Somethings are just necessary.

Falling asleep really late just so that your body will know to sleep in even later the next morning.
Reading books that interest you, not just for the sake of reading but seeking to be inspired in return.
Popping a square of fudge in your mouth right before bed, risking the crazy dreams you might have later that night.

Having lunch with friends that you've known since the fifth grade, yet haven't seen in two, ten or however many years.
Eating foods that are just as different as your personalities; orange chicken and white rice, calamari appetizer, a veggie burger that just wont stay together, a salad with slightly raw tuna and Roma tomato and Basil Pizza with a $1 extra Cesar salad.
Reminiscing over the many code names you had for the list of guys you all had crushes on.
Reliving broken hearts and teachers who you've realized you're now friends with on facebeook.
Looking at today where you are and where you've been, who you are and how far you have come.

We as people are always changing, usually we don't even realize, see or feel it but other people do. Watching day to day as you shift into the person you were always meant to be.
I feel as if up until this moment in my life, the past twenty years could be described as nothing but one, very long, growing pain. Talking with my friends from 5th grade last night made me realize I am not the quiet, insecure, wasn't sure if I was black or white, girl that I was.
I think back on those years and realize how uncomfortable I was in my own skin, unsure of who or what I was. Second guessing if I was someone capable of loving.
When I met them yesterday, it was as if I was meeting them all over again as a different person.
Digging up memories that belonged to someone else but feeling so closely related to them at the same time.

 I am not who I was in 5th grade (thank God) but even more so, I'm not even who I was two years or even a year ago.
I am comfortable with who I am, wearing my personality like my favorite pair of jeans (you know those ones you wear almost every day but with different tops, so no one knows they are the same? yeah those). I am slowly understanding what it means to be yourself, I mean truly be yourself and not shift through awkward teenage years experimenting with the way you talk, text or type, how you laugh and your trademark dance moves.

Somethings like coffee in the middle of the afternoon, with a book on your side that you know you'll come back to after some Internet searching and going for a jog only to balance out the pancake, potato and egg breakfast you consumed that morning ....are just necessary.
Change is also one of those necessary things. We fear it, try to run and hide from it, hoping it doesn't come near anything that is close to us. But once it does, we cannot help but let it sweep us off of our feet and move with it.
Sure its uncomfortable, maybe awkward at times, hard or painful but its necessary... and when we finally see the end of it, we realize just how beautiful that necessity is.

I could be doing numerous different things right now.

And then there were twelve Love According to others...

Here's another one about my RD & her husband, they are literally the cutest couple ever.
Anyway, 
Yesterday a couple of girls on my staff were studying in their apartment, and we were having a conversation about how crazy Chads (her husbands) senior year of college was. He mentioned all that he lead worship on campus and at church, maintained a class schedule with a handful of units and a bunch of other time consuming activities that a college student usually overloads their plate with. But what stood out to me the most in that conversation was when he brought up how he now looks back on that time, he thinks about how Chaili (my RD) was single and he didn't even know it because he was so busy.
I don't know why this struck me as something so meaningful.
Maybe it was his genuine frustration in thinking how in that semester he didn't have her, in that semester he could have lost his chance to win her heart. Maybe it was the genuine frustration that he could have (not really) lost the woman that he is married to and in love with right now. 
Thats beautiful isn't? Its funny like really funny but its also beautiful. 

You yourself could probably list many things that this teaches you about love. 
I'm not sure if it taught me anything specifically....but I can honestly say this is something that I desire.
I want someone to look back and be frustrated when I tell him how many years I spent praying, journaling and writing poems about him alone, to be frustrated with the moments where he didn't have me. To think about the times that I was single and the list of all (none) of the guys who could have snatched me up.
One day I pray to have this, or at least something like it.
Every person has a desire to be loved and cared for by someone where they are not only afraid of not having you but they even regret the moments where they didn't have you or even know you...

Welp that's my procrastination blog for finals week
for all reading who's still pressing on you can do it!
Now stop reading & go study!
(:

So that's love,

according to others