> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://dd.malinoix.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Becoming My Best Self - URL: https://dd.malinoix.com/becoming-my-best-self/ - Published: 2013-04-04T06:00:34.000Z - Updated: 2013-04-04T06:00:34.000Z - Author: Maggie Winterton - Tags: Devotionals, Dreams, Guest Blogger, Hope, Money, Singleness, Story, Work, young adults, #wordpress, #Import 2026-10-12 13:59 ![becoming my best self](https://dd.malinoix.com/content/images/wordpress/2013/04/becoming-my-best-self-545x363.jpg) \[Guest post by [Catherine Hawkins](http://catherineannehawkins.com/?ref=dd.malinoix.com). I just met Catherine, and I am already glad we met. After submitting her first piece, I read it and thought how much I still feel this way. Maybe you or I will never quite feel like a grown up, but that’s okay too. Enjoy her piece!\] ### When I was little, I pictured my future self as a fully functioning adult. I thought there would be one defining moment when I would suddenly say, *Yes, I have become a woman,* and the road after that would be solid and straight–no more of this winding uncertainty that seemed to be the mark of growing up. ### I sometimes call myself a “recent college graduate,” although that seems misleading now that it’s been almost two years. *I still wrestle with what it means to be a “grownup.”* *Does it mean moving out of your parents’ house?* *Having a full-time job with benefits?* *Owning a car, being married, having babies, having a mortgage?* ### If those are the marks of adulthood, I am failing miserably. In one of many conversations with my father about this nagging fear that I wasn’t “measuring up,” my father said: > “That’s the big secret, Catherine. No one feels like an adult.” It was strange to hear him, the man who raised me, say that he still does not feel like a grownup. If this 6’2″, bearded, hard-working man doesn’t feel like an adult, there is no hope for this girl. ### I have always been a passionate person, so I was shocked at the heaviness graduation presented. I loved so many things, yet I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t commit and I couldn’t decide, and all these dreams that had seemed so beautiful – so *attainable –*now seemed far from possible. I felt my passion seeping away, and the fear that I have always tried to suppress came roaring out of me, immobilizing me with its strength. For a year, I juggled part-time jobs, searched the internet for The Perfect Job, and struggled to name the growing anxiety I felt. Trusting God is difficult, and it gets even harder when you can’t envision the next week, let alone the next year. ### In late August, I was thrown into a job that I never dreamed I would have. A friend from college recommended me to a Latin teaching job at a Christian school. I think my response was: > “Oh my gosh, are you serious?” She was serious and I was intrigued, and I knew as soon as I walked in for the interview that this was where I was supposed to be. Since then, I have been stretched and challenged, and every day I wake up and think: > “Wow, so I do it again? I go to the same place again? I teach Latin again?” ### This will be a lifelong struggle, I think, becoming okay with repetition, with rhythms. It seems God doesn’t wait for us to grow up. He pushes us along and says, > “Trust me.” ### The other day, I watched the kids gather their backpacks and head for home. The hall was full, the kids were happy, and I watched, smiling. One of my sixth grade girls saw me through the window. Her eyes lit up, and she waved excitedly. > “Hi, Miss Hawkins!” she said. I waved back. And then I thought, > “Oh my gosh, I have become Miss Hawkins.” ### I am becoming my best self. I thought I would be so different by this point, that I would have everything figured out. I thought I would have settled down into a calmer, more thoughtful, more loving me. It should be noted that the very same evening after I was joyously called “Miss Hawkins” and admired for my “pretty outfits,” I got in a fight with my sister over the silliest thing. My life is a constant foil of itself. ### Becoming Miss Hawkins has taken less time than I thought. At the same time, the result is very different, too. I am still, in a lot of ways, the same girl I was when I was seven, planning Laura Ingalls Wilder Club meetings, writing stories, and wishing someday to be a beautiful, smart, kind writer-woman who surrounds herself with lovely people and good books. I have ninety-nine children who call me Miss Hawkins. Ninety-nine people who will always think of me as their Latin teacher, their Magistra, the one who sang all the time and laughed too much at Latin jokes. ### I have officially become Miss Hawkins. ![catherine hawkins](https://dd.malinoix.com/content/images/wordpress/2013/04/catherine-hawkins-150x150.jpeg)Catherine Hawkins is a lover of words, music, coffee, and sunlight. She recently found herself teaching Latin, and she hopes to keep doing so for a good long time. She writes about these and other things at [http://catherineannehawkins.com](http://catherineannehawkins.com/?ref=dd.malinoix.com). \[Picture: [Danikapierce](http://www.flickr.com/photos/26629142@N03/?ref=dd.malinoix.com), Creative Commons\]