Purpose & Suppose are on the Same t9.

It kind of feels like when I'm home, my heart swells to sizes that are not even capable of fitting inside of my chest. This is my childhood, and this is where I can find and make sense of myself.

Christmas is rapidly approaching and my brother gets home tomorrow, and by the end of the week, my entire immediate family will be together for the first time since..I don't know..maybe July. It's been kind of a long time, and I guess I've really missed them.

But, after a few days of everyone being home, most of them are going back again. My sister is going to have to go back to her job in NYC. My other sister is going to visit her boyfriend in Alabama. In a few weeks, my brother and I will have to go back to school, too. For some reason, I just feel like I need to freeze time and run in mid-air for awhile. Like I've got all these figurative pounds that I've gained over the past few months, and I can't shed them unless I take the time to let them go. I want to just keep running and running because I can't seem to shake this weird feeling that pulls at the bottom of my stomach. But it's not like I'm upset.

I was thinking about how so often, especially when I'm at school, I feel as if I have no purpose. Not that people don't need me, but that I just don't know me, and people don't know me, and my purpose gets lost or misconstrued.
"What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you?"
I've always defined myself by what other people think of me. I find myself through the things I do for other people, or the friends I make, or the way that certain people can understand me. But none of those are my purpose.

Yet to be honest, I don't think that I have no purpose. Far from that: I think I've just been toying with too many of them. I have so many purposes, and yet, I've lost sight of all of them.

I have the purpose of being a friend. That's the purpose that I always keep most on the surface, because I care so much about people and making their lives better that I make being a friend the most important thing.

I have the purpose of being a daughter and a family member (sibling, niece, granddaughter). And especially lately, I've come to know that that means occasionally doing things that are not for me, but for my parents. It means going out of your way to see relatives, and visit awkwardly with people in your family you haven't seen in awhile. It means giving of yourself in a friend-ish way. With those things that are obligations, make them choices; it's so much more rewarding.

I have the purpose of following my career path and following my passions. I am meant to use my passions and my life itself to teach people and to eventually find myself in a future that uses me to my greatest potential. Even though sometimes I might feel discouraged or useless, or even scared of the things I feel called to do, I know it's one of my many purposes.

I also have the purpose of being faithful. Not just to the aspects of my life that require commitment, but to my God. Even though a lot of people know how important my faith is to me, it is the only reason that I can have any purpose. Even though sometimes I can't always see it, or can't always hold onto it as strongly as I'd like to..I know that my faith and my purpose comes from God and that I would not be capable of being much of anything without it.

I have a purpose to be Julie. And this is my greatest purpose. All of those other things that I find purpose in are found only through me choosing to wake up each day and be myself. From me waking up each day and choosing the things that comprise myself, not the things that please other people. I have so much beauty and completeness simply in myself, that without the me that I am, or that I am constantly striving to be, I wouldn't be much of anything.

But I think that when I'm home, I swell up. I am so aware of what figurative shoes I wear and where I fit and who I love and what I deserve and how not to be selfish, and I just swell. And sometimes the swelling hurts, especially because when I go back to school and I'm so "swollen" of myself, so to speak, I don't know how to be me. I don't fit into the shape that is myself. This is because Dayton is forming a new shape and sometimes I try to fit my overly swollen North Canton self into the shape that is the Julie of Dayton. They are different and the same person all at once. I still need both of them, and I probably always will.

I feel overwhelmed, and swollen, but I am reminded of what my true purpose is.
And I just want to enjoy now while I can.

A little plug for life: even though death and illness sometimes come unexpectedly, or come in and ruins our plans..it reminds us we don't get to make the plans. God, the greatest planner of life, makes them for us.

My planning for the end of December 2010, and 2011 in general are open to being written.
I'm giving up the pen, and taking up my purpose.
I'm reminding myself I'm Julie, and starting from there.

Chemistry and Politics.

You know, sometimes people irritate me. Not in the, you're in person and you're doing things that will annoy me. But rather, when they feel the need to spread their opinions all over you in a buttery slime that you just can't shake off. It has no affect on you, and you can wash it off, but the grease left behind is inevitably irritating. Like when you get a base on your hand, and you can't wash it off with soap because those are bases. Then all you have to do is use acid to wash your hands of it.

The world keeps washing our hands with acid.

Society has created this image that people cannot be several things at once. The liberal people are accepting, and yet, hate conservatives. The conservative people are close-minded, and therefore hate everyone, especially the liberals. The religious people do radical things like hate all gays or picket the war, and yes, this is ALL religious people. The liberal people are either gay or obsessed with politics, and they worship Obama. Then, when these groups of political people mix, or change and become a little bit different, everyone needs to wash their hands of it. People try to become free of these awful stereotypes that belong to the other groups, because those are NEVER things that would belong to them. We wash our hands of each other; the problem is, in the chemistry of life, we're all bases. And washing each other off requires acid. Our world is becoming more acidic, and irritating the skin that coats our lives.

Why is it that there are categories? Why is it that there are labels? It seems as if our world is a world full of opinions and beliefs, and you're not allowed to hold onto too many different ones. You can't fall in more than one category or side with both sides. It's like a rule. It's the whole, you need to be black or white, and with that, one of them is right and one of them is wrong. But it's never your side that's wrong. It's never the other side that's right. The lines drawn between things can never be erased. They can move, and cause more people to be on one side than the other, but things are never erased.

This acid we're building up among us, this acid we're using to throw one another off of each other, it's only going to hurt us. We can't continue to function this way, because to be honest, it's ridiculous. We are making a humanity inhumane in our attacks on one another.

I'm sorry that I have my opinions. I'm sorry that they don't always coincide with yours. But hey, I try not to judge you as much as I can. I'm not going to say, "Oh, I never judge," because that's an irrelevant statement. We all judge. But our choices of whether or not to go farther with the initial judgment, or to shrug it off and form opinions of tolerance in misunderstanding create who we are as a human race. Forming opinions of acceptance when things vary from ourselves creates who we are as a human race. We can't expect things to be lovely and always coincide with our opinions, or we would never have reason to have opinions in the first place.

I'm sorry that I'm ranting about this. I'll be the first to admit that I am not informed about current events, and that I am not super into politics. However, I have opinions about issues that exist in our world, and some of them might be more conservative, and some of them might be more liberal. However, I am who I am. And when people bash, say, all religious people, or all people with conservative views, or all people with liberal views, all of those kind of affect me. It's not entirely fair to assume that people fall in only one category, or even to judge the other categories. People form opinions based on an entire lifetime of happenings, how much they choose to get involved in politics and be informed throughout time, and just the personality that they possess changes everything too.

Mostly, I'm sorry I don't speak up. Everyone else (and by everyone else, I mean the people who think that they need to be heard at all times) speaks up, and I choose to blow off steam in a blog instead. It's basically just my little way of saying that I have a voice, I have an opinion. I am not a label, a stereotype, a party, a belief system. I'm a person. And that's what humanity is about. Looking at people as, just that, people.

We need to stop the acidic tendencies and just remain basic.

Humanity is basic.
And therefore, so am I.

My life is a Disney reference.

Dear Blog, it's been entirely too long since I've used you.
However, I'm not entirely sure why I haven't been using you. I've been bursting with a lot of different things that I have wanted to say, and yet, I usually just pick up the phone and call someone to talk, either that or I find the first available person I can trust here and spill my guts. Being at college is one of the weirdest most wonderful and odd things I have ever experienced in my entire life. I spend half of every day wondering if I'm ever going to adjust to things or if the next four years are just unknowns spilling out onto the floor at my feet every morning when I open my closet to prepare for my day. It's like all the things I packed into my life in the past 18 years are now a part of my life still, but in the past 3 months I have gained so much entirely more than I could have ever thought that I could in JUST 3 months. I have learned lessons and felt lessened. I have become stronger in some areas, and allowed myself to be weaker in other areas. It's kind of fantastically terrifying but I couldn't ask for anything different. Even though sometimes I'd just rather be at home than be here, I know that this is the right school for me and that I would not belong anywhere else as well as I belong here.

I think the biggest shock to my system is that I have come to the realization that I may never really meet someone as much like me as most people can. I mean, okay, every human person is unique and you will never meet someone exactly like you. I can understand that to the fullest sense, however, sometimes it's hard because the way that I am makes me want in return what I give to people. I have this problem where no matter how much I lower expectations for other people (not all people, just certain people who are minimally in my life anyways) it comes back that what I want from them is not always something they can give to me. I give of myself a lot and just simply desire that people give some back in return. It's hard to imagine that I should have to give up what I want when I give so much of myself because a) it's part of simply who I am and b) sometimes it's hard to give so much of yourself when you're not getting anything in return. I give a lot, and sometimes, it wears me out.

And now, don't get me wrong, I don't want anyone who happens to read this to think that the friends I have made at school are terrible people or that I hate all of them because that is not the case at all. My friends here at school are honestly fantastic. I don't know what I would do without them, and I am so thankful that each and every one of them is in my life. But sometimes, it's just hard because I really have only known them for a little bit over 3 or 4 months. And that's not enough time to be able to really know someone well (unless you put in an excess amount of time trying to figure the person out..which un/fortunately, is something I do pretty naturally). Some days I just get frustrated because I wish that I had someone who already knew all of my history. I wish I had someone here where I didn't have to explain why I feel a certain way because they would just understand without me needing to explain. The process of living with people and trying to get to know them at the same time pushes limits of friendships at a new extreme and it makes it a challenge to even be able to live with them at times. Some days you just want to be able to lay on a couch and watch television on a normal television screen. Or you'd like to just get in your car and drive for a little while to blow off some steam. Or drive to starbucks to get a "christmas in a cup" for you and deliver one to a friend as well. Or when things don't feel right, you don't have to explain to anyone why they don't, you can just go to that one person who knows before you say anything and gives you a hug. It's not the fault of anyone here, because they are all doing just great as it is under the circumstances (I truly do love my Dayton friends), but sometimes, I just get homesick. There's certain things that even subconsciously you get used to having over the course of 4 years, ,or 7 years, or even 18 years. Being here has taught me so much about the past 18 years of my life and taught me what I appreciate and need in life.

I have never felt so appreciative of the people in my life. Being here has shown me that the reason that I have always been able to put so much into friendships and relationships is because people put it back into me and into my life. I know that I would not be half of the person that I am today, the person that I get to be proud of each and every day if I had not encountered every single person that has been in my life over the last 18 years. Being here has given me the chance to understand and appreciate my parents to an extreme that I never thought that I could. And I'm sure that as time goes on, I am only going to learn to appreciate them more. Also, my siblings. While I might not be very close with my siblings, I know that they have helped me become the person that I am today. With how motivated and at least relatively supportive they have been of me over the past 18 years is kind of amazing. Maybe sometimes I got ridiculed by them, but it only made me stronger and learn better how to be a member of a group of people, and deal with "adversity" that may pop up in my life. Then my friends. Like I said, I would not be able to give so much of myself if people did not give back to me. Over the years, I have had the greatest group of friends, and even if they left and I happened to lose them, they have touched my life over the years in impeccable ways that never cease to astound me. During high school, I started to learn how to appreciate my friends more and how to build friendships that are two ended and not just me giving of myself. While I give so much of myself, and I have created so many "horcruxes" just by giving people pieces of myself, I know that so many parts of me are parts of other people that have been given to me to shape me and create me into the Julie I am today.

So, if nothing else, college has taught me to be appreciative. I know for a fact that it's doing more than just that, but that is the thing that stands out the most to me. I get homesick a lot, and I think it's largely just because I am so appreciative for the people in my life. However, even though I've been 'homesick' so to speak, I have also come to find this as my home.

I am torn. I belong to two entirely different worlds. Yet at this point, I'm not sure I would want it to be any other way because I belong in both worlds.

So, I guess that's been college for me so far.
It's a whole new world here, and no, I won't dare close my eyes. :)

I'm not entirely sure I know.

Tonight, I was talking to my roommate about what my life used to be like. And you know, I'm not entirely sure that it's written all over my face like I usually feel like it is. I mean, yes my past comprises exactly who I am now, however, it's not spread out in front of me. It's not like it's the road laid out ahead of me that people have to venture on to reach me. It's out behind me. And to be honest, no one really should walk on the roads behind them. Sometimes you can turn around and see the roads behind you, appreciate the beautiful and the tragic landmarks, but never travel back to them. But, sometimes I tell people things about my life, and they seem shocked. Like, maybe it isn't ridiculously apparent the things that I have been through. And even though I don't always feel like it was a good thing, maybe it was a blessing that all of those things happened to me. Maybe it's a blessing I get to keep it as part of me, even when people don't know. It's like my own terribly beautiful secret.

I want to say more but it's like 2 in the morning and all of my thoughts are all jumbled together and I can't get a single one out on its own. Maybe I will try again tomorrow.

Am I homesick?

This question haunts me every time that I talk to someone who is at home and asks me if I am. I usually say no, because according to everything I have heard about being homesick, I don't think I quite fit the agenda of this. However I may, in fact, be peoplesick. As my best friend coined the term, it seemed kind of fitting for how I feel about being here at school.

No, I don't love it yet. When I was here this summer, it felt more like something I was going to love. People talk about going to college or how they've been to college and how they already love it, and I guess at least a part of me hoped to be totally in love with it. And given, I have reached a point where I am really happy. I really do like it here, but I definitely do not love it yet. I've been trying to get involved in things, and make random new friends and do random lovable things here that might make me love it. But I don't yet. I also then remember that I haven't even been here a month yet, so I shouldn't be too hard on my feelings yet for it only having been a month.

I think what is making it the hardest about being away, besides not seeing my best friends, is all of the little things about my friendships and my life there that I miss. Like late at night when all I want is a handful of shredded cheese and I can't just go to my fridge to get some. Or being able to jump in my car and just drive to whoever needs me or being able to go to a swingset that is visible from my house. Things like going to choir on Tuesday mornings and getting picked up by Jess Hess. Hugging people when I feel like it. My coloring books. Proofreading Cecelia's papers for her infamous run-on sentences and amazing thoughts. Laughing until I cry with my best friends, rather than wanting to cry when I remember that I don't have them. Driving a giant cupcake to an anti-prom party. My love generations--my diamond. Chai lattes, and Hogsmeade. Megatron. Laying my head on my best friend's shoulder and watching BONES. The way my dad always fixed my computer when I messed it up, or my mom made me dinner. Working out with the musical kids, doing 16s. I miss the choir hallway. I miss the band hallway, and marching. I miss the mellophone family, and being their mother. I miss my parents. I miss sidewalk chalking peoples' driveways. My mix CDs from my car..and the list could go on for quite awhile. I literally miss so many things, and half of them, I don't even know why I do. I just want to be home for a little bit so I can soak a lot of those things in again. When I was there before I had been somewhere else for an extended amount of time, I didn't fully appreciate the little things. I didn't even fully appreciate the way that my friends are such amazing and supportive people who love me for exactly who I am. I need to be able to come back and soak all of that in again..with a new perspective. Just for a few days. Then, I think I will be able to love here more fully.

True Life College Confession: I love North Canton.
True Life College Confession 2: I really like Dayton, and I like making friends. I also really like having morals and being the person that I am. Being here has taught me that I really am content with who I am and what I do. So, thanks college.

It's 2:36. Happy First Day of College.

I'm not entirely sure what causes a person to realize that they are in college. Several factors of my evening have led me to believe that it doesn't really matter what I feel, college sneaks up on you and pounces. It's kind of mental, and trippy. Like drugs.

Speaking of illegal things, my evening was interesting. And no, I didn't do anything illegal. Like, actually, I was kind of a big loser this evening. The majority of the floor decided to go out to "the ghetto" which is basically just the student neighborhood, and seriously, they told me there was a party at basically every house. While I knew that it was going to be like that, I wasn't so sure I was quite ready to head out there for my first night of college. And yes, I became that girl who sits in her dorm and doesn't go out to party, just because I've, truthfully, NEVER in my entire life been to any sort of party. It's my first night of college, I'm sorry that I am not quite prepared for that much change. I hung out with Norman, and talked to my two best friends. I got a little more emotional about all of the changes than I thought that I would, but it happens I guess. So, I"m busy being emotional and wearing sweats and a hoodie because our room is CHILLY TO THE MAX. And then my one roommate comes back, who in fact, does not drink, but she brought her two drunken friends and our one slightly not very drunk friend who lives down the hall into our room. Before I knew it, I had a random boy telling me he needed to stay in my room for awhile so that he could sober up, and then he was lounging on the end of my bed, and the girl from down the hall was adamantly telling me about how awesome it was that she found a mini gummy bear in her package of fruit snacks.

While I do not intend to drink at college, pretty much anywhere I go on campus it's readily available to me. It's a little bit absurd for my brain to grasp this concept. However, it's not the end of the world that things are different. It's just like, the fact that I need to find where I fit here. What things I can do, what people will understand what I'm going through or what I believe and will try to figure out how I roll and do similar things as me. It shouldn't be all that hard, it may just take some time.

Time feels painful, and it feels confusing.
But it's okay. I think I'm actually really going to like it here.

No Need to Say Goodbye.

It's nearly one in the morning and neither me or my roommate is asleep. We haven't been bonding, we've been having our own separate time. But the general consensus would lead me to believe that neither of us really wants to go to sleep. Not so much because we don't want to sleep, but because we don't want to wake up and realize that we're in this place, without the people we love. We're recreating ourselves, and we're feeling the pain of new things interfering with our old ways, and the pain of missing people. We're hearing about things going on at home without us. We're finding the fortune cookie fortune we packed from our best friend, or a note tucked into our FRIENDS dvds. We're feeling the same mutual togetherness and aloneness that comes with being here in this new place. In this new environment.

We don't want to fall asleep and wake up to realize these really are our lives now. But it's inevitable. Even if we cry, even if we don't sleep, the morning is still going to come. And we're not going to be any less here. And the people we love aren't going to be any less NOT here.

But, after skyping several people, contacting via various technology with other people, and fighting with one of my best friends for the first time, over the phone nonetheless..today feels full, and probably can't do much more for me.

I think it's time to go sleep.
And I feel like the morning may greet me.

Cliche. But Necessary.

i have the best friends in the entire world.

and so our lives begin in confusion. and the more we try to understand, the more we realize that the understanding is not as important as the love.

Everybody, Everybody wants to be loved.

I feel like everything about right now doesn't make sense. The indescribable feeling of wanting to cry everyday when I wake up, and fluctuating between that feeling and a feeling of excitement, and a feeling of missing people who I am still with, and a feeling of long distance with people and distances only getting longer as I go.

I have so many feelings and I'm not sure what to do with any of them. Writing seems about like the last thing I should be doing, but like I've realized this week, some things you just can't push your way through. You have to stop and breathe and remember that even though it feels like this whirlwind of change and emotions is going to rip at your soul forever, it's really only a couple of weeks, and things will mostly adjust the way they're supposed to. And I'll be home in October, which is really not that far away.

But, sometimes, the worst feelings I have are the ones that tell me it doesn't matter if I'll be back in October. Like, my life is going to move on to Dayton and I'll have new separate things there. However, the lives here will also move on without me. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. To be honest, there's nothing I can do. Life's just happening all around me, and I don't have a choice except to just live it.

As one of my best friends pointed out to me, mostly, I just don't like knowing. She reminded me how well I will adjust and how I probably won't have any trouble making friends or finding where I belong...I don't like all of the unknowns. I don't like not knowing what's going on in North Canton, I don't like not knowing what classes I'm taking, or not knowing what I'm doing with my life. Or knowing who I'm going to get to stay friends with when I leave, or knowing who the friends I'm going to make at school are going to be. There's so incredibly many unknowns and I just don't even know what else I don't know and it makes me crazy. But she reminded me that that is life.

And soon, very soon, I venture into this unknown that very quickly is becoming my life.
Which, as my roommates have told me, might be a little cramped.

Today, I'm Julie.

I started this blog the day after school ended. When I reached a certain point, I had to stop writing it because I didn't know what I was supposed to say from where I stopped. It seemed pretty overwhelming then, and it kind of still is. But I think I might need to do this. I'm going to try.

"i feel somewhat like i am lacking in the eloquence lately, but i feel i absolutely must write something because my brain feels burst-worthy.

today was my first day of summer, but also, today was the beginning of the rest of my life. (i mean, technically, every day is the first day of the rest of your life, but that's besides the point) but, at the same time, the rest of my life doesn't even have labels on it yet. it's like when parents make treasure maps for their kids. there's no footprints yet. you just have to make up your own path and hope to goodness there's some type of treasure at the end..even when you have to put it there yourself. but either way, you're still the one charting the journey.

i imagine that's a lot what life's like. but up until now i'm not entirely sure i was really living life. from kindergarten until now, life has been about all of the charted things. it's been about the things my parents tell me to do. it's been about needing their signatures on everything, and always needing their permission. and given, i've had plenty of time roaming the streets of north canton and choosing my different activities along the way. true, i had the space to choose my own life and do my own things. but until this year, i'm not so sure i really knew who i was. i spent all this time just looking for things to establish who i am. and where has it gotten me? i'm not entirely sure, to be honest. i have discovered my passions and my likes and dislikes. i have worked too hard trying to achieve things to get me to farther points in my life, and here i am, directly before i continue to those farther things. and i don't really know where life is going to take me.

along with that uncertainty of the path lying before me, i already stated this, but i'm not really sure who i am, or who i'm going to become. over the past few weeks i've been trying to figure out how i got to where i am. i've been trying to process what makes me the way i am, and what has shaped me along the way. and i could talk about all the different things that i have always thought make me a certain way. like, all of the different parts i've played in shows and plays over the past few years. or the way i have three siblings and have spent time in all of their shadows. i could talk about stupid things that i've done and the way i sometimes walk into walls or talk to myself. i could talk about how i spent the last three years watching people leave and feeling like i was losing part of myself. and then spending time after that doubting myself and losing confidence and being a little bit of a closet emo kid. but, to be honest, i could list all of those things that have happened to me and still not have even gotten close to the epitome of what makes me who i am. while i think it may be difficult to ever really define how a person becomes the person that they are...i guess there's two things that i have been observing as my defining factors. one, the people in my life. and two, the way these people have influenced me and the way that i choose to accept and react to their influences.

so, the people in my life."

And that's where I stopped. It was nearly 3 months ago, and maybe some of the people that I may see on a regular basis are no longer still in my life as much, but not tons has changed. I leave for college in a week. And maybe my perspective has changed a lot this summer. Some new people have come into my life that I wouldn't trade for a single thing. But, mostly, I'm the same. Just three months older. And my opinion is still the same.

The people in my life. I wish I could name names and explain how each of them is important to me and everything, but I'm not so sure that I can do that. Because, unfortunately and fortunately, the way that I am about people and how they are important to me is so complex. Literally, almost every person I meet in my life has some sort of lesson I am supposed to learn from them; if I started listing them and trying to explain, I don't think I would ever be able to finish. But there's some things I must write about.

This summer I met a girl who has become literally one of the best friends I've ever had. At LEAD, I met her and we got to know each other's hearts. And while sometimes this makes it hard to go back to our lives and get to know each other not in the context of an amazing retreat, we've managed. Between her being in Europe for 10 days directly following our meeting and us not being able to talk, to two weekend spent together in our respective towns, and a plethora of late night phone conversations, I've learned that what I love about true and real friendship is that..the details don't really matter. The day you met or the things you've done together don't matter all that much. What matters is the way you can be there for each other, no matter the circumstances. The way it doesn't matter that much if you're there together in person, but rather that you care about what's going on, even when you can't be there. But most importantly, is knowing that when you miss them, you don't have to worry if they miss you too. It's a mutually given.

This summer has been kind of weird with my friends who are still here, though. If I ever decided to regret things, I may have regretted the way some things turned out in friendships this summer. But I don't regret, I believe things happen for certain reasons, no matter how much sometimes they might irritate you, or make you cry, or even just make you happy. All of those feelings have purpose.

Some of the people that I had not spent that much time with before this summer suddenly appeared in my life a lot more this summer. I became conscious of the fact that friendship isn't about the exact moment that you became friends, or even the moments where you can say 'oh I'm so glad we did this or that together' but rather the moment when you look back and say, 'I don't know when we became friends, but I don't know what I would do if we weren't, or I don't know why we weren't friends sooner.' There were people this summer that needed me who had never needed me before. There are people now who I know will miss me when I go to school that if you had asked me three months ago if they would miss me when I left, I might've responded with a 'maybe' or a 'sure?'. But now some things are different.

Another thing that has been very weird and changing this summer are the people who were very prevalent in my life who suddenly this summer, weren't so much. Sometimes when I look back on the summer, I don't really know what happened. In the cases of some of them, it was a matter of not living very close together. In the case of others, it was a matter of them suddenly not caring so much if we hung out. In the cases of even some others, we just don't know what happened. We could point fingers at our schedules which were busier this summer. We could point fingers at the bad communication of both ends. We could point fingers at each other, but that really gets us nowhere either. I guess the thing that I want people that I haven't seen as much this summer to know is the mere fact that I really have missed you. I'm sorry we haven't seen each other as much, and it really doesn't mean you mean less to me than the people I have seen. Honestly, the only difference is that circumstances worked out better in other cases. I really am sorry, and I really do care about each and every one of you.

And this idea is important when we think about going to college. Like, we can't talk to everyone from high school ALL THE TIME, and we can't see everyone when we're home for our breaks. But that doesn't mean we weren't important to each other while we were here. It doesn't mean that we don't care what's going on in each others' lives anymore. It only means that we're in different places, and circumstances change. People change. But the past doesn't. And it's okay to look back and appreciate it. Or even to look back and be glad it changed. But doing all that doesn't change it. And it is and always will be a part of us. We can't erase it, and as so many people go to college I feel like they try to change it. Don't fight that part of you, let it take a part of who you are and claim it. It will show people at college part of who you truly always will be: your childhood. The place or places you grew up. The people you knew and the people who changed you. The people you changed.

I honestly wish that I could tell every person who has changed me and affected me the exact way that they have. But, I think what I know the most this summer, especially after looking back at this that I started to write at the beginning of summer, when college was looming 6 day ahead, is that becoming is a funny concept. The way people affect us, and the way we CHOOSE to be affected are all varying. It's different with every person we meet, and everything that we do. We can't know who we're becoming because we can't know exactly what we're going to do every day of our lives, or all the people we're going to meet and have change us. Everyday is part of who we are becoming, and who we already are. It's not so much about who you become, but rather who you ARE. If we focus so much on what's coming, on the person who is existing as the us in the future, we miss out on the wonderful person we already are. The biggest things to me this summer are that I have to appreciate people how they are, and appreciate things the way they are because life is pretty wonderful as it is. The future holds more people, and more events, and more new days being the person we are destined to be in that day alone. So, it's not a matter of who we are going to become, but rather, who we are choosing to be right this very instant.

We can only become the person we are supposed to be in the future if we are being the person we are supposed to be right now.

Thank you. To everyone who has been my friend so far. To everyone who has learned how to appreciate me in each day of who I am, rather than what I have been, or by what I have done. It's never been a matter of what I do, or who I've been, but a matter of me. Right now.

I love all of you, right here, right now. My best friends, my good friends, my acquaintances, the people I've only just met, the people I've lost. The person I am right. now, Today, is a product of all of you.

I have became. I am becoming. I will only continue to become.

Today, and most likely everyday, I'm just Julie. And all of you will always get to claim a part of that.

Maybe I'm Not the Only One.

I have so much I want to say.

Every time I tried, the words came out all wrong
the pierced hearts, the strained voices, keep singing our same song.
Whispering notes that greet your life hello,
All the things worth knowing, it seems you no longer need to know.
Every broken promise laying weakly at your feet,
every part of you that you may have never desired to meet.
Never quite feeling like you knew who to be,
never quite knowing the answer to, 'is that really me?'.
The tears refusing to flow from your eyes,
the numbness no longer a disguise.
Pulling back at the reigns as life shifts into gear,
the future always looming right ahead, drawing near.
But what is nearness when two minutes from now is soon,
what is nearness when your heart feels it has run out of room?
Always making space, always stretching out,
always learning anew what love seems to be about.
Love is pure and never boasts,
love is knowing who needs you the most.
But what is love when you feel alone?
What is the point of love if it is all you own?
Own your patience, own your fears,
pulling back, reset the gear.
For what is happiness without unhappiness to precede it?
What is being alone without love to redeem it?
What are words when feelings have lost their sound?
What is flying when your feet haven't left the ground?
What is a goodbye without the good?
What is helping if you don't do all you could?
What are questions without answers to follow suit?
What is a tree if it has no roots?

Plant your roots, then change the gear,
Let the sky shine bright as your saddle rears,
Fly away into the sun,
Maybe you're not the only one.

I keep trying and trying.

I have no idea what I'm talking about. I've started this blog at least 4 different times, and every time I come back to it and edit the draft, I give it a different name and rewrite a good couple of paragraphs that, apparently, later are not sufficient to express what I want and/or need to express.

But I think maybe that concept in itself is exactly what is drowning me right now. The fact that nothing I can say or do is sufficient in expressing what I need to say, and what I need to feel. My life is very much existing up inside my brain right now, and it's making it much harder to convey to the world and my friends and everyone who is NOT in my head what's going on up there.

Things keep changing. And while I've never been someone who's super into change, I think I've never really been against it. It's just a fact of life. And if we fight it, or try to feel things against the current, we are only hurting ourselves. It's just not necessary to make ourselves feel that way.

Oddly enough, at the beginning of this summer, it's not that I had particular expectations for it, but I knew that it was going to be extremely interesting and I hoped for certain things to happen and certain people to stay in my life, and maybe certain people to bow out of my life. Everything that I wanted for this summer now seems pretty futile. The wants of life outweigh the things that actually happen to us. And if we never admit this to ourselves, we will spend so much wasted time..which might as well render our hearts to be broken.

But this summer has changed so many things..and it's not that I tried to keep them from changing. I think for one of the first times in my life, I let changes just happen. And still, I felt many things, and maybe at times I didn't like the way they turned out, but change is inevitable and I feel more complete than I did when I started summer. I've blogged about a lot of the things I've done this summer, and the places I've gone, but when I think about this summer, neither of those is all that important to me. I'm not going to say that the things I did this summer don't matter, but it's like this...the things I've done, they were important, but not essential. I will only continue to do as time goes on. And if I'm lucky, those future doings will be even better than the past things (of right now). Also, this summer is not defined by the places I went. I differentiate each in an odd way. Steubenville, New Jersey, Dayton, Maryland, and Pittsburgh. But it's not about those places. It's not about the things I did in each of those places, but rather it is about the people I met and the people I already knew and how all of them changed my life. And yes, I know, I was bitter earlier about how you shouldn't say things change your life, but it's the short way of saying my perspective changed and now my life is better BECAUSE of this change. It's about the people in my life, because when it comes down to it, the people in my life ARE my life..and the person that I am is largely an effect of them coming into my life and being in my life and maybe even leaving my life. I cannot be more grateful for the friends I have had over the years, the friends I will hopefully have in the future, and the friends I have right now. Maybe I'll even get to keep some of them forever. Who can tell?

But words are exhausting me.

I'll never need more than this.

Sometimes, I believe lyricists to be the most brilliant and emotional people to exist in the world.

I think something that is absolutely essential to know about me is the fact that I obsess about songs. Not like, I obsess about the actual songs, but every time I find a new song that I fall in love with, I listen to it for about two weeks straight. I don't listen to the radio, and I don't really listen to the kind of music everyone else listens to. Not that I don't enjoy the same kinds of music, but I mean, I'll discover a song, and just listen to it for weeks at a time. Then, when I tire of it, I find a new song and listen to that for weeks a time. And honestly, I think this is one of the most innocent and pure ways to fall in love with music. Because, when you listen to the songs over and over again, you fall in love with every part of them. The way a certain instrumental part sounds, or the way voices might blend together, or the complexity of emotions wrapped in part of the lyrics. The order of how lyrics fall in a song to make a story that is that song, or the way a song can mean nothing to you one time that you listen to it, and mean everything to you when you're in a different mood. Or how different lines in songs just scream out to you sometimes.

So, I've always been this way with music. For as long as I can remember and for as long as youtube has possessed my emotions in different song addictions I have experienced. But this summer, I've been addicted to a song for longer than I can explain, and longer than I normally like to be addicted. Several weeks ago, at the very beginning of July, I was introduced to the song "More Than This" by Vanessa Carlton. And frankly, I'm obsessed with it. Everytime I think about listening to it, it gets stuck in my head and I think about my favorite lyrics and how it connects with my emotions. And every time I actually do get to listen to it (which is really too frequented..it's AT LEAST everytime I'm on my computer.), I get all of "those things" about music. The lyrics, the instrumental, the voices, the story, the complexity of emotions, the lines that speak. I get all of these from this song. And alright, maybe I know it's not a super really fantastic song. Like, people might listen to it and think it's pretty, or really good but it's not one of those songs that people listen to and say WOW THAT SONG IS AMAZING. I think honestly, you have to listen to this song repeatedly before you begin to feel about it the way that I do. But, I think that's the way I am as a person, too, which is why I can connect to this so well. You have to look at me and spend time with me repeatedly to begin to really know me and appreciate me. Being my friend, like truly being my friend, is like being addicted to a song. Not that I'm saying I want people to be addicted to me (not saying that at ALL actually), I'm just saying, I want people who are my friends to want to be around me, to want to always learn more about me, and not say they know everything. I want people to view my complexities and want to understand them, and when they can't, just to appreciate them. To appreciate all the things about me that I might not even notice.

More Than This has, therefore, has become a really big part of my summer. I listen to it all the time, and I want to put the lyrics in here and explain why I love them so much. The lyrics in this song probably kill me more than anything else about the song, so it seems appropriate that I address them.

Cradling stones hold fire bright
As crickets call out to the moonlight
As you lean in to steal a kiss
I'll never need more than this

Don't those lyrics just slay you? Okay, maybe not. But for me, they just rip my heart out and lay it on the table for me to look at. The first verse sets up the fact that the person singing the song has such beautiful things laying out in her life in front of her, and she's finally realizing how awesome all of it is. The moment that you realize that in your life, honestly, nothing will ever feel the same. I think that life is so underappreciated. The things that we have in our lives that we take for granted. Whenever I listen to this, I think about how wonderful my life feels right now (and even all the wonderful things that are held in my future that I don't even know about). And I realize that this is what life is about. If you are out there living life to the fullest, you really never will need more than what you have right when you have it. And that's..ridiculously awesome. This summer, I think I've learned what it feels like to be really appreciated, and what it feels like to really appreciate life back. Probably one of the reasons this has been one of the best summers of my life.

We all share the pain of our histories
But the ache goes away if you could see
This night under stars, well, I call it peace
If you say, I'll never need more than this

I think I love this verse. For me personally, it's addressing the fact that maybe we have a lot that's gone on in our pasts that makes it hard to live in the present. We write off ourselves as a figment of all of our past experiences, and therefore cannot really appreciate the RIGHT NOW. But, as the lyrics address, the ache goes away if we're willing to let ourselves believe that it does..then it actually does And, again, it states that you can feel peace, if only you choose to say you don't need any thing more. If you choose to believe that life is perfect to appreciate the way it is right in the moment. Baaah so awesome.

The trees grow so thick
You can barely see through
But the forest bestows the simplest of truths
You think you'll be happy if granted one more wish
But the truth is you'll never need more,
You'll never need more
You'll never need more than this

SO GOOD. SLAYING ME. You'll have to forgive me because I'm addicted to this song, and have listened to it..an ungodly number of times, but actually really trying to explain why I love the lyrics so much is making me love it even more. VC is busting out some major metaphor here. Our lives are the forest! And I think this is just going back to the whole thing. I mean, the trees growing thick is just like, when we lose sight of our wants and our needs and our desires and we forget how to live. It's those days when you feel like giving up (or those weeks, months, years..you get the picture). And we're always looking for something else. We forget how to look in our lives and appreciate it..so we look elsewhere. BUT THE TRUTH IS, you'll never need more than what you have right in front of you. And how simple is that? But we always forget it. And that's nearly heart-shattering when you think about it. This song addresses that..and I think that's part of the reason I can't get over my obsession with it. Because life is utterly beautiful. Like, entirely.

Want so much in this life,
There's so much to be
We sail through our youth so impatiently
Until we see
That the years move along
And soldiers and heroes come home
And they carry a song

Seriously, I just love every part of this song. And this part really strikes me as I leave for college in about 20 days. It's talking about how we keep looking for more. We keep thinking about all the things we can be, and we forget how young we are and how much we already ARE. It's always about what we're becoming, but we forget that we already ARE something. And I love the part about carrying a song. Because, I think we each carry our own songs. As we travel to new places, we take that song with us. We introduce our song to the new people we meet. We change our song with the change of places, but it's still ours. And if people have taken the time to get to know us, no matter how much our songs might change, you can still recognize the song as that certain person's.

Don't live in forgotten times
May this always remind you
Of the sea under the skies blue looking glass
Let's make this our story, let's live in the glory
Time, it fades away,
Precious as a song
Cause someday we'll be gone

Again, with appreciating the moment, and looking towards what is, and what can be if we appreciate life for what it is. "The sea under the skies blue" I LOVE THAT. It's like when you look out over the water of the ocean and there is no end in sight. You have to appreciate right where you are standing rather than thinking about the side that you cannot see. Let's make this our story, let's live in the glory. Time fades away precious as a song, cause someday we'll be gone. Everyday is your story, and if you bask in each day, then it will be glorious. Time continues on, and if you don't appreciate it, like you want your songs and your life to be appreciated..then you'll be gone and your existence will have been futile. It's just so good these lyrics. They kill me.

Cradling stones hold fire bright
As we watch the glow of the morning light
Someday our bones here they will lie, and so we sing

As the years move along and soldiers and heroes come home
And they carry a song
Let's make this our story,
Let's live in the glory
Time, it fades away,
Precious as a song
Cause someday we'll be gone

I just love the bit about our bones, here they will lie. OUR BONES WILL LIE HERE SOMEDAY, BUT RIGHT NOW WE JUST NEED TO SING. Our songs, to each other. We have to establish ourselves and appreciate life, or what's the point? And I just love that it ends with "Cause someday we'll be gone." It's not saying that our lives are pointless because someday we'll be gone, but I mean, if we dont live life to the fullest and appreciate all of this, then really, what is the point of our lives? What difference can we make if we don't let ourselves be appreicated, and take the chances life has?

I know I said a lot of the same stuff over and over when I was talking about those lyrics, but I mean, really. My obsession with this song is warranted. Particularly now, this summer, as I head off to college all too soon. It's almost like, I need to suck all the juice and nectar out of life right here right now because I'm going to go off and get a new version of my song. But part of my song will always lie here, in North Canton, with the people I care about and the people who have figured out how to appreciate me.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of this was. If I was trying to tell you you should listen to that song, or if I was just trying to say that music is more complex. Or even, if I'm trying to say that I'm more complex than most people are willing to look into.

I just want people to know that I appreciate them. I want people to know that I appreciate life. I want people to know that I love being happy, and that I love dumb things that I'll never really be able to explain. (Like, my love for this song has not even moderately been expressed to you. Please give it a listen after/while you read this..)

But, if you glean anything from this, and from this song, it would be that life is really precious. Like, even learning to appreciate life in a little tiny simple way makes you that much more equipped for life. Oh, and learn your song, be proud to sing it. Be prepared for it to change, but still be willing to sing it as it changes.

I think, I'm ready for my song to change.
But I hope that everyone who knows it already will still know it when I come back and sing it.

From way up there, You and I.

I don't know what I want. I think I've spent such a long time telling myself that I knew what I want that a few years ago, when I realized that I didn't know what I wanted, I still tried to pretend that I did. But, as time has gone on, I've stopped trying to pretend that I know, because frankly, does anyone really know?

People do things, and say that they know what they want. But, one day, you might know, and then the next, you might want something entirely different and you will be thrown into a chaos of not knowing.

Not knowing where you're going, not really knowing the depths of where you've been. Not knowing who you are, who you were, or who you're becoming. Only that you are. Not knowing what's going to happen. Not knowing when you're going to fall in love. Not knowing who will stay in your life. Not always knowing who you've already lost from your life. Not knowing who will come into your life. Not knowing what riches your future holds. Not knowing what tragedies it holds as well.
Not knowing, and for once, truly letting yourself not know.

I think if I've learned anything this summer, the biggest would be that I don't know...and that's okay.
I've learned how to make friends, how to hopefully keep friends, that my future holds great things, but it also holds struggles. I've learned that everything from my past is a part of my present, and therefore, a key to my future. But it's not a matter of dragging them behind me, or locking them up somewhere inside of me, but acknowledging them, and letting them come along with me in whatever way they may. I've learned that sometimes we have to let go of people for reasons that we cannot understand until long after we let go. I've learned that college can be whatever you want to make it, and it is full of possibilities. I've learned that being overly critical of yourself really gets you nowhere good. I've learned that the hardest people for me to appreciate are the people who appreciate me the most. I've learned that we all have separate people that we are in the summer. In a school year, it's not that weird for someone to change over the course of a month, or two months, or three; but in the summer people change and it feels like absurdity to us. But it happens. We all have slightly different personalities we run to in the summer, because they're unacceptable to be those people in the school year. I've learned that needing people can be beneficial. I've learned that each person has something different to offer each of us in a different way. I've learned that people are just waiting to get to be knowed. All we have to do is start to know them. I've learned that sidewalk chalk is an extremely simple form of happiness that I can pass on. I've learned that I have a lot to offer the world, no matter how much I might forget it or deny it. I've learned that sometimes, no matter how much I want to talk, listening is valuable beyond anything I could ever say. I've learned that hurt can be growth, not always backtracking. I've learned that I am good, beautiful and beloved. I've learned that I love my faith, and I'm not much without it. I've learned that I'm overly passionate about people, and it's an extremely huge part of who I am. I've learned that friendship is not about one defining moment, but rather the moment when you look back and say "I don't remember when, or how, or why we became friends..I just know now that we are." I've learned that music is soothing to my soul, and crying is therapeutic..and I rarely cry because I don't need to so much anymore. I've realized that happiness is a gift. Both one we give, and one we have to receive. If you don't have a delicate balance of both giving and receiving, happiness of any sort is futile. I've learned that sometimes holding on is useless, because when we look back to what we've been holding onto, there's nothing there anymore anyways. I've learned that people cannot be held responsible for their actions when emotions come cutting through. I've learned that being a child means learning how to parent your parents. I've learned that it's okay to miss people, and we should miss people in their own separate ways.
I've learned that no matter what I say, or do, or change from each day to the next, that I'll be okay.
I've learned that I really don't know, and maybe that really is okay.

"So I will help you read those books,
if you will soothe my worried looks,
and we will put the lonesome on the shelf."

Friends are the crayons of life..

EXCESS EMOTIONS. I HAVE SO MANY AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM.

And since this is usually a pretty good outlet for me, I thought I'd see what it could do for me once again.

Why do people have to be so perfect for me? Like, I don't understand how I can go my entire life having people that I think are my best friends, and now, I'm here 18 years later, and I have people who really truly understand me. Like it's not a matter of me ever having to pretend to be anything that I'm not, I can just be fully and totally me and I love that. And sometimes they might get a little annoyed but most of the time, they just seem to find my eccentricities endearing and I'm not really sure what that means. I don't even know what I'm saying. Let me start over.

Hi. I'm Julie. I've never really liked the term "best friend". It seems to hyperbolized and excessive when a person spends their life having so many friends. It really only means really awesomely amazing friend, but I kind of wish we could just have different adjectives in front of friend to describe our friendships. Like, you wouldn't have to have a best friend or several best friends because you could have a compassionate friend, and a loving friend, and an understanding friend, and each one would get a word, and each one would have a different word because every person and every friendship is different. There's no bests because each person is needed for different things. Because, gosh darnit, that's what friendship actually is. It's like this giant picture that you draw your entire life. And each person comes in with their different crayons and draws a part of your picture. And sometimes, the things people draw will be similar to something someone else drew, but you will always know the difference, even if it is just a matter of the color the person owned and used.

My life is so freaking colorful, especially lately, and going to college is really hard to deal with I guess. But i'm excited, I was there this weekend and fell in love with the campus and the opportunities i will have starting in the fall and all of the awesome people I've already met and will be meeting. It's amazing, and I am so dang excited. I don't know what I'm saying. I started this blog awhile ago, and now I'm trying to finish it and I'm not having the same thought process.

Basically, it's weird going to college and getting new friends and starting all over. But people come in with their colors, and I think i just have to be more willing to let them color their pictures into mine, and let MY color be eminent as well. No one's colors have to go over mine, they can just coincide with mine. Because if they're meant to be in my life and be my friends, their colors will match mine even if it's a weird combination, or something people aren't accustomed to.

And the friends I have here and have in my life already? If I want to keep their colors across my pictures, it's perfectly plausible. I want to keep them, because right now my life is so colorful, and gosh, i love crayons, especially the ones my friends own.

Sorry that this whole post is somewhat ranty, slash, not coherent?
We'll try again in a little while, and I may rant about Dayton and how excited I am.

How many God Camps are you going to this summer?!

It's been several weeks since I have written here, and to be honest, I'm not really sure where to start. I've only been home for about maybe a 1/3 of the time since I last blogged, and a LOT has happened in both being home and being away. I guess I'll start from the most recent and work my way backwards.

The usual summer happenings include the Midnight Driveway Trap (or approximately 10:30 or 11 o'clock trap) and discovering things about myself. The latest discovery was that I'm a ninja nerd. And no, this does not mean that I am a nerd about ninjas, or that I am a ninja who just happens to be a nerd. It actually means that my nerdiness is subtle and comes when you least expect it. My nerdiness is a ninja. It's not really that valuable to know, I suppose. But it fascinated me a little bit. The way that I am a nerd is never really outwardly apparent, even to me. Yet I do know for a fact that I am a nerd. [like when I find my old box of Pokemon, Digimon, and Yu-Gi-Oh cards in my closet and am SUPER excited about them..] It's quite stellar.

On other notes, the summer also has included Hogsmeade, sidewalkchalking peoples' driveways about mavericks or young giraffes, and then naturally, grad parties. I've developed a system for grad parties. You show up, you say hello to whoever's party it is, depending on how many people they have to mingle with, you may stand and visit with them for a little bit. Let them offer you food, and say you'll take a look in a bit. After they go off to mingle with others, you venture and find their shrines of themselves. You peer at the shrines for awhile, looking through all of the pictures, and you choose your "favorite (insert name of whoever's party it is)" picture. after you carefully observe and pick, you are probably done observing the shrine, and can venture to food. when you go to food, you survey ALL of the food before taking any, and only take whatever is your FAVORITE of the food, there. Unless of course, they have cheesy potatoes, in which case you must take some. after getting food, you find the people you know at the party, sit and mingle with them for x amount of time, and then you find the person, say your goodbyes and venture onward to the next party or homeward. That is my general layout for grad parties. Speaking of, my party is this Saturday. I wish I could be excited, but I still have to make MY shrine, and clean. Such excessive amounts of cleaning.

But alas, so that's right now, but the past two..or..no, three weeks have been astoundingly all over the place. Last week, I was in Hawthorne, New Jersey for Mission Trip with SHINE catholic work camp. I'm not really entirely sure where to start with that one. I had been to a SHINE work camp the summer before and it kind of changed my perspective. I had painted inside of a house the previous year, and I met girls from Wisconsin that stayed my best friends as long as our distance allowed us to. But as time went on, I realized that probably never being able to see each other again puts a big damper on a friendship. And it slowly fades out. Unfortunately, I find this damper to be similar to how my experience AT shine this year was. It's not that I didn't have a good time, because I did. But it was more of a challenge to enjoy, and if I had not been in such a good place before the week started, it would have had great potential to be a truly terrible week. We left the church at 3 in the morning on Monday, and we drove. I COULD NOT SLEEP ON THE BUS on the way there. So, needless to say, I started off the week quite grumpers.

So, my work group and first impressions. I try not to base relationships with people on my first impressions of them. The one kid in my group, I figured him to be rather cynical but I can work with that due to the fact my sarcasm is excessive and abundant. The one girl in my group, she was sketchy. A little too flirtatious, and a little too full of herself and her existence. And the other boy, he seemed a little too interested in things I couldn't relate to. But these were all just first impressions. And to be honest, I'm really not sure where my impressions of them went after that. The kids from Jersey..well. They took their first impressions and ran with them. They asked me all sorts of questions about things I had never had anything to do with and really don't want to have anything to do with. No, I don't care if you can buy weed legally. No, I don't know any party games because I don't party or drink. No, I don't hook-up with people and YES I am waiting until I'm married. It's really not that uncommon. And yes, sorry, I do like being religious. No, not all youth groups go out and party on the weekends. Like, really? I mean, these kids were nice kids. They really were. And by the end of the week, I really liked them quite a bit. But, the fact that their society makes it so that they find all those things NORMAL and I'M the weird one because I don't participate in those things..like is society really that corrupt? It absolutely boggled my mind. I mean, I know some people live like that, but the fact that it's the NORM there..kind of slayed me. But all in all, I guess I was glad I got to work with those two. They helped me realize how happy I am with what I believe and who I am, and how I'm not afraid to tell people. It's what I believe in..I'm not going to stand back and just lie or not answer peoples' questions just because I'm afraid of what they'll think. If they're judging what I do or who I am, then they're probably not worth my time.

Then the kid from Wisconsin. Yes, in fact, he was quite cynical. But I'm not really sure. He kind of had a major influence on my week. Not just because we worked together, but because his opinions were so hardcore. He DID NOT want to be there for the week. Everything about the week was compared to this other mission trip that he usually went on and wanted to be on this summer, but did not get to because his youth minister assigned him to THIS trip instead. But, honestly, I kind of feel like I made a difference to him and he didn't go away from the week completely hating it. At the beginning of the week, he could not like a single thing. He hated everything about what occurred during program at nights, and everything about the house we were painting, and about the staff for the camp and everything. But then, by the end of the week, rather than saying all the things he hated, he was talking about the few things he LIKED. While it was still very few things, it made all the difference. Transferring from listing all things hated, to listing few things liked is a big step. And we joked, and we talked, and I realized you don't have to be exactly like someone to get along with them. You can be totally different and impact each others' lives in a weird way that maybe neither of you are really aware of unless you look for it. [Which obviously I do, because I'm so passionate about people.] But, all in all, yes, my first impression on him was very accurate. He was cynical, but I could work with it. And we did.

But, the week overall. The work we were doing was a bit frustrating because a) we used ladders and always had to have a spotter so I was basically just ladder spotting all week. and b) because a lot of the time, I didn't feel needed. the family had a pool and the one woman and her son were out swimming in their pool watching us paint all week. not to mention, everytime they went to the side of the pool, they got on their blackberry phones. but, it was a lesson to learn I guess. Deacon Ron was talking to us about how sometimes we might not feel needed, but one of the hardest things about being a Christian is accepting a gift. We were doing this for this family, and they had to accept it..so that had to be somewhat challenging in a different way for them. Just because you can swim in your pool doesn't mean you can get on tall ladders and paint your house. So, it was kind of important. The work was frustrating but it tested my patience and taught me a lesson. Just because you don't always FEEL needed, doesn't mean that you are not. I think that's a good general lesson in life. Need is..complicated. Like, feeling needed isn't really about the other person at all. It's very much inside yourself. But actually need is two-sided. The side of the person who needs you, and the side where you just stand there and receive that need. If you try to compensate and put feeling into your side, it throws off the need scale and it has to reset it, and someone must zero the scale once again. So, being needed is a weird concept, and when it comes to service it is even harder to grasp. But, sorry if what I just ranted about need made no sense to you.

Then there was the program part of the week. All-in-all, I was a little disappointed. The theme was "olympics" and they had skits and stuff, but it was significantly more unorganized than it had been the previous year, and there was no gym space to play large group games so a lot was lost in translation. At least, for me. It was hard to not compare it to itself from the previous year. But a program can only be as much as you get out of it, so I spent the week trying to glean as much as I could from the week. And, this week actually did teach me a lot. Firstly, I realized that this week wasn't necessarily about me. It was about being there and witnessing to other people the person that I am and the life that I lead. Like, maybe the people in my work group needed to hear that not everyone does the things they do. But more importantly for the week, I realized that I'm graduated, and leaving Lifeteen. Like, Lifeteen has been my youth group, and I've been "that youth group girl" for the past 4 whole years. But there are people coming up from middle school, or just staring to get involved, and maybe it was important that I be there to show that you never really outgrow it. You can be in a totally different place or not enjoying things but it's important to keep a positive attitude and keep your personality throughout these things. It was important that I was there for the younger girls from our church, and to be encouraging and let them do crazy things like shove me onstage to sing I Gotta Feeling or dumb things like that that just really honestly do make a difference. Just by being there, I probably made a difference to people. Even if not to any of the kids, I know the adults appreciated me being there and being a leader and it was really awesome to be able to do that for them, and for my church. Realizing all of this helped me to grow in my faith even more.

Not to mention, how much I get from other people during experiences like this. Weeks like last week, or weeks like LEAD (God Camp #1) remind me why I want to go into youth ministry so badly. I got to be there and witness what God was doing in the lives of all of those other people, and I got to pray for them and it was amazing. Frankly, I didn't really get to feel God all that much working in my life last week. But I knew that I already had Him in a way many many people cannot know or comprehend yet, and I got to see Him moving or beginning to move in the hearts of a lot of the people there. I got to see their faces as their lives changed slowly in front of them, and I got to know God through each of them, even if just by watching them. And yes, maybe I sound like a creeper, but it's true. Being there around these people opening their hearts, and maybe playing even the tiniest smallest part in it by being there and living my faith..was totally awesome and made all the bad things about the week go away. It was absolutely amazing and made me so excited for becoming a youth minister because THAT'S WHAT YOUTH MINISTERS GET TO DO ALL THE TIME. Maybe not that simply, or glorified at all, but I know that there is a lot in store for me in the life I have laid out ahead of me. And I don't have to know about all of it. Having it be uncharted is TOTALLY AWESOME and excites me a lot. Getting to trust the future is one of the most terrifying and most rewarding things I could possibly do.

But that was just last week. God Camp #1..is..something totally and completely different. LEAD (or Leadership, Evangelization, And Discipleship) was a totally breathtaking and awesome week. People always go to things like Younglife camp (no disses on young life..promise), or their retreats for a weekend and come back saying OH MY GOSH, HOW THAT CHANGED MY LIFE. Well, I'm not saying that their lives didn't change, but more often than not..they had a good experience. Their faith showed them a part of themselves they had never seen before, and suddenly, they felt different. But seeing how different you can be and actually BEING different are totally different things. And, your life changing, that's rare. Usually, the only thing that might change is YOU..and you are the only one with the choice of changing your life. So, you can say all you want that a week changed your life. But the only thing changing is you.

Point of that rant is, that LEAD changed me. And no, I'm not like a totally radically different person now or anything. I'm pretty much still the same. However, I can say, at least from the perspective of my own head, that I am arguably different. As any of you that read this know, or any of you that I talked to before leaving for LEAD, I was kind of super nervous. And looking back on it, I feel kind of dumb for having been nervous. I mean, logically it was the proper emotion to have, but..the way that the week went down leads me to believe that if I had known anything about the week beforehand, I would've been heading to Steubenville a bit sooner. But, if I HAD been excited, I don't think the week would've gone nearly as well as it did. Does that make any sense at all? Looking back on it, I say wow, I should've been excited and not nervous because the week was awesome. Yet if I had gone into the week excitedly, I don't think I would've enjoyed it or it had been as amazing. Walls were broken down, friends were made, perspective was changed. I met people that I hope I never have to let go of, and I gained things into who I am that I hope I never lose. They said, we should come away from this week, and maybe right now, it IS the best week of our lives..but if we got proper things out of it, it is only the beginning and new "best weeks of our lives" will continue to pop up as time goes on. And, I think coming out of that week, I truly and honestly believe that.

So, yes, thus far, LEAD has been the best week of my life. It seems like there's so much that happened during it that I'm not sure it's even able to be recapped in a blog post. But because I am as mental as I am about writing/expressing things/being able to go back and read the blogs, I figured I should try.

I turned off my phone for the week. It was the first time I had done that..pretty much since I had gotten my phone and it was amazing. I didn't even care about turning it on except to a) tell people about the amazing things that were happening in my week. and b) on sunday to turn it on so that I could start talking to all the LEAD kids who I was missing already. it sounds slightly pathetic I suppose, that I would be missing them already after several hours without them, but it made perfect sense to all of us. There was so much of myself that the kids who were there that week got to see that I had never shown to anyone. Not even myself. I'm not entirely sure how that works, but I opened myself up to a whole new array of possibilities and opportunities and so did everyone else that was there that week. They all wanted to be a part of my experience, and I wanted to be a part of theirs, too. In turn, it made for one big conglomeration of all of our hearts and experiences and changes to make one experience that was the week as a whole.

The week as a whole. I guess there were a few big things that occurred that are a little weird to talk about, but if I'm talking about my week, they're positively essential to my talk of the week. Firstly, during LEAD, I realized that I actually really like myself. Which sounds a little weird to say, but if you know me at all, you know I have trouble with humility versus just plain discrediting myself for my abilities and such. And while humility is still a challenge for pretty much any normal human being, I realized that I actually really like who I am and I am extremely blessed with all the things I am able to do and be. Secondly, I further delved into my passion during the LEAD week. I spent a lot of time getting to know people in a very short amount of time and I figured out more about myself and how I observe people. I learned that in truly finding out what I like about someone and becoming friends with people, I have to make myself completely and utterly vulnerable. And while vulnerability is usually a turn off to most people (to participate in at least), I realized that I kind of absolutely love it. I love making myself vulnerable, and I love having people trust me, or see parts of me I don't normally show. My passion for people is deeply rooted in myself, and yet, it relies on the other people as much as it relies on myself. I can make myself vulnerable as much as I want, but unless the person returns the vulnerability and lets me in, then it is virtually pointless. However, I still love learning things about people and discovering random things about people on accident. And thirdly, the biggest and most exciting realization which I kind of already talked about earlier, is that I want to go into youth ministry. I'm not sure exactly what I will want to do, whether it will be me as youth minister, or me doing something like Kristi (one of our leaders from LEAD) does or what will happen, but God showed me how passionate I am about it and how good of a career it would be for me. While it is not really the best in terms of money, it is still something that I really want to do. I've never really been this excited about anything before. Yet, sitting through the week of LEAD, and feeding my life off of what was happening in my heart and the hearts of those around me..I realized that is a lot of what youth ministry is. You can find your strength in your own ways, but every story you hear has an effect on your being. Every story is a new witness that you add to your own. Because even though it didn't happen to you, the person telling it happened to you. And frankly, that is sometimes more powerful than the actual experience. But, because of my passion for people, I take these stories and my vulnerability and I make them part of me. [I hope none of this makes me sound crazy to anyone but I'm just trying to explain this..and words aren't really doing it justice..] Everything you hear can have an affect on you, and because I love doing nice things for people, I take what they tell me about themselves and I log it away into who I am. That way, I can more easily be there for them, and I can try to more easily relate to them without shoving whatever it is they told me back at them. Then I use what I know and who I am and try to share it with them, too. I think that's what youth ministry is all about. It's about living your faith and sharing of yourself in that state, wherever you are at. I want to share of myself. And maybe I won't become a youth minister, I'm not really sure where my faith and my life will take me, but I'm so excited about. Waking up each day is like a new adventure, and honestly, I have never ever been as excited about life as I am now.

As a few people who saw me the Sunday I got home know, this is significantly more articulate than I was when I first got home from the week. I was so excited and glowing about the experience that I literally could not form full sentences without having to stop and calm myself down. I tried to tell my best friend about it right that night when I got home, and she didn't really hear that much about it because I couldn't finish any sentences. But another thing I realized when I came home is that living your faith and sharing your faith isn't always about shouting it out (I never really thought it was, but I'm just saying it became more apparent to me.), but it is about simply sharing it when the opportunity presents itself and then just living it the rest of the time. Let people notice it in you.

There is also one other thing that I must address. In my previous blog post, I discussed how excited I was that there were people that were going to be at LEAD who would want to get to know me, and that there are people here who already do. I am SO THANKFUL for both of these categories. Everyone from LEAD holds a special place in my heart because they all got to spend that amazing week with me. But not just that, but because all of your stories have a particular make-up of who I am now. Everything that happened to all of you during the week, and everything that happened before the week that shone through who you were during the week play a part in who I am now. Your stories have become part of my story, and I could never be grateful enough for that because now MY story means more to me. Now my story is more colorful and more beautiful and I want all of them to know I will never forget about them. True, time might pass and I might not remember everything about each of you, or names might slowly be forgotten as time goes on and on, but you will all always be a part of me. In our faiths, we will never forget each other. And that is where it is important.

As for the people here who already know me..I could not be more grateful for you as well. While you don't all believe the same things I do, most of you are very supportive of me and what I believe. And the funny thing is, even if you're not, you care about my happiness. And to be honest, happiness is the core of it. If we cannot find happiness in our spirituality, at least deep down, then what is the point at all? But the people here care about my happiness and that is amazing. They might not always understand what's going on with my faith or my beliefs or my craziness and inability to form sentences, but even then, they don't understand, or might condemn, I can know that they're being the real world. It's not all going to be like LEAD, in fact, very little of it is going to be like LEAD. But, having LEAD as a part of my repertoire of experiences is like being equipped with arrows. We need other soldiers to talk about the war with. We need other soldiers to fight the war with. Society is a war, and if you have happiness, you better be ready for the enemies to steal it. But, I feel pretty firmly rooted in my joy, and who knows what's going to happen from here, but I'm sure it will be an adventure, and I am excited.

Speaking of adventuring, I am actually going to be attending another God camp. Yes..I know, a third one?! I'm crazy, but due to the fact this is the stuff I might want to be doing for the rest of my life, can you really blame me? However, this isn't just another one, it's one put on by Dayton, and I figured if nothing else, it would be a good experience for meeting people I'm going to school with, and getting to know the program I am hopefully going to be involved in within the coming years. So, yes, on the 15th I am going to be attending another God camp, and yes, don't be surprised if when I come back I have more to say. But, to be realistic, when do I NOT have a lot to say?

What I hope you glean from this absurdly long blog post is both that I am happy, and also, that life is an adventure. We are all adventuring both individually and as a group, and you never know what is going to be around each corner or hiding behind the trees. But just because it is unknown does not mean you shouldn't continue on it. That's what makes it an adventure, and I hope you are all going at it in full adventure-mode.

My adventure is beginning in full force, and I am positively stoked about it, in case you couldn't tell.
Thank you if you read this entire thing! :)

Farewell, until I again feel full-to-bursting with things I must say.

What is passion?

Passion is a noun:
any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.

It seems to me that having a passion is kind of a funny thing. So many people spend their lives and their time seeking out things that they're passionate about. But part of me seems to think that if you have to look for your passion, then maybe it isn't really your passion. I mean, you might not always know what your passion is..but that doesn't mean you don't have one. The other night, I was talking to someone and they were talking about how they used to be really envious of people who have one specific thing that they are passionate about. There's people who care deeply about sports and indulge themselves in that, there's people who care intensely about academics and give up a social life for it. There's people who are excessively passionate about all sorts of things..but just because you don't have ONE specific passion doesn't mean you should give up on passions altogether. You don't have to have ONE big passion, but you can have a series of weird, or nerdy, or obscure obsessions that you're really passionate about. It's one of the many things that makes everybody different.

This identification of what passion is, and how it changes from person to person really got me thinking. The wheels in my brain were turning, and in the way that I described passion to myself, I began to think that maybe I didn't have a passion. Maybe I had spent too much time searching for one. I expressed to my friend that I wasn't really sure what my passion was. She stopped, and she goes,
"Well, I think your passion is people."

People? My passion is people? At first, when she said this, I wanted to both automatically say, yes, you're correct, that is a logical response. But I also wanted to stop and say, can people be a passion? I reflected on this in all the farthest recesses of my mind, and frankly, maybe it is my passion. I have this weird thing where I love to understand people. I love to see inside of peoples' heads. I have always thrived on talking to people and understanding. Understanding is another thing I am really obsessed with. Not like, I need to understand everything and I place myself above other people because I understand more than them..or anything like that, but I like to gain perspective. I like to step back and look at the world through other peoples' eyes and sometimes, I like to look at peoples' lives through THEIR eyes. If they let me.

I also do really crazy things sometimes. People might say I'm a people pleaser and I am always trying to please people and do nice things for people and I guess to some extent, that is true. But I don't think I'm one of those people who is constantly in need of pleasing people, or does it for self gain. I think I just really like doing nice things for other people. The past few years, I've gotten into this thing where I just really love to let people know what they mean to me. I really like to go out of my way to find out things that will make someone happy, and then go out of my way to do those things or make those things happen. Happiness has such a stark value in my life, and maybe because I spent so long worrying about other peoples' happiness instead of my own, now I've reached this point where other peoples' happiness plays a large role in affecting MY happiness. It was a trade-off I made when I realized that wow, maybe my happiness IS important. And no, I don't rely on other people being happy for me to be able to be happy. But I love seeing other people happy. Sometimes I do crazy things like go and sidewalk chalk peoples' driveways with stupid stuff so they can have that random bit of happiness to come home to. Sometimes I make CD's for people when I should be doing other things. Sometimes I drive people out to eat even when I can't go..and then I go back and pick them up. Sometimes I do stupid things that when I look at them a foot away from my own perspective, I'm not really sure why I do them. It's not that I think if i didn't do these things, peopl wouldn't like me. I think, I just really like to do nice things for people. I'm kind of confused by this, and I'm not entirely sure what I mean, but I just thought it was worth expressing.

So, maybe people are my passion. I love making friends, and trying to understand people. I love telling stories to make people laugh. I love being my own person, and finding things about me that I like, but finding them in other people. I love trying to identify what makes me love someone, and trying to identify little things about people without asking. True, maybe all of these things are crazy, or illogical, or who even knows what, but in the bigger picture of it, they're the things that help make me exactly the way I am.

Now that I'm realizing these things about myself, it makes me want to leave even less. Going to a place where all of it is uncharted territory is kind of weird. I'm going to go and everyone is going to be someone I have the chance to get to know. There's no, "Oh we've known each other for 14 years" or "Oh, remember that time in 4th grade when you did that thing.." or "Oh, gosh, I can't be their friend because they dated so and so." (Not that I actually say all those things, but I'm trying to make a point.) I mean, yes, all of those things might happen after spending some time at college. I might make friends I want to keep and friends I don't. I might meet people who want nothing to do with me, and maybe that's okay. But it's going to be an adventure, and maybe I'm going to be able to delve even deeper into being passionate and discover new things about myself, other people, and understanding.

And I was thinking about how leaving this week for the LEAD program is kind of like a test run. It's like a crash course in missing people and meeting people, and yeah, it's all God-based so it's a little different, AND they're taking my phone away so the people I have talked to everyday for the past two months I will not be able to be in contact with. However, on a general note for the entire thing..I kind of like it. People keep asking me if I'm excited, and sometimes I want to say, "Well of course I am!" and sometimes I want to say flatly, "No. Why should I be?" And that's what life is like. It's the great paradox. I can be both excited, and homesick for the people here before I even leave.

But you know what's nice? Knowing that there are going to be people there that will want to get to know me.
And what's even nicer? Knowing that there are people here when I get back who already do.

I think my passion has nothing (and everything) to do with me.
It's the people in my life who have inspired it, and the people in my life who will keep it thriving.

And so it begins...

To be honest, i'm not entirely sure how i feel about beginning a blog. i've never been the kind of person to just write about my life. i suppose i'm more the kind of person who rants about situations, frustrations, or exhilarations. but, awhile ago, i realized that writing is my most sincere form of communication and expression. so, maybe this is a good idea. maybe no one will like to read it, or maybe no one WILL read it. but the final point is that i'm writing, which is kind of a big deal.

i think for awhile, i just really didn't appreciate my writing as much because it tended to irritate me more than satisfy me. writing makes me crazy. it's like i have all the words in my head but i can't seem to convey them in a logical manner without an abundance of time to back me up. or, even if it's logical, in a way that expresses exactly what i'm thinking or exactly what i need to say. so, writing tends to be a real process but i'm going to try not to be too uptight.

alas, i've already written too much about writing itself, and if you are reading this you might be thinking, "wow, fascinating, she's blogging about blogging..good.." the judgment is allowed, and preferred i suppose. without judgment we could not appreciate that which is more desirable. i'm not sure particularly what i meant by that...but at the very least, i meant judgment vs. acceptance.

you know what's a funny concept? tolerance and acceptance. to pair with that. religion particularly in the departments of tolerance and acceptance. this summer, i've got quite a few amazing things ahead of me. we have "the list" which is of course, saved roughly on my computer and still waiting to just be put into action. but, aside from that, i looked at my summer and it seemed relatively normal. i'm attending the LEAD program at Steubenville (or God Camp as i've been referring to it) next week, and two weeks after that, i'm attending SHINE Catholic Work Camp, which i'm sure will be an amazing experience as well. but you know, i'm not really sure how i'm feeling about the whole "God Camp" experience. i've been trying to memorize bible verses for next week and i've been trying to get into a mindset that will prepare me for it, but i'm not entirely sure i AM prepared for it. religion has spent so much time drawing lines across society to create what should be tolerated, what should be accepted, what is unacceptable, and what is intolerable. but i mean, holy cow (ha..i'm punny on accident)..society is not the same as it was when religions and these lines were established. i've spent this year drawing up who i am as a person and figuring out where i personally draw the lines and i'm kind of afraid to go next week in fear that they will either a) subtly condemn me for my lines and convictions. or b) try to convince me that what i've spent over a year realizing and forming is all a joke. so, i'm kind of really nervous about next week. but, i guess it's less about what everyone else has to say to me, and more about whatever happens with me and the Big Guy Upstairs.

so, that's next week. want to know something else i don't like about next week? the lack of the people who are normally in my life. sure, it's good to go outside your box, and meet new people and do things that scare you. but, i don't know. i guess i've been squeezing all the honey and nectar of life out of my summer so far and next week is pale in comparison (at least from this end..don't be surprised if when i get back i absolutely loved it). but, with that squeezing of the nectar of life or whatever, i've gotten into a rhythm of seeing people (sometimes everyday) or just talking to people, and completely disconnecting myself from that world is a little bit too weird for my liking. but, then again, college is in the fall, and that's a somewhat disconnect. maybe this is just the excessive version of that..short term.

summer does weird things to lives. i find myself sitting in someone else's house (for the 4th day this week), while a 9 year old sleeps peacefully on the couch next to me and i am being paid NOT to sleep. nannying is one of those jobs you just aren't entirely sure why you decide to do it when you find yourself in yelling matches with 7 year olds because you won't give them a cookie, or laying at the pool trying to sunscreen your own back and talking to your best friend on the phone about how you are basically laying alone at the pool, or being threatened with knives, or being given silly bandz, or only God knows what else. when you wake up that last day of the week and feel like it is going to be the longest day so far, you are definitely nannying. it's one of those things you begin to question your sanity for choosing to be one. (and now..i have the "Nanny, Nanny, Rich Kid, Funny Dog" John Green song stuck in my head. NERDFIGHTERS, ftw.) but given, sometimes the children do endearing things and i remember why i choose this summer job over other ones.

summer also does other weird things. like, last night was weird. i found myself going to a friend's house so that she could aloe my back for me (funny, if you can't reach your back to sunscreen it, you can't reach your back to aloe the sunburn you get from it..oh life), and then we sat there and watched bones/avatar, and talked about who even knows what. after "shopping" through the shelves in her room for a good book to borrow, i departed her house in somewhat of a delirious state, a bandana tied around my forehead and believing i was a ninja. how does life top random things like that? however, when i said that was weird, i guess what i meant is, anyone who reads that might find that totally random and weird, but in my summer, it's totally acceptable and normal. i am reminded of last summer, my best friends then and our song, Chicken Fried. while the song itself may not be that quality (even though jamming to it in our cars TOTALLY was), it has its moments of pure brilliance, particularly in summer. "funny how it's the little things in life that mean the most, not where you live, what you drive or the price tag on your clothes, there's no dollar sign on a piece of mind this i've come to know." summer brilliance? i thought so. my little things can be laying on a blanket at starbucks with random people at random times, going to every park within a 10 minute radius of my house just to swing, sidewalk chalking people's drieways, staying up late to watch the vlogbrothers, driveway traps, spontaneous outings with spontaneous people, reaching delirium at any and all points of my day, and just spending time with people i love to spend time with. i just checked and apparently it's already my 17th day of summer, and while i could be sad that nothing on "the list" has happened yet, i can also be very happy that so many wonderful memories have already happened.

maybe it has nothing to do with the things you're doing, but rather the people you're doing them with. you might look back and remember the stupid things you did on random days, but you're more likely to remember the affect the people had on you, and the way your stomach nearly hurts with happiness from laughing until you cry. that content feeling you get way down to your toes when you are with people who mean a lot to you in ways that sometimes you can't even identify.

basically, i guess i'm trying to say that to me, THAT'S summer. and i have two and a half more months of it ahead of me and i am brimming with an abundance of excitement that is inexplicable. and yet, it doesn't matter much because i feel it doesn't need to be explained. it just kinda is.

off to read A Wrinkle in Time until the child wakes up...
I love summer. did i mention that? :)