Convivencia

At the end of my junior year of high school, I wrote this in a blog post some of you may remember:

"Which brought me to thinking about how much different will things be in another three years. When I'm a sophomore in college? Will I be studying music like I plan on doing? Will I still like bad scifi movies and techno music? Will my brother and I still be the best of friends? Who will my friends be? What's going to happen to all these relationships I've spent years building when I go off to college?"

Well. Here I am. Nearly done with sophomore year of college. How much did I change?

I'm still studying music, sort of. I'm a worship major, but my focus has shifted drastically. The reason I'm passionate about worship has very very little to do with music now. It has so much more to do with the things that connect the people in a church to each other and God in a myriad of ways.

I still love bad scifi. Sharknado. Need I say more? As for techno music, it definitely brings back a slew of beautiful memories of crazy nights, sweaty dances, and lovely friends. But its maybe not as relevant to my life as I would have thought.

My brother is still the other half of my brain. After being apart for two years, I cannot wait to be reunited at HU next semester. He's been a constant encouragement in every corner of my life. And I'd like to add, that after leaving for university, my little sister and I have bonded, and I now count her as one of the best friends I've ever had.

I don't have the same friends I had three years ago. A very few have stuck around, I hear from them now and again and its always beautiful. But God, in His divine understanding, has brought me such incredible friends at this stage of my life. People to serve and learn with on a deeper level. People who have helped me understand myself better. People to support as much as they support me. People to cry and laugh and pray and worship with. People who surround me in prayer at any moment so entirely that I can feel the weight of it from miles away. People, who in a scary and stressful time of my life, surrounded me with love and prayer and hugs and texts and laughter. I cannot explain my gratitude.

How much have I changed? Well, I just referenced it in my last post... I have changed quite drastically. But whereas three years ago I feared change in myself more than almost anything else? Today, I'm ready to embrace it. God is so much bigger than I am. He has such a beautiful plan that I can't even start to imagine it. So if I'm going to change, I know it's to further His kingdom, His plan, His future for this world.

Convivencia: (noun) literally "living together", in the sense of living or working closely with other people with whom you share feelings, desires, or a common purpose.

Scripturient

I haven't felt the urge to write in a very, very long time. Kind of like the stories had dried up. But suddenly, now as so many things are changing and by all accounts I should be drowning, the urge is back - the need to document, to share, to express.

I stumbled upon some old poetry I had posted on my Facebook, and while I was definitely a little embarrassed by the dramatics of them, I also loved seeing who I was then. I tell the stories of that part of my life, the darkness and pain and fear, but six years later, it gets harder and harder to believe that it was real. Seeing those words on the screen attesting to the fact that those emotions were real in my life, if not at the time of the post then months before, is chilling. Along with that comes the comments I found underneath each piece, the compliments on my writing style and my talent and every so often, a very concerned friend who could actually see what was happening - a friend that I continued to push away.

From there I came back to this blog. I am amazed by the thoughts and feelings I had even a year ago that surfaced here. Patterns of behavior that I have only recently identified are so obvious now! Key moments that would drastically affect my life months and years later are documented so plainly, how did I miss them? This blog also documents a journey; scattered pieces of a much more complex path. I can relive the thoughts and emotions I had at different stages of my life, almost as if to reaffirm that they were indeed real. The older I get and the farther I travel from the now-infamous girl with too-heavy bangs and far too much black makeup the easier it is to forget her. To forget her as well as the girl who just wanted to stay in high school, or the girl who thought adolescence would forever define her, or the girl who felt irrevocably connected to people and places that are now so far away from this girl who sits here now, typing away in her dorm room.

The older I get the farther away all those girls seem, and the more important they become. Because without each of them, I wouldn't be this girl.

Scripturient: (adj) possessing the violent desire to write.