Patches

The first few days back at school are always about re-finding a groove and getting used to new schedules.  Often I feel like I’m ripped from one world and placed in another, often attempting to sew myself once more into the quilt, trying to become comfortable.  I’m patches of a bunch of things now.  I’m some of Seattle, some Colorado, some little-girl, and some grownup.

I’m different than I used to be.  Anyone who goes to college is going to come out different on the other side and I’ve already had my fair share of change.  It all has to happen sometime.  Once I pushed to spread my wings and escape from the nest, and now I sometimes miss the safety of it.

On break I realized how little my world was in high school.  I picked my brother up from play practice one afternoon and went to say hello to some of the people I was in choir with my senior year of high school.  It was great to see them and I felt an overwhelming sense of a bubble.  Some people say we have an SPU bubble, which we totally do, but it was not nearly as protective as the one I had in high school. 

The brick walls and tiled hallways greeted me with, I’ll hold your hand all the way.

Now I’m in college and most of the time no one is around to hold my hand.  I’ve slowly figured it out on my own.  I’ve discovered that no matter where I go I’ll always miss someone, I’ve learned that I have a lot of questions, and I’ve learned that I’m always going to have to make money and there will be no end to expenses.  And I don’t think I’ve come close to fully learning that quite yet.    

(At the moment I feel like I’m writing a reflection paper of sorts that would be required in a class, which probably isn’t the most entertaining thing to read.  For that I am sorry.  I’m also sorry that I haven’t written in so long.  Many of you told me you’ve missed reading on a daily basis.  Honestly, I have missed writing and I guess time just got away from me.) 

While I am learning, I am growing.  Know what?  Growing hurts.  I feel like I’m a tree, stretching and producing new bark while shedding the old.  The growth of the tree branches is causing growing pains, much like it is hurting my heart to grow so much.  I’ve discovered the saying what you know can’t hurt you happens to be very true. 

There’s a lot of stuff in the world that hurts.  Life isn’t fair, it really isn’t. 

I’ve being doing my best to lean on God and trust him, but I need to do better.  I need to figure out where I should start because it just so happens I’m terrible at reading my Bible. 

I've discovered that, if I stitch God into the quilt I feel like I have become, I won’t ever fall apart.  And that’s the beauty of it.  He alone has the power to hold me together. 

Just pray that I’ll remember that.    

The Tables Turn

My brother Mark and I always mock fight by throwing punches and roughhousing.  There’s been a bit of a sibling rivalry there for as long as I can remember.  Growing up I could always take him, no problem, and for a while I was the bigger one and he would be the first to run away and give up.

I guess it’s fair to say that he grew a few inches and gained a few pounds during the time I was away.  He was already stocky to begin with and now he’s even stronger.  During winter break he and I “fought” a few times.  That was probably the last time I’d ever win.

After dinner tonight Mark purposely bummed me a bit roughly, and I knew he was trying to pick a fight.

“I don’t want to fight.  You’d beat me,” I said.

My Mom just started laughing.

Mark said, “Well that was boring.” 

I’ve decided I can pick my battles and that’s not one I’ll be able to win anymore.

Oh, how the tables turn.    

Simple Solutions to Silly Problems

Recently, Dwight got moved to a different location in my room.  For those of you that don’t know, Dwight is my printer.  I wrote about him last in a post called Dwight, which was a story specifically about him.

I love Dwight.  More like I have a love/hate relationship with him, but I get along with him well enough on a daily basis.  I became inspired to move him to a different spot when I saw that one of my close friends put her printer on top of her cabinet instead of on her desk. 

Dwight just so happened to be sitting in front of my window and I figured I would be able to see much better if I moved him somewhere else.  I walked across the hallway to my room and unplugged the cords from the outlet and my computer, then pulled some boxes, empty coke bottles, and an extremely dead plant off the top of my cabinet to make room for Dwight.

Unfortunately, the plant died quite a few months ago.  It lived a healthy and wonderful life and before I knew it, it turned brown and withered away to nothing.  But I still kept the pot of dirt it was growing in.  Perhaps I’ll plant some flowers in it spring quarter.

Once the space above the cabinet was cleared, I lifted Dwight on top of it.  I didn’t realize how heavy he was until then.  I ended up putting him on the right side of the cabinet and then I realized plugging him in every time to print things off was going to be a slight inconvenience.  Then I shrugged and decided that I didn’t care, since I don’t use him often enough for it to really matter. 

I printed off something for good measure, just to make sure that it worked.  I have to stand on my bed and hold my laptop while I print things off—if anyone ever walks in while I happen to be printing a document, I’ll just have to deal with looking like an idiot.

Oh, the sacrifices I make.

After I was satisfied with the change, I sat down at my desk.

I thought I could see out the window before, but now I can really see out of the window. 

I can't believe I didn't think of this months ago.  

Two Worlds

I’m back in Seattle (I have been for a few days now) and I haven’t had much to write about.  Funny thing is, I’m a firm believer in making myself sit down and write everyday because I need to keep the creative juices flowing.

But lately I haven’t been able to write a word, and I haven’t felt like writing a word.  And I’m not sure if it’s writers block or what it’s been.

Mostly I think I’ve been pondering the difference between the two worlds I’ve come to know—how easily they ebb and flow, begin, end, and then pick right back up where I left them.  Except I know that when I’m gone my family is changing and when I’m not at school the skies in Seattle will continue to shift and the rain will still fall.  (However, if there’s anything I hate missing, it’s a sunny day in Seattle.) 

These days I’ve been back have consisted of me getting myself together, setting into class, and organizing the notebooks and deciding what time I will set aside for blogging, studying, creativeness, socializing, sleeping, eating… you name it. 

Today it’s raining again and I’m sitting where I always do when I write, looking out the window at the world of gray and green, watching people walk around with their umbrellas. 

I’ve found that I’m comfortable transferring between the two worlds.  I love them equally and differently.  I do not dread them or despise the change.  Rather I embrace it.

This quarter will be interesting. I’m taking a psychology class, a UCOR class (required for freshman), and human biology.  Two of these can be considered science classes, and I swore off science the end of my junior year in high school.  Ironically, it now dominates my schedule. 

But I have extremely charismatic and passionate professors.  So far the first two days of classes have been interesting and I’ve paid attention.  The only thing I doodled was a star (an amazing feat, I must say).    

Which leads me to one of my biggest fears:  what if I actually like science?

The Seattle in my Eyes

Apparently my eyes have changed.

I think I’ve noticed this a little bit.  Some days they seem bluer or greener than they have been in the past.

Two of my friends pointed this out tonight, and agreed together that they are definitely different than they were before.

At first I had no idea why or how they could have changed.  

And then I thought about it a little more. 

My eyes have a bit of Holland in them, because that is where they first opened and took sight of the world.

They have a sprinkle of Ohio in them because I’ve spent more vacation time there than I have anywhere else, and that is where both of my parents are from. 

They obviously posses a lot of Colorado—this is where I've grown up and where most of my heart belongs.  My eyes have seen more wonderful Colorado sunsets than I can begin to count.  

So I told my friends, “I think they have some Seattle in them now.”

That’s why they’ve changed.