Random Thoughts

So I have multiple random thought tonight, so here they are.

1. My hands smell really good because I ate an apple with peanut butter. And the peanut butter residue smells really good.

2. Speaking of food, I am just hungry. ALL. THE. TIME. Pretty soon I’ll have gained my freshman 15 in the first two weeks of summer AFTER my freshman year.

3. I hate when I get apple stuck in my teeth

4. I am about to finish a project I’ve been working on all week, and I am just so excited about it. It will be so nice to start the end of my first week of summer feeling like I accomplished something.

5. I just realized there is a difference between frosting and icing. Frosting is fluffy and cloud-like. Icing is runny until you let it sit for awhile and then it grows hard. Frosting is definitely preferable to icing.

I Will Follow You

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I know whether I’m following God or not. Not in the general sense, but in the “Is this what God wants me to do with my life right now?” way. A lot of this has had to do with my summer plans. I’ve thought a couple times that I knew what I was going to do, but then my ideas fell through. And now, as my first week of summer starts, it looks like something might be actually working out. And I’m scared.

I’m scared that this isn’t what God wants and that these plans do not work out. I’m scared that I’ll never figure something out. And increasingly, over the last few weeks I’ve been scared that with a lot of things in my life I missed opportunities and have essentially ruined my life.

But when I get scared I always remember the same thing and try to have confidence in it. God is in control. I feel like people do not always appreciate how awesome this is. I know if I did not constantly remind myself of how true this is and how amazing it is I would be a nervous wreck all the time.

God is in control. If my plans do not work out, He has something better for me. There is a reason my life is the way it is, and why I’m in the place that I am. He knows what He is doing. And when I do not necessarily do what He wants right away, He will make sure my life is not ruined. He makes good come from bad. God is in control. I do not have to fear

"Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused."

Alan Cohen

Running

So today I have made a commitment to run a 5K in the middle of May. WHAT HAVE I DONE??

Since most of you reading this (if anyone is) probably don’t know me, I will fill you in. I do not have a single athletic gene in my body. Well, maybe I have a few. I have this idea that if my dance teacher when I was little hadn’t had a baby I would be a near-professional dancer by now. But other than maybe dancing, I can not do any sort of physical activity well. And I have always hated running.

For the last few years I have had this deep desire to like running. It is something anyone can do. Most people think you are awesome at it if you just finish your race. I would like to like running, and well we are about to find out if that is possible. I printed out an eight week training plan for beginning runners, and the first six weeks don’t look too bad but I am terrified for the last week of training already. I am going to have to run for a half hour straight. I have never come close to running for a half an hour in my life. I can barely run for five minutes straight.

I pray that maybe God will use this experience. That He will help me push through and allow me to get the training in and that I would complete this 5K, and that maybe He will help me grow along the way. Whatever happens, run number one is tomorrow and I am excited for that one…but I only have to walk two minutes at a time.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined."

Thoreau

Airplane Rides

So my crazy quad is over. Hopefully this means I will actually begin writing again, but as you know I am unreliable. But that’s not what I’m going to talk about.

I came back to school today after a wonderful spring break. And I rode an airplane back to my new city from my hometown. Every time I take this airplane ride I have the exact same question. “What are these people’s stories?” 

I want to know why every person is taking this plane. What has caused them to decide to go from one city to another? Which of these two cities are they from? Or is this just a connecting flight? Are they going on business? To see friends or family? For fun? For school? I am always dying to ask. But I am never bold enough to be that one person that tries to make friends everywhere she goes.

In general, people and their stories fascinate me. With my friends at college I have begun to desire to ask them their life stories. To just sit down with them and hear about their lives before they moved away from home. What they did in high school, their earliest memories, what they think defines their life experiences. But again, not brave enough.

I suppose this is a lesson about my own weaknesses. I don’t want to appear to be prying at all into people’s lives. I guess one day I will just have to man up and ask. But until then, I will keep wondering, and (hopefully) I will be keeping you posted.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I go back to school.

Well, I suppose I’m technically already “back” being that I will, for the first time in four weeks, sleep in my dorm room, but classes begin tomorrow.

I’m not exactly looking forward to tomorrow. Of course I’ll be happy to see the friends I haven’t been able to see yet today, and of course you understand that I do not want to do homework, but it’s more than that. Once I step into that classroom tomorrow, reality sets in. I will have to face the fact that I am hurling myself into a whirlwind quad that will probably make school control me for the next eight weeks. I will not have nearly as much free time as I would like and I will be spending most of my nights buried in the library. That is one half of reality.

The other half is that I really have said good-bye for a long time. Good-bye to home and good-bye to the friends at home. I will not be able to go home until March, and if I decide to go somewhere for spring break I won’t be home until Easter. I may not see my best friends until May. Of course I am happy where I am and I love my friends here very dearly, but there is a comfort in thinking that the people I have at home are accessible. Not believing that I will see a person in the next four months is not accessibility. The other half of reality is that I really have left home and that I have to continue to learn to live without places and people that just a year ago I thought necessary to my survival.

As much as I am dreading tomorrow, I am excited for the semester. My prayer is that reality will teach me and cause me to grow. That I would grow up and become more independent. That my relationships at college will grow stronger and deeper. That I may rely on God more and people less. That I would become a much closer version of who I was created to be.

Whatever you are doing tomorrow, whether going back to work after the weekend or going back to school after winter break, I hope that you launch into the day with a prayer and a purpose. That whether you are beginning something or continuing in a process that you would feel God’s presence. That you would be molded and shaped.

Recap

Since I was so excited about last weekend, I thought, even though it’s a week later, I would tell you a little bit about it.

In one word, my weekend was wonderful. It was the first time that I probably felt completely like myself in a long time. 

I had wonderful conversations, remembering and dreaming. I watched a lot of basketball, which when watching people or teams I love is always a pleasure for me. I ate a lot of frozen yogurt and other food that was not the healthiest for me. I watched movies. And I was reunited with some wonderful friends. 

The one bittersweet part of the weekend was I did not realize until I was with my friends how much I missed some of them. It was probably harder to say good-bye to them now than at the end of the summer. I wish that I could spend more time  with them. Being with these wonderful people reminded me of how lucky I am to have good friends that I haven’t lost touch with (yet) but also reminded me of one of the hard things of growing up.

Looking Ahead

I am so excited tonight! This weekend is going to be fantastic! I get to spend it doing some of my favorite things with my favorite people. Aaaahhhh! (Did I mention I was excited?!?)

Tomorrow my best friend is coming over and we are going on Pinterest, spending time chatting, and watching Will and Kate movies. There is nothing better in my opinion. Then we are going to watch our high school basketball team play. On Saturday I’m going with another friend to watch  a girl I graduated with play basketball for her college and them I am spending the night with her, and we’ll probably see yet another friend. 

These four people are some of my favorite people in the whole world, and I haven’t seen any of them in awhile. My best friend I haven’t seen since the beginning of November, the girl I might hang out with on Saturday night I saw last right before leaving for college, and the other two I haven’t seen since grad party season. In a way it is crazy that these people that I used to see every single day I easily go six months without seeing. It is the part that I don’t like about growing up. But I’m not going to focus on that today. Instead, I am just going to be excited about basketball games, Pinterest, sleepover, road trips, Will and Kate, and best friends!

A Look Back at 2012

As today was the first day of 2012, I am taking a moment to look back at last year. And I have some conflicting feelings about it. My parents had a really tough year, yet I feel like this is one of the best years of my life. I feel like I should have similar feelings to my parents about being ready for the year to be over. Both of my dad’s parents died this year as well as my Grandma broke her elbow and took three months to recover and my dad broke his foot. I feel like this is what I should remember about this year and I should be just as weary as my parents, but I am not.

Instead, I have all these positive memories. I think of how much closer I became to my two best friends over the year. My memories of this year are managing basketball and of all the girls on both my high school and college team. I got to go to Greece with my Latin teacher. I think of dress shopping for my last Snodaze and Prom. I think about graduation and a summer of being with friends and going off to college. I think of all the important people in my life that I had to leave behind and all of the wonderful friends I have made in college. I think about my first semester and transitions and missing friends and family and making plans for the next three and a half years. 

Maybe I should be relieved that this year is over, but I honestly wish that I could relive this year. So heres to 2012, and I know that whatever 2013 has in store, God is in control. Whether this year is good or bad, God will see me through.

Happy New Year, and all the best for 2013!