just say yes.

fifty two fourteen.

the weekend of the turning of the new year, i went on a very epic road trip with some fabulous friends of mine to jacksonville, florida. in that town, we watched as our bulldogs crushed the wolverines. it was only the most amazing beginning to the year that has been fantastic (though only five days long so far).

check out morgan's blog post to get a summary of the awesomeness.


and here's to 2011!

and what a flammable heart i've been given.

it's nearing the end of the year, and it's about time to do one of those "year in retrospect" kind of things. i thought that i had done one before now, but looking back, i can't find any. perhaps in the switching over to the new blog format, i decided it wasn't relevant or was too whiny or personal, and i deleted it. or maybe it was the kind of post that lived in my head too long, so that when i finally got around to writing it, no words would come and it was never written.

whatever the reason, i find myself sitting at my desk at 3am after christmas, thinking back over my last semester. i'm chatting on skype and munching on chedder cheese covered crackers (which is really messy, and keeps ending up in the floor...), reaching for what i'm trying to say.

2010. not my best year academically, and the spring semester definitely fell under worst semester of my life. summer was long, and for the most part uneventful, not full of far-away road trip adventures serving communities so different than my own. instead, i had a summer full of working on the most social nights of the week - and all for free, just to guarantee myself a better future. now that we are all growing up, summers aren't full of carefree things like fishing and four-wheeler riding just because it's pretty and not that hot outside. or tanning by the pool and diving in when you start to scorch. we all had jobs (paying or not), and we all had to coordinate schedules to find nights to hang out. then came the so-called summer romance, which lasted all the way up until the beginning of football season. fall semester, again, not so great with the academics, but is already contesting my sophomore year for best year of my life. i've met people that i don't know how i previously lived without. i still had time to hang out with my old friends. i started a new job. fell in love with my staff slash family. had more stereotypical "college experiences" in one semester than the rest of my college career.

i had to make big-girl decisions. realize that my life wasn't going exactly the way i had planned it to. push back dates and deadlines. rush to get things done. run myself exhausted with the things i had to do. worried about the future and shared my secrets. ate 4am breakfasts and stayed up all night. i learned my secret fears, but also was able to share them with people that love me, and therefore, be reassured that everything will be okay in the end. i also had the chance to sit on someone's bed and have a conversation about faith, and look through their bible (i've always believed that you can learn a ton about a person by looking through their bible).

i also realized that i have two homes now. i have my home home, but starkville is also my home. and while i love being home home, and i love my friends that are still located around here, i feel that my real life is in starkville now. there are things missing from that life, like the fact that my family isn't there, and the real comforts of a home - like a shower without flipflops and my own kitchen and bathroom, and glow in the dark stars on the ceiling - aren't there, and neither is my cat. but i feel like now, i can transition from college to real life a little easier, when the time comes.

i'm at a loss for words now, but lately, when i think about life, i marvel at how very blessed i am. i am the first to admit that in my twenty-two years, i've experienced a lot of loss, but i am also the first to tell you that really, i have nothing to complain about. so things don't always work out the way i want them to. how many times does that work out to be better in the end, anyway? things may not be perfect, but i have a fantastic family, i've never gone without necessities, and my friends are beyond what i deserve. i have no words to express how grateful i am for the things that God has given me.

these are the things that came to mind, as i took the last thirty minutes to partially ignore my skype chat and let my mind drift over the last few months of my life. for the most part, it's been amazing, and i don't regret any of it. i can only imagine what will happen in the new year, with my new copious amounts of free time and my strictly weather-only classes. i know that whatever i can think of, the next few months will exceed my wildest dreams. all i can say is that i can't wait for it to begin.

the definition of family.

i stayed in starkville until midway through december. that has never happened before.

usually i am packed and ready to go before finals are done, and as soon as i can, i am in the car and on my way back home.

i think it's because starkville is just as much home now as my house. i just had no desire to leave this year. and i have a built in family, too. of course, i've always had the forest family, but now that one of us has graduated and the rest of us live in very different places and have to make time to see each other, it's not the same as a family that you live with and see every day.

that's what rice is to me. that's my family. especially over the last week, as i think back...we did everything together. we were apart to take tests and to shower and barely anything else. we even slept in the same room. and we act just like a family. we love each other even when we argue. we hang out when we don't have to. bobbie lee is like our mom, always checking up on us and telling us to be careful and safe. i don't know any other staff that is quite like ours.

i've been home about thirty-six hours or so. long enough to miss starkville. don't get me wrong, i love being here at my house and i love the holidays, but it just feels like something is missing. my other family.

and the funny thing is, is that i'm not the only one that feels like this. we've been texting each other several several times a day. not for anything in particular, but just to say something insignificant and end with an "i miss you". currently, i'm chatting with two of my family right now. we're counting down the days to our return in starkville.

next semester shall be epic, and i await the start of a new year with my other family.

understanding.

am i living it right?

i've been thinking about this post for days. i always do when it comes to the hard stuff. it always makes me think a little more before i push the publish button. and it may sit as a draft for days before i can publish it.

but lately, i can't stop myself from wondering where my life is heading. i had life all planned out. then God knocked me down to my knees. i lost sight of where i was supposed to be focusing, and planned my future around a person, instead of where God wanted me to go. obviously, that didn't work out. then, i was okay. it was just me. and i had things going good. i had a whole other set of plans. then someone else walked into my life that changed my mind again. before the short time our lives were intertwined was over, i had my life going in another completely different direction.

now, it's just me again. and i graduate in about seven months. i will be drop-kicked into the real world after i hold my diploma in my hands. this is the time of my life when i'm supposed to be making all of the big decisions. all of my conversations about my future inevitably pose the question of what i'm planning after graduation.

and to be honest with you? i have no freaking idea. no clue. do i try to find a job and immediately jump into the market? do i postpone growing up some more and go to grad school somewhere? will i even make it to april 30, considering i may drive myself crazy before that point?

i don't know where my life is headed. that is the problem. because i don't have a plan, and i like to have a plan. but my bigger problem is that i know that God knows where i'm supposed to be, and eventually i will figure it out, but relying on that fact isn't reassuring. i'm scared, and i don't know what i'm going to be doing, and knowing that things will work out just isn't enough to make me feel better. i know i'm supposed to accept that God has a plan for me, but i also know that i'm not going to feel better until God lets me in on that secret.

not only am i questioning my future (and my sanity, sometimes) but i'm also losing my faith in love. it seems like everywhere i look, people that i could have sworn would be together forever are falling apart left and right. people that have been talking about marriage are doubting their relationships. it just seems like maybe there isn't real love out there after all. that maybe paramore is right, and that "maybe somewhere deep down i know that love doesn't last, and we need to find ways to be content with loneliness."

maybe it's my quarter life crisis starting early. maybe its just a stirring in my soul. either way, i wonder...am i living it right?

can't wait to get going, but not quite ready to leave.

i am not in a hurry to grow up. i like things poetic, and simple. i like going to bonfires, where the trees are silhouetted by the flames and the embers float up to flirt with the stars, bright against a midnight sky. Where the voices of your friends echo past the water and everyone is sticky from the melted marshmallow of the delicious smore goodness.

but it is ingrained in girls from birth that we are all supposed to grow up, have a fairy-tale type romance, get married, and live happily ever after in the american dream. we are fed disney movies, and from the time that we understand what is going on, we want that happy ending.

so it's no surprise that i'm reaching the point where my dreams of the future stretch past living on my own and experiencing freedom and proving to the world what i can do to finding that man, falling in love, and just living life. i want to fall in love. i want to pick out a diamond. i want to plan a wedding, to get married, to live happily ever after. to save up money to buy our own house. to have children and teach them the wonders of the world. to grow old with the one i love and carved my life out with.

it's looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. because i know that life doesn't always happen that way, and even if it looks that way from the outside, that it is never, ever easy.

but that's the age i'm at. my friends are getting married and having kids. they are picking out their diamonds. the television i watch, however infrequent it is that i turn it on, shows commercials that depict that vision.

and i don't feel this way all the time. i mean, the desire to have that life is there, but i don't always crave it all the time. some days i just feel it more than others. for example: laid-back saturdays like today, when i actually have time to turn on the tv.

and sometimes this is the biggest argument that God and i have. or, correction: that i have with God. because as He is telling me to trust Him, and that it will all work out in the end, i'm demanding explanations for the reasoning behind things that happen to me. i'm demanding timelines, and that isn't how God works. sometimes i'm so stubborn that i drive myself crazy.