How You Survived The War

you're not gonna lose this one
you don't have to cut and run
i think you can choose to love and what is more
that is how you survived the war

now in a summer's day, spring a ripened plum
how will you live under the sun?
you follow the open road, remembering the guns
when you get lost under the trees


-the weepies



[pick me up love]



this will be somewhat disjointed. my state of mind is not as collected as it usually is. concentration is something to be desired right now.


i think life is defined not by the choices we make, but by what we make of the results of those decisions.


those decisions i have made thus far and the places they have brought me to have been places fantastic, difficult, and ultimately character building. i love the person i have become, though i know there is still much room for improvement. i am in a great place in my life. i'm obsessed with the children i'm teaching, children who need me desperately. i have a fabulous job with children who love me dearly. i have wonderful friends whom i have made time to see and communicate with, who support me.

so why do i feel so empty?


there's a giant hole inside. i'm missing those dear people with whom i have grown exceptionally close to at camp, and i'm longing to be closer to those people here. today was lovely in that i received several messages from significant persons, and they lifted me up exactly when i needed it. yet still, there's something missing.

maybe this is the sensation that accompanies severing deep ties, like losing a limb. not debilitating, but distracting. and at the same time, something new is growing, not in it's place but somewhere else. somewhere needed. i'm only months away from setting off to do exactly what i've planned on for many, many years. i'm terrified, thrilled, trembling, yet filled with a kind of mourning. could this be goodbye to a place that i have considered home for three years? a place that has made me who i am today? that has helped me get so far?

this month has given me a taste of my future. and i want it now. what a tease, to show me what could be, what will be very shortly, yet it is still just out of reach. do i really have to wait ten more months to be west, to be on my own, to be making a difference? i know i am making a difference right now, but it's just not quite there yet. there's a name for it.

freedom.


the freedom to help. to make a difference. to be infinite.
the freedom to choose. to choose vitality. life. youth. acceptance. ability.
the freedom to dream and the freedom to act upon those dreams.
the freedom to live. to take chances. to make my goals reality.




life is a chance.
love is infinity.
grace is reality.



[there is grace in making possibility reality.]