Home.

Having a place to call home is something that we as humans desire, strive to create and absolutely need to have. It's that place where we feel comfortable with leaving all of our burdens at the front porch before walking in on such sacred ground. Its where memories are made and every time you pass that certain spot the soundtrack of those memories start playing automatically without even having to press play. Its where you distinctly remember how fast tears fell from your face when you experienced a heartbreak under that roof and the way the house feels fresh and inviting in the summer time and how cuddling on the couch in the living room in the wintertime makes it feel even more so like it belongs to you.
I also think home changes up on us sometime, coming to APU I knew that Northern (central... whatever) California would always be home and thats probably what I will tell you when you ask me where I'm going or where I came from for winter break. But the thing is, it has come even more apparent to me that just like the church building itself is not what makes the church its the people, I think the same concept applies to the term "home". I say that Northern California is home because that's where my family is, but it has lately I have realized thats not so much the case anymore and that is so hard to come to terms with yet so refreshing at the same time.
Whenever I would leave APU for a break or vacation and return home during my first year and a half, once I started seeing the hills covered in windmills and signs saying Pleasanton and Oakland, or the bart tracks those things made me feel a wave of just knowing that finally after 6 or so hours, that I was home. Now, its the other way around when I start seeing signs for pasadena and palm trees and I watch the freeways expanding with two additional lanes. 

All your life you know a certain place, freeway and face all to contribute to the characteristics of what home looks like and suddenly it switches up on you and you feel unsure if you're supposed to feel this way and then you feel selfish for feeling that way and just a jumble of all these different emotions and so you ignore it. You continue to stick to what you know is familiar because its always just been that way.
I mentioned in my last Love, According to others post that I told my parents I wanted to stay in Azusa this summer and that was basically my way of finally coming to terms with wanting to be where home was for me now. The more I thought about home in Northern California the less appealing it seemed, I mean of course I always always look forward to the time I get to spend with my family but there is something so strong and delicious about a whole new place to call home. It represents such a rich and succulent season of life just waiting for you to experience all of the wonders that it can hold.

This afternoon I was sitting on the floor in the Adams lobby during my hour shift of duty just drinking some coffee, reading BitterSweet by Shauna Neiquist saying hello to whomever walked in the door and I felt so at home. In that moment no one or nothing could convince me that was not where I was supposed to be because I knew with everything inside me that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
I have fallen in love with this campus, with the conversations that have happened in front of the coffee shop and the people I have had them with and have come to terms with who I am and who I want to be in two different rooms on two different halls in this precious Adams Hall.
When I am passionate about something I tend to be really passionate about it, theres really no medium for me and thats how I think passion should be. Besides performing, being in leadership, coffee and Adele I am really passionate about this place all of its flaws and all of the wonderful things it has to offer.
Adams Hall is home, APU is home, Southern California is home.
I am home and it is a wonderful feeling. 

I'm not a huge fan of New Years Resolutions

But this year I do want to try new things for instance...
- For the entire month of January I will not buy any articles of clothing.
- In February I will start a 60 day challenge of buying only thrift store clothing and if I can stick with it I will do it for the rest of the semester!
- I will spend more days wearing no makeup
- Drink more tea than Coffee

Every year (Usually school year) I tend to make some type of overarching theme last year was the year of intentionality, the year before was HIS year literally letting go of my petty need for control and letting God work. So this year will be the year of Raw Authenticity it will be my own process of easing myself away from  (or more using less of ) artificial and material things that are small but sometimes consume us like makeup, and a certain style of clothes (plus I just shop way too much for my broke college budget)

So that's how I will begin this year, and really focus on what I'm trying to accomplish in it.
Here's for trying new things.
2013

The thirteenth Love, According to others

Yesterday I told my parents that I wanted to spend the summer in Azusa.
They responded with a very quick and almost expectant "okay."
I wasn't necessarily shocked but I sure didn't think that it would be that easy, not that my parents are difficult or anything because they aren't. So in my utter shock, I'm still thinking that this was way too easy and so I brought out part 2 of the conversation and thats to tell them what I have planned, I responded with, "I have a job interview when I return back to school, I'm hoping to get housing by doing summer RA and i'll take a few classes also." 
My father asked why I was asking their permission or what exactly I wanted from their end because as he says, "I'm grown" ( which I still struggle with this a it, the child in me says otherwise sometimes) but I simply told him that I wanted my parents blessing, kind of this little motion of placing their baby bird out of the nest. 
He told me that he and my mom knew this day would happen and that it was coming and here it was and they were prepared with how to answer to it.

So all in all there are three words that this can all be summed up in and those three words are; Love. Lets. Go.
I know its not easy realizing that I wont be home for most of the summer like I have been well, forever. And I know its more comfortable and familiar to wake up to my families faces on a warm or rainy July morning. But at the end of the day, this is what I wanted and because my parents love me they are able to let me go about starting (kickstarting... maybe even scraping the surface) of building my "own life."

Letting go is hard and we assume that because we do it then it implies we no longer have love for that thing or person but really it shows just how deep our love is because we let it go when necessary.
A suffocated love will choke out, grow old and eventually pass away.
But a love that is allowed the chance to breath and stretch, that is a love that will nourish and always return.
Thank you mom and dad for letting your baby bird explore and experience what it means to fly on her own. Thank you for loving me and teaching me that sometimes letting go is a good thing, healthy and necessary.

&That's love,

according to others