“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop”

 I don’t quote Jack Kerouac lightly, like one would Abraham Lincoln or Mother Teresa.

It’s safe to quote good people—people who made the world better.

Jack was not really one of those.  

Still, there are parts of his words that will always hold me—lost, mad, and drunk though he was.

This liking of too many things, I know that one the best.

It feels like many people can focus their passion on a few things and achieve excellence—the musicians, the painters, the physics majors, the athletes, the quilters, the bakers, the DIY renaissance women, the writers,

the encouragers, the exhorters, the teachers, the prophets, and the servants.

Then there are us who spread ourselves thin, trying to touch and feel everything, and end up tasting much, but mastering little.

 Most of my girlhood I wildly pursued one new interest after another.

I was often the first to start a new hobby. My friends would catch the excitement and eventually join. I was always the first to drop it for something else. Everyone else would be still carefully perfecting whatever accomplishment it was, while I was already off, jumping onto another unknown world, with many half mastered skills hanging on for dear life.

Now that I’m older I’ve often longingly wished I had one thing I was really good at instead of this long list of things I’ve thoroughly enjoyed but never fully mastered.

But it was always like that, me forever chasing new things.

 Wanting to try everything. Wanting to be everything. Wanting to go everywhere. 

Not ever wanting to get stuck in any box ever, ever, ever, please Lord.

With no neat package on life and with my ragged, often doubt-filled faith being stretched and prodded by my ever seeking mind.

I love so many things in life. I love so much of the gospel. Yet I have so little nothing that is mastered or that flows prettily.

I feel Jack’s confusion.

So there is no completion. Not even on the unfinished scrapbook from grade 10. Only a thousand falling stars with me reaching out to touch them all.

Is that okay?

What does that give you to offer?

I haven’t figured that out yet.

*photo credit