Those who know me very well may have already figured this out, but I'm a pretty nostalgic person by nature. A symptom of this is that when familiar things--even those that don't matter much to me in general--change, I take notice, and often I feel a little excitement about it, sometimes mixed with a hint of melancholy.
I remember years ago, when the Wal-Mart right down the road from my childhood home (my mom's house) opened up. It was a weird feeling for me walking into that store. When I was a small child, the road I grew up on turned to dirt just past our house, and so, even though it was right off of a boulevard business district and linking up two busy thoroughfares, the road I grew up on was pretty quiet. Often a half hour or more would go by before you would even see a car. My sister and I would even play in the road growing up (no joke). It was a different time. Eventually, the dirt road got paved, and traffic picked up considerably. But the shopping center and the Wal-Mart were the big change, coming in my early adulthood. And walking in that store for the first time was unique in my life. It felt like the world of my childhood had truly disappeared, but, at the same time, a new world was opening up. I know, kinda weird feeling to have walking into a Wal-Mart, right? But that's me: Kinda weird. And nostalgic.
Well, the Wal-Mart eventually got to be very familiar, but it was a novelty back then. It was one of the earlier ones (in this area, at least) to incorporate a McDonald's within its space (this back in the pre-Super Wal-Mart days, when it was just a retail department store and not a supermarket). The store has been around long enough for said Mickey D's to be totally renovated a few years ago, with the sales counter being moved and oriented in a different direction and the space becoming a little cozier over all. It's a comforting thing to know there's a place to eat inside a Wal-Mart, I think. You can shop all you want, and then, if you're hungry, you can stop and eat and relax before you head home. Honestly, I haven't frequented the McDonald's inside any Wal-Marts for quite a while (although I picked something up at this one a week or two ago) but in a strange way, it does bring me comfort to know there is a McDonald's in my Wal-Mart if I should need to grab a bite.
All of this brings me to Sunday afternoon, when I was sent by my mom over to the Wal-Mart by her house for crackers (she was making vegetable soup). I entered at the garden department (as is my usual custom when that entrance is open--better parking there, don't you know), but no one was at the checkouts there, so I knew I would have to actually make my purchases at the front of the store. A box of saltines, a box of Ritz, a box of canned Diet Sunkist, a box of brand new Chocolate Cheerios (I kid you not--I am a sucker for the new), a three-pack of Ivory soap (99.44% pure), a bottle of Wal-Mart's generic equivalent of Pepcid Complete and a can of Starbuck's Doubleshot Mocha later, and I was on my way out. I purchased my items without too much hassle or too long a wait (good thing, because, like a moron--and like usual--I didn't get a shopping cart and so had to carry all of it to the checkout in my arms) and headed out the front doors. It was then that I noticed another one of those odd little changes that tend to throw nostalgic me for a loop: McDonald's was gone. Poof. Just like that. GONE.
Now, the space where Mickey D's had resided was still there. In fact, the counter that had been built when it was renovated still stood in the exact same place, only there was no one behind it. There were no signs, no menus, no fryers, no stoves, no napkin dispensers, no cups. The drink station around the corner was gone. The neon in the window was missing. In short, the restaurant space was there, exactly the same as it was before and totally, completely different all at once, with nothing whatsoever to mark that it had ever been a McDonald's. In Wake Forest, there's a Super Wal-Mart with a Blimpie in it. In North Durham, the newest Super Wal-Mart in the area has a Subway inside. And this space at the Wal-Mart by my mom's house could have been one of those just as easily as it had been the home of the red-headed clown (he was gone too, along with the bench his plastic butt permanently sat on for all those years). I looked intently at the space, as I came to the realization that it had never occurred to me that this spot could be anything other than a McDonald's. But looking at the ruins of the house that Willard Scott helped build, it was undeniable that this space was not a McDonald's. Not anymore. For the entire life of this Wal-Mart, it had been McDonald's, but now it just wasn't. It was just a room with a counter. I wondered what would be done with the space. A new restaurant? A hair salon, maybe (the Super Wal-Marts tend to have those, too)? Something new entirely? I suddenly missed that old McDonald's. Hadn't I just grabbed some food there a week or two before? How could it be gone? Would the new tenant be as comforting a place as a McDonald's? It all seemed way more poignant to me than it really should have been.
I realized there should be some meaning to this truly tragic loss. Then, it hit me: I've been feeling like that former McDonald's lately. (Okay, I don't know what a former McDonald's feels like or thinks about--probably something about how to get rid of the smell of fry grease.) What I mean is I've been feeling about myself what I was feeling about that restaurant space: Everything that made it the only thing anybody thought it was or could be (namely, Mickey D's) had been stripped away, so what is it now? Just recently, I got a big (albeit familiar and typical) disappointment in my life. After that and the disappointment-laden year that was 2009, I felt like I truly had nothing left to live for. Not in the "Good bye, cru-el world!" way, mind you. It was more along the lines of looking up to heaven and asking God why He doesn't just take me home if there's nothing more than this. After all, all the things I've worked for are either already accomplished and in the rearview (like seminary) or feeling like they're either a very, very long way away--if they ever come at all (like marriage, kids, career, a home of my own, debt-free living...). So what am I doing right now? What defines me? What do I do next?
As I thought about that store space, I came to a (not new but still important) realization: The trappings of life are not what define me. For the entirety of the time I shopped at that Wal-Mart, it never even occurred to me that that restaurant space could exist as anything other than a McDonald's. But looking at it now, there was nothing that marked it as a McDonald's. It could have been almost anything. And it occurred to me that I was more like that than I realized. Too often, I define myself by mere trappings--the things other people see when they look at me or the things I happen to be doing at any given time. But who I am is so much more than that, and only God knows what I can be. I don't need to keep putting limits on Him. And I don't need to figure it all out, either. Just because I can't see what I'm going to be--anymore than I can figure out what that space that used to be Mickey D's over at Wal-Mart is going to be--doesn't mean there's not a future for me, and a good one, designed exclusively for me by God for my good and His glory. And He'll reveal His plan to me perfectly, at just the moment I need to know.
It's not so bad to be empty, I guess. It just means there's something there for God to fill up. And sometimes nostalgia reminds us of how far we've come and all that He's done for us in the past, even if where we are now is not where we want to stay forever. Maybe there are worse things to be than a missing McDonald's.
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