Merry Christmas. Happy December 26th. My heart and soul are full and happy. I'm sleeping on the couch next to the fireplace and the lit Christmas tree and it feels just right.
Coming home is a little bit of a process for me. A stark contrast from what has become home and sometimes a bit of a slow transition. But then I get in the swing of things. Friends start coming home. Life and festivities and fitting things in come back full swing and Christmas puts the icing on the cake.
Christmas Eve festivities with part of my Leadville crew. Good food and laughter and catching up. Jokes and an understanding that we will forever have.
Then a late night drive down to family, jamming to NSync and Aaron Neville Christmas. Singing, remembering Christmas eves dancing with my brother in the living room and taking a moment to soak it all up.
Then comes family Christmas. Loud, crazy, semi dysfunctional, hilarious, and overflowing with copious amounts of love and understanding and thankfulness. Good food and good company, late nights, early morning and all the quirks that nobody else can quite understand. And... it feels wonderful. It feels like home.
There are times in your life where "family" and "home" get a little bit confusing. And your heart aches to understand where they fit and fights about what they are and what they arent. When you wonder what your supposed to want and need and what you should be doing or wanting to do on your own. You try to figure out how much concern is the right amount and you go through phases of knowing inside and out and sometimes feeling lost from the people who have been through the most with you. Then on days like Christmas you forget and remember all at the same time cause it just is. Family and love and home. It feels like laughter and inside jokes, story telling, cheers, food passing and a wholleee lot of lovin. So... during those moments I try to soak it all up, so that I can feel it and love it and get it even when it doesnt quite fit.
Merry Christmas all, I hope yours felt right and like home. I hope there was love and some dysfunction and lots of laughter. And I hope all feels right in the world to you, even if just for a moment...xoxox
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
home...
Oh home... that word just sounds so weird lately, and more and more so as the time goes by. Ive been home for over a week now. Its been good. Its been hard. I've laughed and cried and skiied and played and picked RYLA JC's and watched my sweet Kamryn Rae dance. I've had spurts of seeing friends and I've spent a fair amount of time with myself. I've read an entire book. Been to Boulder, Conifer and Fort Collins... and for some reason, Im just here.
Home is never as simple as it should be. Sometimes it hurts hard. It makes for tired, red eyes and a reminder of the misunderstandings I faced all those years. But... in its own way also reminds me all that I have made out of it. Of all the memories. All the amazing people. All the ups and downs and ins and outs. And for some reason... it puts me into a little bit of a just go with the flow and be mode. Maybe cause thats what living at home and being in school pre college means. Going with the flow, getting by just how you are supposed to and in some weird way doing what you are told you should do.
Then you go to college. And you make your own rules. Your own moods. Your own opinions and choices. You make your own life. You start to care about things you didn't before, you find ways to make yourself go, you pick your friends and have conversations that are so meaningful and you start to learn whats really important, what really matters. And maybe thats why when I come home... I just sorta feel like I sit back and take it all in. Hayley said tonight "I'm not really carpe dieming anything right now"... I should be, and maybe now that people are coming home and things might pick up I will more, or maybe I will see the people and enjoy my time and love these mountains, but Ill do it feeling like I didnt go away and things havent changed and Carpe Diem isnt part of my everyday life.
I love pieces of here I really do. I love the mountains out my window. And the time to relax. And the forever lasting love. The best friends. Family. Sweet Kamryn Rae. The driving and craziness. My bed. Provin Grounds. I love it...but there are also parts of it that dont fit in just how I'd like them to, so when I come, I have learned to enjoy the good parts and try with all my might to let the rest go. But, for the sake of how much there is to love here Im gonna try to take it all in, to enjoy it, to love it, to get out of it all that I can. Cause it will be over soon. And Ill be happy to be back.
But... forever I will miss it. And I will watch how things change and even with the overflowing of joy and excitement in my heart there will still be that ping of learning to let go and learning how to mesh it. Cause change... its the craziest thing. And to quote another of Hayley and I's genius epiphany's "this life thing is the craziest thing I have ever experienced"
Here's to a break full of love and joy and carpe diem. To letting myself find my way back into home the first week and spending the next enjoying all there is to love. Happy Holidays! XOXO
Home is never as simple as it should be. Sometimes it hurts hard. It makes for tired, red eyes and a reminder of the misunderstandings I faced all those years. But... in its own way also reminds me all that I have made out of it. Of all the memories. All the amazing people. All the ups and downs and ins and outs. And for some reason... it puts me into a little bit of a just go with the flow and be mode. Maybe cause thats what living at home and being in school pre college means. Going with the flow, getting by just how you are supposed to and in some weird way doing what you are told you should do.
Then you go to college. And you make your own rules. Your own moods. Your own opinions and choices. You make your own life. You start to care about things you didn't before, you find ways to make yourself go, you pick your friends and have conversations that are so meaningful and you start to learn whats really important, what really matters. And maybe thats why when I come home... I just sorta feel like I sit back and take it all in. Hayley said tonight "I'm not really carpe dieming anything right now"... I should be, and maybe now that people are coming home and things might pick up I will more, or maybe I will see the people and enjoy my time and love these mountains, but Ill do it feeling like I didnt go away and things havent changed and Carpe Diem isnt part of my everyday life.
I love pieces of here I really do. I love the mountains out my window. And the time to relax. And the forever lasting love. The best friends. Family. Sweet Kamryn Rae. The driving and craziness. My bed. Provin Grounds. I love it...but there are also parts of it that dont fit in just how I'd like them to, so when I come, I have learned to enjoy the good parts and try with all my might to let the rest go. But, for the sake of how much there is to love here Im gonna try to take it all in, to enjoy it, to love it, to get out of it all that I can. Cause it will be over soon. And Ill be happy to be back.
But... forever I will miss it. And I will watch how things change and even with the overflowing of joy and excitement in my heart there will still be that ping of learning to let go and learning how to mesh it. Cause change... its the craziest thing. And to quote another of Hayley and I's genius epiphany's "this life thing is the craziest thing I have ever experienced"
Here's to a break full of love and joy and carpe diem. To letting myself find my way back into home the first week and spending the next enjoying all there is to love. Happy Holidays! XOXO
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
places of love, acceptance and joy
HELLO! Happy December 7th! Happy I GO HOME IN TWO DAYS! Happy 1 MORE FINAL! Woot woot. I am in GREAT spirits today. For so many reasons. I am SO excited to come home to that little land of wonderful that I am so lucky to call home. To my big huge family that has taken care of me for the last 19 years. To snow. To relaxing. To RYLA planning. To so many things. Im just excited... you get the just of it.
The last few days I have had a couple of those moments of unutterable fulfillment.. moments where my heart was soaring, and all the world's problems were at peace for that moment.Moments of love, joy and acceptance, the things that we should be living by, that we should be connected by, that we should be soaring all the time because of.
1. Special Olympics Dance on Saturday night. About 50 athletes and their parents came and got their groove on for their Holiday party here at SCU. We SCCAPers hosted them, and danced the night away with them. It was more fun that you could ever imagine having at a dance, and easily the best Saturday night this year. No reserves. No Im cooler than you. No worrying about what other people think. Just fun and joy and some serious dance skills. Dance skills like you have never seen, confidence and excitment and an outpouring of love that is so dang special. Seriously... its amazing
2. Glide service Sunday morning. Glide is the church in Pursuit of Happyness, in the middle of the tenderloin (the roughest part of SF) and THE single most amazing church service I have ever experienced. It was all about love and joy and acceptance and equality. All the things that every single church should be preaching. Singing, dancing, laughing and loving life... with people who live lives most of us could never imagine. The reverend didn't just read from the bible, he read from the Torah and a couple other texts. We said amen, shalom, namaste, rock on. We threw our hands in the air. We started out the service hugging everyone around us. And I teared up about seven million times at the amount of joy and love, in a place where people have so little they love and enjoy so much. The world should take a lesson from these people. Again.. seriously mind blowing.
3. My run this morning. My ipod stopped working so I ran in silence. Its sunnier out than its been for a while. And I ran to a nature place. I am not sure what it is, some sort of religious area.. with a church like building surrounded by nature. Peace, quiet, growth, organic landscape and a whole lot of beauty. I walked through in silence, taking it all in. Nature is an amazing thing. Where trees curl around each other and grass grows every which way. A place where you stop looking at the flaws because it is just real and organic and it feels SO dang good. I miss that. And I am so very excited to get back to it in a couple days.
Dear universe, you are a freakin rock star. Thanks for this out of this world life.
Remind me to tell you about my paper on immigration...interesting stuff.
Happy day, hope you are smiling and loving and living right.
xoxoxox
The last few days I have had a couple of those moments of unutterable fulfillment.. moments where my heart was soaring, and all the world's problems were at peace for that moment.Moments of love, joy and acceptance, the things that we should be living by, that we should be connected by, that we should be soaring all the time because of.
1. Special Olympics Dance on Saturday night. About 50 athletes and their parents came and got their groove on for their Holiday party here at SCU. We SCCAPers hosted them, and danced the night away with them. It was more fun that you could ever imagine having at a dance, and easily the best Saturday night this year. No reserves. No Im cooler than you. No worrying about what other people think. Just fun and joy and some serious dance skills. Dance skills like you have never seen, confidence and excitment and an outpouring of love that is so dang special. Seriously... its amazing
2. Glide service Sunday morning. Glide is the church in Pursuit of Happyness, in the middle of the tenderloin (the roughest part of SF) and THE single most amazing church service I have ever experienced. It was all about love and joy and acceptance and equality. All the things that every single church should be preaching. Singing, dancing, laughing and loving life... with people who live lives most of us could never imagine. The reverend didn't just read from the bible, he read from the Torah and a couple other texts. We said amen, shalom, namaste, rock on. We threw our hands in the air. We started out the service hugging everyone around us. And I teared up about seven million times at the amount of joy and love, in a place where people have so little they love and enjoy so much. The world should take a lesson from these people. Again.. seriously mind blowing.
3. My run this morning. My ipod stopped working so I ran in silence. Its sunnier out than its been for a while. And I ran to a nature place. I am not sure what it is, some sort of religious area.. with a church like building surrounded by nature. Peace, quiet, growth, organic landscape and a whole lot of beauty. I walked through in silence, taking it all in. Nature is an amazing thing. Where trees curl around each other and grass grows every which way. A place where you stop looking at the flaws because it is just real and organic and it feels SO dang good. I miss that. And I am so very excited to get back to it in a couple days.
Dear universe, you are a freakin rock star. Thanks for this out of this world life.
Remind me to tell you about my paper on immigration...interesting stuff.
Happy day, hope you are smiling and loving and living right.
xoxoxox
Friday, December 3, 2010
living, peace and the big picture
Its crazy how life flies by.
Its crazy how you go through the motions and suddenly its the end of the week. The month or the quarter.
Time is one of those things that I just cannot and will not ever be able to grasp. And one of the reasons I try really hard to love every moment, cause when I don't, before I know it, those moments are gone.
Im laying in bed with Christmas lights lighting up my room and Christmas music playing. Happy as can be to be in on a Friday night. To have plans to watch a Christmas movie with friends. To have a weekend of studying and paper writing but also lots of good things ahead of me.
I have found myself over and over again this quarter getting a little caught up in the mundane. Some might call it the sophomore slump. Others an attitude problem. Or maybe just part of life.
Its funny how you figure yourself out some days, and other days you just cant understand why you feel one way and not another. Lots of times I think I know myself pretty well, what makes me go, what I need to do to feel motivated and excited and like life is wonderful. But sometimes I just hit a wall and have to search a little deeper to pull myself out of it.
But the best thing about it.. is once I do pull myself out of that silly slump I feel like life is just THAT MUCH BETTER!
Im going home on Thursday. And its one of those things that just slaps me in the face and shows me how much things change. Im excited, I am ... for so many things. But also, some part of me feels like this is home. And this is MY life... and that is some other girls life. Some other girl who I dont know very well these days. And who everytime I go home I reunite with, but something about it is just still a little different. And more and more each time.
Its a funny thing. Change. Time. Growing up. Wonderful and scary and so many things all at the same time. And so much of the time it just goes, and you forget to stop and appreciate. But then there are times like right now. Sitting alone with Christmas lights around me and feeling completely at peace with myself and my life, even if there is all sorts of chaos and stress and excitement and so many things going around in my head.. stopping and just being with me reminds me that the change and time and growing up, deep down its still me.
The me that loves my family and best friends with every piece of my heart. That is excited about every day of life at Santa Clara but also has SUCH a huge place in my heart for home, winter, fireplaces and that small town. For all the people there and the memories and the familiar. The me that wants to do so much, but likes to just be sometimes. The me that doesn't need to be here or there to be happy, that can love pieces of each, that can find the good in so many things, that loves all the pieces of my life that have gotten me where I am and that can get in touch with all sides of me to keep the me who is really me here and alive and excited and LIVING not just existing. The me that doesn't need to get caught up in all the little things that are all too easy to let get to me, but instead can see the big picture and love it for what it is.
So... through the paper writing and final studying. Through the going home and dealing with how the change, and sometimes lack of change fits into my heart and my place in this world, I will remind myself of how good this life is as a whole and how dang unimportant the little things are. And of all the ways I can pull myself out of that funk.
Happy December world. Happy Christmas lights and music and cheer and joy and family and giving season. Feel it, take it all in. And find some time for peace and quiet. To spend with you, and get back in touch with the inner peace, that makes the outter chaos a little easier to navigate.
See you soon Colorado family <3
Its crazy how you go through the motions and suddenly its the end of the week. The month or the quarter.
Time is one of those things that I just cannot and will not ever be able to grasp. And one of the reasons I try really hard to love every moment, cause when I don't, before I know it, those moments are gone.
Im laying in bed with Christmas lights lighting up my room and Christmas music playing. Happy as can be to be in on a Friday night. To have plans to watch a Christmas movie with friends. To have a weekend of studying and paper writing but also lots of good things ahead of me.
I have found myself over and over again this quarter getting a little caught up in the mundane. Some might call it the sophomore slump. Others an attitude problem. Or maybe just part of life.
Its funny how you figure yourself out some days, and other days you just cant understand why you feel one way and not another. Lots of times I think I know myself pretty well, what makes me go, what I need to do to feel motivated and excited and like life is wonderful. But sometimes I just hit a wall and have to search a little deeper to pull myself out of it.
But the best thing about it.. is once I do pull myself out of that silly slump I feel like life is just THAT MUCH BETTER!
Im going home on Thursday. And its one of those things that just slaps me in the face and shows me how much things change. Im excited, I am ... for so many things. But also, some part of me feels like this is home. And this is MY life... and that is some other girls life. Some other girl who I dont know very well these days. And who everytime I go home I reunite with, but something about it is just still a little different. And more and more each time.
Its a funny thing. Change. Time. Growing up. Wonderful and scary and so many things all at the same time. And so much of the time it just goes, and you forget to stop and appreciate. But then there are times like right now. Sitting alone with Christmas lights around me and feeling completely at peace with myself and my life, even if there is all sorts of chaos and stress and excitement and so many things going around in my head.. stopping and just being with me reminds me that the change and time and growing up, deep down its still me.
The me that loves my family and best friends with every piece of my heart. That is excited about every day of life at Santa Clara but also has SUCH a huge place in my heart for home, winter, fireplaces and that small town. For all the people there and the memories and the familiar. The me that wants to do so much, but likes to just be sometimes. The me that doesn't need to be here or there to be happy, that can love pieces of each, that can find the good in so many things, that loves all the pieces of my life that have gotten me where I am and that can get in touch with all sides of me to keep the me who is really me here and alive and excited and LIVING not just existing. The me that doesn't need to get caught up in all the little things that are all too easy to let get to me, but instead can see the big picture and love it for what it is.
So... through the paper writing and final studying. Through the going home and dealing with how the change, and sometimes lack of change fits into my heart and my place in this world, I will remind myself of how good this life is as a whole and how dang unimportant the little things are. And of all the ways I can pull myself out of that funk.
Happy December world. Happy Christmas lights and music and cheer and joy and family and giving season. Feel it, take it all in. And find some time for peace and quiet. To spend with you, and get back in touch with the inner peace, that makes the outter chaos a little easier to navigate.
See you soon Colorado family <3
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