It’s crazy to think that, simply two months ago, I left home. I left home sobbing uncontrollably, sick out of my mind and throwing up what brains I had left, broken hearted at leaving people I’d never left before, consumed by wanderlust and a search for something more, my hair long and make up done, my legs white and wearing jeans.
It’s so weird to look back at pictures from that day; it’s almost looking at someone else’s life. Someone else I don’t really recognize. Someone else who’s life I’m glad I don’t live.
I look at my life this time last year, and who I was. An obsessive Marine Corps girlfriend who, after being broken up with, spent four days locked in her sister’s closet bawling her eyes out. A girl with whiplash from her first car wreck. A girl traumatized by the cancer eating away at her very best friend. A girl who hadn’t talked to her childhood best friend in who knows how long and resented getting up in the morning. A girl who took everyone in her life for granted. A girl with no identity, because everything she identified herself with was stripped away. A girl with a huge heart that she didn’t know what to do with, or where it belonged.
A friend, a sister, from back home emailed me today saying “Ever since you left, I've noticed you seem to have this new glow / confidence. It's like you finally feel comfortable in your own skin.”
It’s incredible the way someone can change in a year. Who am I now? A girl who’s glad she left home, even if she misses those people a lot, because she’s finally found what she belongs doing, and no longer feels suffocated by a small town and an ‘E’ shaped school. A girl who sobs uncontrollably watching a child without shoes dig for trash as a way of life, and has a stomach of steel (hey Yungcah. I eat food that’s touched each other now.). A girl in highlighter yellow shorts with an unmatching, cut up teeshirt stained with dirt and unwashed for a week, with short hair, no make up, and tanned, bruised, scabbed legs. A girl still consumed with wanderlust, still searching for something more. A girl who finds no identity in the military (even though she still thinks a Marine here and there pretty cute…) or in anything other than her Maker and love. A girl who would never lock herself in a closet and cry after being broken up with because she’s bigger than that and doesn’t need a man to define her self-worth. A girl who finds smashing into an overfilled bus smelling of cologne and burning trash normal, a girl who doesn’t gag or walk gingerly when at a trash dump. A girl who misses her Grandmother very much, but wants to honor her instead of moping about missing her; who finally understands why her Grandmother gave so much of her heart to the MAMA Project. A girl who makes new friends wherever she goes, leads Bible studies in Spanish, and finds joy in each day. A girl who writes four pages of thanks in her journal every night. A girl with a huge heart that she knows what to do with, even if she doesn’t know where it belongs. A girl who speaks from that which fills her heart.
If, a year ago, you’d told me this was where I would be living and this is who I’d be, Caitlinn would have laughed. Because that Caitlinn was different. That Caitlinn didn’t know who she was, where she belonged. That Caitlinn didn’t know the joy of children clinging to her hands or a game of baseball with Nicaraguan friends; that Caitlinn didn’t know the heartbreak of watching shoeless men and boys dig holes in a mountain of crap carved into a ravine by a river of sewage, that Caitlinn couldn’t comprehend walking up to someone’s house and asking if they need prayer, that Caitlinn had no idea about Felix/all of the other men who’ve impacted her life with the Kidney Disease, that Caitlinn would never wear shorts or keens and have bad tanlines, that Caitlinn was selfish, and confused, and rebellious, and thought she could fit God somewhere in the cracks of what she wanted. What Caitlinn didn’t know was that God’s plan for her was bigger than young marriage, North Carolina State, singing songs every Sunday at church and trying not to cuss.
And Caitlinn didn’t know that she actually wanted more than those things. Caitlinn actually wanted to be Catalina. And now, Catalina wants to be more than Catalina. She wants to give more, love more, and never turn back. She wants to use her gift of beautiful words to bless people instead of tear them down. She wants to keep growing, to inspire, to find the place where she belongs for good in this world.
