She expressed the seriousness of the tragedy that had occurred, while keeping from freighting me too much.

My next surviving memory of that day occurred a few minutes later as we drove past the Pick-a-Dilly and cars were backed up into the street on all sides. We traveled on to the MFA petrol station, which at the time required a membership card that few people had. My future high school yearbook advisor was the only other patron there. She and my mother quietly exchanged a few remarks about the likelihood of a fuel shortage, a stark contrast to the mad house just up the street. My mother explained to me that people were scared we might run out of gas, so everyone was filling up. Word was that the Pick-a-Dilly’s supply held out until midnight, much longer than many panicked residents had assumed it would. I was too young to understand the politics of the oil industry or to connect terrorist, a word I had just learned that day, to the source of the smelly liquid that made cars run. But I did understand that no one knew what to expect and that everyone was scared. Being scared as a six year old is a frequent occurrence, but seeing. An adult scared, let alone most every adult you know, is a whole new type of fear. Adults were supposed to be our comforts, supposed to have the answers.

With only six years of life experience, my classmates and I had so little context from which to process the situation. My only sense of “bad guys” came from John Wayne movies. I was learning new things, all of them quite frightening and intense, rapidly. The almost 3,000 people killed seemed like a million to someone who doesn’t even know how to multiply yet. Was New York City near or far away? Were the airplane trails I saw in the sky actually headed for our school or our farm?

My great-grandma passed away around the same time, which was one of the first deaths in the family I remember. She is intertwined in this story because we didn’t have a tv or computer in our house at the time, so if my dad wanted an updated on the events unfolding, we would head up the road to her house. I mostly played with toys from the 1970’s while he watched the news, but I remember occasionally seeing footage of a plane hitting a tower and smoke filling the sky. Her passing was literally much closer to home and more tangible for my young mind to process.

I have other memories of the aftermath that occurred over the following year or two. I remember practicing our musical number, American Tears, for the one year remembrance ceremony at school. Now seven, one or two of my classmates would start crying every time we practiced it. We couldn’t fully grasp why the song evoked such strong emotions from us, but something about looking at the illustration of a fireman’s helmet on the sheet music made us scared and confused all over again. I remember Alan Jackson’s tribute song being beloved by all. I remember my mom passing her copy of “Let’s Roll” around to all of her friends and a list of signatures growing in the front cover as they all read it. She wouldn’t let me read it, as it was “too adult”, which made no sense to me since I had read the other book she passed around to her friends, John Ashcroft’s “On My Honor”. I had an advanced reading level, and the literary preferences of someone five times my age, buy it would take years before I gained enough context to understand why a book about what happened on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania isn’t appropriate for a child.

With a few exceptions, I am a part of the youngest group of Americans to have retained memories from that day. Even young Candace knew that no number of articles or books or reflective essays could capture the feelings that hung heavy in the air that day, the uneasy quietness of middle America that stood in stark contrast to the screams and sirens on TV. As horrible as the events were, as much as it raddled the innocence of my first-grade class, I’m thankful to have experienced the shock, fear, and sadness in solidarity with the rest of my country that day.

Smart Wedding

On Tuesday April 24th, Nathan and I left before the sunrise to drive to Knoxville, Tennessee in my trusty (so I have thought for the past two and a half years) Jeep Patriot. Seven hours later, we pulled into the county clerk’s office and clung to the hope that we had brought every last piece of necessary documentation and had arrived in time to obtain our marriage license. Despite being twenty people deep in line, everything went smoothly and we walked out with document in hand only 45 minutes later. We spent the evening acquiring last minute supplies and getting my nails done, including an unplanned pit stop at the JCPenny because Nathan apparently does not own a stain-free white dress shirt. We spent the evening thankful to be free of the typical last-minute wedding stresses and said goodnight to one another to retreat to our hotel rooms to hand write our vows for the next day. I was obviously the one who had pushed for custom vows, but I was confident that Nathan would craft his thoughts in the perfect way.
The next morning we got in the car to head off to an unrushed breakfast before my hair and makeup appointment, but turning the key in the ignition provided only a unsettling click. We started searching for every tow company in the area and it took us several tries before we could reach anyone to come help us. Thankfully, Volunteer Towing answered and quickly headed our way. As our rescuer pulled up, the rain the forecast had predicted started to fall, I think just to fully set the scene for us. After many attempts at jumping us, we were up and running and we headed straight for the nearby Pep Boys. Nathan stayed with the car as they replaced the battery and I Ubered to my appointment just on time. I would like to note that in an extremely uncharacteristic move, I remained 100% calm during this entire ordeal. Nathan has agreed to vouch for this, as it was quite the shock to him too. I knew that we’d find a solution and nothing would get in the way of us being married at the end of the day, which was our only objective. By the time my hair and makeup was done, an hour earlier than estimated, Nathan was sitting in the parking lot, with a fully functioning car, and had even managed to swing by the florist.

We were somehow ahead of schedule and I was running on a granola bar I found in the car, so we sat down for a relaxed lunch. When the waitress said she loved my hair, we both smiled big and let her know we were on our way to our wedding. That must have been the hot gossip in the kitchen, because I think every employee made it over to our table at some point to congratulate us.
We then headed off to Gatlinburg and arrived at our cabin to unload and change. Nathan wore a blue suit and a purple tie and socks (a nod to his beloved Kansas State). Thanks to my mother’s efforts, I now know the true meaning of “a labor of love”. She spent months researching and sewing to bring my dream dress to life. She made a beautiful blue chiffon skirt, almost the exact hue as her own wedding dress, that I paired with a white silk top. Long before I ever met Nathan, I dreamed of eloping in a blue dress, and her support made both of those happen.

We met our photographer (the immensely talented Erin Morrison) and officiant at Noah Bud Ogle Cabin in Great Smoky Mountain National Park and Nathan Michael Smart and Candace Elaine Gatson were wed at 5:30 PM. The skies opened up despite the prediction of all day rain and our ceremony was the stuff of dreams. When Reverend Emily Dameron emailed us her first draft of the ceremony, we didn’t have a single change request; she had captured our vision beautifully. Nathan shared his vows:
I promise not only to listen, but to hear you, not only to be honest, but to trust, and not only to love but to be loved.
I know I will not always be what you want me to be. I might forget to share, I may not always agree, and I may need reminded that it is okay to take our time, but I will always love you. I will always strive to be the man you believe I can be.
With kindness, fidelity and trust, I am excited to build our lives together with a love that will grow with each passing day, whether we are faced with hardship or joy.
I promise to cherish and respect you, to care for and protect you, to comfort and encourage you and to be on your team for eternity.

Then I followed with mine:
I could never imagine a world in which I deserved to be the recipient of your love. Yet here I stand, being bestowed the honor of becoming your wife.
Love for you flows so naturally from my heart, so I promise to find ways to intentionally show my love to you, rather than become complacent with implied love.
I promise to stand with you in solidarity, as a teammate and a partner, if our careers flourish, if bringing babies into this world proves easy, if our health endures through the years, if happiness, prosperity, and plenty are our constant companions.
I also promise to be unwavering in this solidarity, as a teammate and a partner, if our education fails us, if conceiving children seems out of reach, if sickness overwhelms our bodies, if loss, sadness, and struggle darken our door.
I promise to take on your joy as my own joy and to bear your hardships as my own hardships and to offer the same up to you.
I promise to regard your heart as my home, no matter our address.
I promise to make honoring the memory of the loved ones we have lost a priority.
I promise to strive to make the objective of our marriage growing closer to God and sharing his truth with others so that they may grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
In all of these promises, I ask for grace from you. While my love is deep and my commitment to you is strong, I am merely human. I will fail you and disappoint you at times, but know that no matter how great my shortcomings are, I love you. I want you. I need you.

We exchanged rings, then we each led the other in a prayer for our new marriage. Our officiant headed out and we tried to wrap our heads around the magnitude of what had just happened. We then spent some time with our photographer capturing our newlywed joy. The rain returned and we ran and jumped and climbed and tried to hold on to the happiest day ever.

My husband and I spent the next few days in a cabin in the mountains, exploring the park further and practicing calling each other “husband and wife”. The blissfulness of our mountain escape became bittersweet as we learned of the passing of Nathan’s grandpa two days after our wedding and we headed home a day early. We had each promised in our vows to share our joys and hardships, despite not collaborating at all on the content. Despite our sadness, we were thankful to be able to face this first hardship together. I left that weekend so clearly more in love with Nathan than when we had arrived, due to both the joys and the hardships we had faced.

Erin Morrison Photography http://www.erinmorrisonphotography.com

Erin Morrison Photography http://www.erinmorrisonphotography.com

Erin Morrison Photography http://www.erinmorrisonphotography.com

Erin Morrison Photography http://www.erinmorrisonphotography.com

Erin Morrison Photography http://www.erinmorrisonphotography.com

Erin Morrison Photography http://www.erinmorrisonphotography.com

We know that our decision to marry without any friends or family in attendance was unconventional, but it was the best choice for us. We were able to focus on one other and the magnitude of the covenant we were entering into with God and each other and save my pickiness about centerpieces for later. Also, there was no earthly way for us to have all of the people we love most to be present, so we decided to simply be with each other. We were relaxed and happy and in the presence of great beauty. Nathan and I cannot thank everyone enough for being so understanding and supportive.

Quick Announcement

This week, I became an aunt for the second time (my first nephew I gained through my recent marriage to Nathan. But that’s a different announcement for a later date.)!! My brother Garth and his wife Holly welcomed Orrin Henry Gatson on May 11th at 4:13 in the afternoon. Orrin weighed in at 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 21 inches long. He’s by all accounts precious and adorable. He’s had the pleasure of meeting all four of his grandparents and looks forward to soon becoming a Missourian. I’m pleased to pass along that the family is healthy and happy. Welcome to the world, little buddy.

Writer

During a recent bout of procrastination, I caught on the last month’s worth of Jane the Virgin episodes. Jane the Virgin is a bizarrely captivating show that proves incredibly illusive to being described in a way that makes it sound worth watching, so I’ll just stick to describing one small part of it. The main character, Jane, has a lifelong dream of being a writer and with the help of her loved ones, she finally became confident calling herself a writer. She even goes on to publish a novel, but returns to her old state of doubt when her book sales fail to meet expectations. Coupled with writer’s block, Jane struggles with her identity as a writer.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about titles that expire and those that preserve on through the years. Anyone who competes in the Olympics is an Olympian for the duration of their life. But that doesn’t mean that an 85 year old Michael Phelps will still be an active Olympian. Jane will always be a writer, even if it’s not her day job from now until retirement. Forcing ourselves to match our “title” produces happiness and quality that pale in comparison to organic work.

When a dream or hobby or talent has gone dormant for a period of time, it is difficult to know whether it is preparing for a rise from the ashes or if that chapter is truly closed, making room for something new. I’ve been into making things of the arts and crafts variety for so long that I’m only aware of my earliest projects through pictures and stories from my mother. When I was in high school, my creative outlet was scrapbooking. I never sat down with the intent to create my last layout, but I never once returned to that hobby after graduation. In college, I got into painting Disney characters (a highly specific art form that I’m not really sure how I stumbled into). I moved to Kansas with an Aladdin painting half completed and two years later I haven’t even given much consideration to picking up my brushes. I think creative gift wrapping has become my newest expression of my desire to create (also highly specific).

I sometimes wonder if my blog will meet the same fate as my other endeavors. It has certainly endured changes (I used to stylize all my titles in all lower case, but my inner grammar queen overruled my inner hipster). I added photographs and updates on my life to go along with my ponderings, then backed off again from these updates. I once wrote a post each weekend, now I write only when truly compelled (or truly putting off school work), which seems to be only every other month or so.

At the risk of channeling Pocahontas here, I wonder what is around the river bend. I’m soon to be married and living back in my home state, but in my most urban environment yet, and not be an academic student for the first time since before I could tie my shoes. Will this greatly impact the frequency at which I write or the topics I tackle? Will my blog bow out or will it be the perfect medium to document these transitions? If it does go away, will its successor be as unexpected as the Disney paintings? Regardless of what my writing outlet is a year from now, I want myself to remember that moving on from something doesn’t discount what has been accomplished in the past. If my blog is only suited to be my grad school side project, that’s still a wonderful life for it to have lived. And maybe grad school was only its infancy.

Sick of It

I’m sick. It’s not that surprising considering the prevalence of the flu and the current state of my immune system. Thankfully it hasn’t really hit me that hard and I’ve found some motivation to complete a few tasks while I stay cooped up at home to avoid passing my germs on. I’ve been working on dealing with the things I’m sick (figuratively) of. I washed my bedsheets AND my backup sheets. I folded lots of clothes. And I started attacking one of the stressors in the back of my mind: having way too much stuff to deal with when it comes time to move here in a few months.
My motto for cleaning out is “every little bit helps”. If I don’t mentally congratulate myself for every single thing I toss, I don’t see the point in actually going through my pencils and tossing the ones without erasers or pitching worn socks. I just kinda keep everything and throw it into totes labeled “assorted” and drag it on to the next house with me (I’ve moved at least once a year for the past 5 years). So, I sat down and threw out the warranties to calculators I know longer own, broken belts, and the crumpled packaging to an old Taylor Swift CD. I also filled a tote for donation with duplicate pizza cutters, craft supplies, and scarves that still have lot’s of use left in them. I don’t know if “organizers high” is a thing, but I got it. It felt really good to know that I have to make room in the moving trailer for one less box, carry one less box into the new apartment, and unpack and home about 47 less items.
Then I decluttered something else I’m sick of: my Instagram feed. I’m sick of fitness models that don’t inspire me to workout, but rather make me wonder why even in my fittest era, with an 18 year old’s metabolism, I didn’t look like that. I’m sick of “lifestyle influencers” that recommend products that they are paid to push and stand in front of various brick walls and have their fiancés snap pictures of them in outfits that are practical for no occasion or climate. I’m sick of following clothing stores that urge me to buy new clothes every. Single. Day. I’m sick of wedding inspiration profiles that only feature weddings that cost more than a nice house and make me feel like the celebration I’m planning is inadequate.
I don’t want to delete every single page that features things or experiences that I don’t or can’t have; that would be an awfully bitter way to live. And I’m not mad that these people are successful and popular on Instagram. But I am a good judge of how things make me feel and whether they are a productive and positive part of my life. I know what inspires and motivates me and what doesn’t. So if I’m using an optional social media, where I have complete freedom to follow what I chose, I’m not going to sign up for unhappiness when there are lots of profiles with cute babies and puppies to be following.

Just like the guacamole, I’m extra

I’ve been what you call “extra” since day one. When it came time to leave church in the winter, my mother would instruct me to put on my coat, which I hated doing since I was a warm-blooded child. In protest, I would put it on backwards, sometimes even with the hood up covering my face. When I was four I decided that Candace didn’t really suit me and I would like to change to the moniker “Princess Aree”. Thankfully I had a good natured child care provider that obliged and began writing that name at the top of my coloring pages. I had a pair of lense-less blue plastic glasses that I insisted allowed me to see all the way to Hannibal. I once needed to pack my fanny pack full of supplies before I felt prepared to make the trek to our barn 50 feet from our house. I would refuse to eat my morning cereal if I didn’t have exactly seven frost shredded wheats, all placed icing side up in the bowl.

Me transferring all of my great grandpa’s birthday candles onto my cake

I’m not going to claim that I ever went through a phase of being normal, but in high school I became extremely conscious of what others thought of the way I presented myself, the way I dressed, the music I liked, the things I said. Like many girls whose age ends in “teen”, I was convinced that everyone intently observed and passed judgement on my every move. In reality, that’s simply not true. And when it is true, it doesn’t mean you need to bend to fit the mold. During my time in high school, I never let anyone hear me sing because I don’t have the voice of Mariah Carey. I began either straightening or curling my hair every day, because my natural waves wouldn’t cut it. I quit wearing my beloved hot pink track suit because it drew way too much attention. If I had a friend in the car, I would only listen to pop radio stations, so I seemed normal and cool. I tried to combat every ounce of weird in my body.

Me insisting on using a bar height stool at a children’s height table 

Moving to college is such a beautiful fresh canvas. My world became so much less homogenous and thankfully I seized the opportunity to bring back some of the flair I had been suppressing. I started trying new things with my outfits and hair. Goodness knows they didn’t all work out, but that’s all part of the fun. I started wearing dresses everyday even though that was not the norm. I’ve fielded the question “why are you in a dress?” a million and one times since then, but I realized that was a question of curiosity, not the asker saying “why are you wearing the wrong thing?”. I added lots of anchors and stripes and patriotic colors to my wardrobe and began to look like a cartoon ship captain. And while some people noticed that my outfits were a bit different, they thought it was fun, not unacceptable. I began wearing the front section of my hair tied up on top of my head in what is called a “party pony”. Not my most flattering look, but an exciting one. I got giant blue eyeglasses reminiscent of my childhood Hannibal vision spectacles. I don’t own anything with velvet or army camo or have a choker or have any of the many other current trends, but I do have a hand-me-down sweatshirt from my great uncle with a dog on it. I also like to buy over-the-top dressy outfits on clearance and wear them on dates with my fiancé to casual restaurants. Everyone else is dining in jeans, and there I am in a dress appropriate for a semi-formal wedding, eating my chicken strips. My high school self would die of embarrassment seeing me most days in the present, but I feel so much more free.

 Me requiring more attention than I was being given 

I absolutely still have days where I feel self-conscious and judged, but I’m no longer bound to the constraints of normalcy. I don’t search out ways to act weird, I just present myself in a way that feels to be the truest reflection me, regardless of how the result may be categorized. If the people around you need you to act normal for them to feel comfortable, you should probably find more accepting and interesting company. The definition of extra is “in addition”. When you are extra, everyone in your life gets a little bit of pizzazz on top of what comes standard.

Me holding an ornament over my face in lieu of posing normally 

Engaged

On September 30th, 2017, Nathan Michael Smart asked me to marry him. And I, Candace Elaine Gatson, said yes. In the weeks since we’ve been planning and booking and dreaming of our life to come.

For those in Nathan’s life who are reading this, I’ll introduce myself. I grew up on a farm in Vandalia, Missouri (about 2 hours north of St. Louis, 40 minutes south of Hannibal, an hour northeast of Columbia) and went to a small high school, graduating in 2013 with 41 students (a big class compared to Nathan’s graduating cohort of 26). I attended The University of Missouri-Columbia for my undergrad, alongside my older brother Garth. While at Mizzou, I learned that city life suited me just fine, played a lot of intramural basketball, and enjoyed many weekends at home in the country. In May of 2016, I graduated with a degree in Agribusiness Management and a minor in Rural Sociology. Just weeks later, I packed up and moved to Manhattan, Kansas to start my master’s degree in Agriculture Economics. I tried out half a dozen churches and sampled all the town’s famed cuisine (grilled cheese-mac n cheese sandwiches, chipotle raspberry bean dip, and hot donuts around every corner) as I grew accustomed to life outside of Missouri.

Grad school has proved to be challenging and stressful, but thankfully a farm boy from Southeast Kansas decided that he also wanted to pursue an Ag Econ Master’s at Kansas State. Nathan comes from Moran, Kansas, where he also grew up on the family farm with his older siblings Annie and Ben and younger sister Emily. Highway 54 just so happens to run through both of our small hometowns. Nathan spent his younger days playing outside with his siblings and the dogs and in high school, being a terror on the football field (so he claims). After graduating high school, Nathan chose Kansas State University as his undergrad home, then extended his stay a year for a Master’s.

While we can’t exactly claim a love-at-first-sight story, Nathan and I are beyond thankful that we made the decisions that led us here. Our interest in one another grew very slowly (very), then began to pick up speed. We soon knew that we had each found the one. Nathan is kind and patient and supportive and quite fun to boot. Since beginning our journey together, Nathan and I have enjoyed ordinary experiences that much more, just by experiencing things together. We trained for and ran a 5K together. We enjoy frequent dinners at my brother and sister-in-law’s house (they also reside here in Manhattan). Nathan tolerates and tags along for my all-too-frequent trips to Target and down the Pioneer Woman aisle at Walmart. Our travels have taken us to South Dakota/Minnesota twice to meet Nathan’s wonderful extended family as well as numerous trips to our respective home bases. Nathan’s nephew is a highlight of trips to Moran and the allure of a screened-in-porch and cookies send us to Vandalia periodically.

Currently, we are both in our final eight weeks of classes and will finish our theses and graduate in the spring, if all goes according to plan. We aren’t sure yet where we will be after that or what jobs we will have, but we are excited about our options. Nathan and I are eagerly preparing for a secret wedding day in the spring and our reception to celebrate our marriage with family and friends on June 9th, 2018.

 

Great is Thy Faithfulness

This past week I encountered a major setback in my research. I was no longer able to access the difficult and expensive to obtain data required to meet the expectations of my advisor and to move forward on my thesis. Despite desperate attempts to contact anyone who might both sympathize with me and have the power to re-grant me access, it seemed as if the wheels of my research were firmly planted in the mud. The magnitude of the setback was of a size that it took a physical toll on my body. My chest slammed with fear, my hands shook, and I cried panicked tears. I dreaded informing my advisor of my inability to produce the work that was asked of me and the ways in which my research and upcoming thesis would be crippled. When overwhelmed, one of my main coping mechanisms is to leave town, to run away. I drove an hour West in the middle of the week to Salina, Kansas just to be in unfamiliar territory and to distract myself. While Braums’ ice cream is a wonderful ointment for any anxiety ailment, my problem still loomed overhead. Roaming the stores of Salina would distract me for half an hour, then the panic would come rushing back as I remembered why I was there. My breath would become quick and shallow, my temperature would rise, my heart would crash against my chest. Fears, of varying degrees of irrationalness, would race across the front of my brain. The weight of the problem was far more than I could carry.

The next morning before I returned to my desk where I had faced such a hurdle the day before, I said a much-needed prayer, asking God to calm my fears and failures. And as I should have surmised from the beginning, a few minutes of praying carried me much further than several hours of running away. Even though I chose to turn to prayer, I was of little faith. The peace and calm that came over me caught me off guard, even though it was what I had just finished asking God for. Without realizing it, I began to hum an old hymn. Humming led to singing in my car and it took me several lines for me to even recognize the song that was on my heart and mind: Great is Thy Faithfulness. I’ve included some of the lyrics that were speaking to me below:

….Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

….Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.

 

Because hymns are inspired by the Word of God, but often not direct quotes of passages, I like to look up the story and scripture behind the song. Thomas Chisholm wrote the song as a poem in 1923 and sent the lyrics to William M. Runyon in Baldwin, Kansas (just over an hour down the road from where I live) to compose the music for the song. Chisholm based the song on Lamentations 3:22-23, which in the New International Version reads: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” The word “consumed” jumped out at me. I had been consumed by my anxiety and fears. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. All I needed was to not be consumed. God’s faithfulness is not exclusive to when situations work out in my favor. Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow. Because of God’s mercies, I have the strength to face the day and a knowledge that even when nothing works out in my favor, I have a bright hope.

Later that day, against all odds, my problems reversed themselves. I found someone willing to bend the rules to help me. My research recovered and I was able to report good news back to my advisor. Whether this change of the tides was the result of a direct intervention from God, or mere coincidence, I feel totally unqualified to say, but I know the peace that came to reside in my heart before I knew that the situation would resolve could only come from one place: the grace of God. My steady hands and heartbeat were an answer to my prayers. God had replaced my anxiety with peace. I am so thankful that we never reach our quota of mercies from God; there is no situation in which we are outside of His grace and sovereignty. I was reminded once again that The Lord’s ways are not my ways and He can provide for me through avenues I never considered.

I Don’t Want to Be

We live in the day and age of personal brands. There are many celebrities, influencers, and social media mavens who generate income by marketing their own image. When you go to buy a new set of pots and pans, you would think features such as durability, size, and material would be the forces that drive selection, but a trip down the kitchenware aisle at Walmart would suggest otherwise. It seems as if half the lines offer bare the name of a celebrity chef. But simply tacking their name onto a silver set of pans doesn’t seem to do the trick. Rachael Ray’s line features bright orange and fun shapes, a testament to her personality and cooking style. The Pioneer Woman offers pans with butterfly handles and vintage speckled coatings. People who enjoy either woman’s show, blog, or cookbooks are also likely to enjoy incorporating products into their home that allow them to imitate the lifestyle they’ve been so closely watching.

This past week I saw the Pioneer Woman’s personal brand in full display during a trip to her mercantile store in her hometown of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The store is beautiful and the food is delicious. From the product selections of everything from finger puppets to fancy cake stands, to the friendly, bubbly wording of the restaurant menus, to the uniforms of the employees, her brand shone through. While I own a number of pieces from her dinnerware line, enjoyed my trip to her store that is essentially American Girl Doll Store for Adult Women, and devoured her novel in two days, I don’t want to be her.

I’m saddened whenever I see people strive to be “the next Pioneer Woman”. Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but it is not the securest path to success. Admiring and being inspired by someone else is wonderful. I’m all for supporting the dreams of others, but not for using them as templates.

Even if you didn’t binge watch 8 seasons of One Tree Hill during your senior year of undergrad, you might be familiar with Gavin Degraw’s “I Don’t Want to Be”. The first line of the chorus, “I don’t want to be Anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately,” has been an inspiration lately as I consider potential future entrepreneurial endeavors. I don’t want to be someone else. I want to feel the thrill of the unknown. I want the hard work of others to be something I strive to match, not their end product.

Gymnast Simone Biles was featured in TIME last summer for this quote: “I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I’m the first Simone Biles.” Even if I never make an entrepreneurial move in my life and my personal brand has a monetary value of zero, I want to be the first Candace Gatson. In the way I dress, and carry myself, and conduct my life, I want to blaze a new trail. And if some things don’t work out because I’m in uncharted territory, I’m more than okay with that. I’m okay with not being anyone other than me.