30 Jun The You’s and the Me’s

The first thing I do.

Today as I read the magnificent prose of a fellow blogger, I felt my heart sing with her ability to sew words together like perfectly mix-matched patches on a quilted page of storytelling. All that she said made me want to eat, sleep, and breathe writing until I could be the sort of person that creates new worlds in the arms of a few vowels and semicolons. But after my blood found its normal pace in my veins, I forgot my ambition and remembered who I was: Small town me.

She’s the starter of corporations in 50 states and 6 continents. She speaks at NYU and people reblog her posts faster than you can read them. And then there’s me: Two- big- eyes full -of- white-washed- dreams me- lives-in- Nowhere, PA -free weblog- still in school debt- pretty- good- but- not- great, me.

Because that’s the first thing I do. I let someone else’s greatness determine my own smallness.

Take it in slow, let it sink into your bones and then if the poison runs thick let it sink into your heart.

Even as I felt it crawl all over my skin the way green envy likes to do–slow and with a smile– I brushed it off with my fingertips.

Not today. Not this day. Because today is the day after yesterday and yesterday had dreams wrapped up in Christmas Paper and songs blasting out the sunroof toward all the castles in the clouds. Yesterday the only mirror that told me my worth was a look in Jesus’ eyes. It wasn’t  a blog; it wasn’t a song; it wasn’t a mirror. It was Jesus.

I realized today that there are lots of GREATS. The wordsmiths with their sentences, virtuosos who make simple keys sound like symphonies, voices with words so profound you can’t listen with your ears because your heart’s too loud. There are people who make something of themselves with international non-profits and movements, with songs on the itunes sidebar and viral video speeches. And they’re SO BIG.

But as I stood up today, I let my feet kick down the weeds trying to choke me from my roots and said, “I don’t need to be big.”

I don’t need to be big to do something big and neither do you.

How many corporations are there? Millions.

How many mes are there? How many yous are there? One.

Don’t look in the mirror, you already know what you look like. You are as real as the laughter in your lungs and the way your barefeet feel on warm blades of grass.

I don’t need to be one of the greats.

I just need to be one of the mes. And I need you to be one of the yous.

It’s as simple and as wonderful as that.