Home

So I have been home for five days now; back in the beautiful Ontario. From wide open fields and no time to do anything but drown myself in school work to almost nothing to do but spend time with family, go for walks and read to keep myself entertained. 

This past year at college has been so challenging for me!  I have experienced great loss of close friends as we have gone through times of separation in distance and in spirit, I have been physically, spiritually, academically and emotionally exhausted throughout almost the whole time but yet I have learned and grown so much!  Also, I have always considered myself to have the blessing of being able to be away from a very closely knit family for long periods of time without any struggles at all, until in the fall my family adopted my little sister who is almost 2 years old.  This has presented me with new struggles in wanting to get to know her better and wanting her to know me when I am so far away from home most of the year.

Now!  this past month or so, I have been so overwhelmed with so much to do that I have been longing for the day that i finally would get to go home and just be able to stop and breath for a little while!  Looking back, only a few days ago to my drive to the airport and the beautiful skies and flooded fields on either side of me, I had an unusual amount of peace and calmness with me.  I love flying but usually on my drives to the airport, my stomach is turning and is full of butterflies because I just don`t fully know what to expect I guess, and this time, I barely had that feeling at all!  Not that it`s not a good feeling but it wasn`t so much the normal excited, adrenaline rush feeling; it was a calm and peace filled feeling of being able to finally let go and breath again.  Even on the plane, with the turbulence and all, I was so calm and relaxed;  a peace I very rarely feel (especially while flying!).

This peace gave me a sense of certainty in the many great uncertainties that this summer comes with: the certainty that there are great things to be unfolded this summer.  Although I may be walking into an area of gray, I know that the things I don`t see yet are things that I can trust are good.

Upon my arrival at the airport, I was greeted by the smiling face of my brother on the other side of the baggage claim room and shortly after my youngest brothers hug, my mom, dad and new little sister, who is just learning to talk shouting my name and wanting to hold my hand as we frantically tried to make our way to the parking lot.

Right now, I am firstly trying to learn to slow down and to stop worrying so much about everything and let what happens happen.  I am also trying to prepare myself for my soon endeavors to and in China later this summer!

I am excited to see where this summer season takes me as I continue to learn to trust and relax :)

Waves of Time come crashing in...

So lately, I've been looking back a lot on my high school days and reading over conversations that I have had and pictures that were taken. I remember in those days thinking to myself about how much drama and stress there was and about how much i couldn't wait to move on with my life; to move forward. I first of all remember feeling so overloaded with work and thinking it was so hard and now I can truly look back and laugh at how little was actually expected of me. I can look back and see the little 'dramas' that would take place with my friends and I and see that they also haven't disappeared but also have only grown to be more difficult in content and depth. I look back and although I truly have so far to go, I can see so much growth since then. I remember how I used to think and feel about the world and people around me. I was so selfish and righteous and thought that I was about reprimand, but yet I was so naive and so ignorant in reality. I remember all of the 'nevers' that i spoke against myself...saying: 'I will never..this and never..that' and how I looked at certain close friends of mine, whom I thought I had an eye of love towards, with such an eye of judgment and condemnation. I thought I knew what life was about but yet I had truly never lived. what a hypocrite! and yet the people I loved the most were suffering so much and valued so deeply what I said to them and the advice that I gave to them.
I guess these are times that we must go through so that we can look back at them and learn from them and improve ourselves. One piece of insight that I have gained from looking into my 'high school thoughts and years' is the value in believing in people. Truly believing in them and trusting that despite the ways in which they fail and have failed, they will make it through and are capable of living lives of great power and insight.
I can also look back and see many admirable things about myself that used to come so easy for me which now I have to work for and struggle with to continue steadfast in, such as my faith. I used to be 'unmovable' and never swaying in my constant passion and zest...and maybe that was pride just as much as it may have been a blessing but I do miss that determination that I once so energetically had.
Time has such a way of smoothing out the rough edges and curving us into the people we are and will become. As one wave moves in and crashes onto a rocky shore and just as quickly is pulled back out into the sea, we yearn for those waves to return to us and we ache when they leave but with each wave that goes out another one will come crashing back; continuing to smooth and shape us into whom we are meant to be. It's learning to be patient and enduring of these waves and the process of 'give and take' that we need to learn to live with and accept...