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

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

Eleventh "Love, according to them..."

I had a dream the other night where I went blind in one eye.
It was so weird because in the beginning of the dream I had sight in both eyes...but as the dream came to a close I only had sight in one. I couldn't tell you what else happened in the dream or what it was about but I most definitely remember going blind.

And so I guess the question now is, what does this have to do with love?
You see, there's this misconception...well at least I think its a misconception that "Love is Blind." and I honestly dont think love is blind at all.
In fact I think that love sees everything... Think about it,
When you love someone and I mean truly love someone you see everything about them; the ugly &the beautiful.
You see the things that hurt them most and in some cases you can be the reason for the hurt...
You see what makes them laugh, you know the face they make when something irritates or bothers them
You know the moments when they're hungry because they give off this sort of vibe that you've become so familiar with its like second nature
You are able to wipe away their tears and still call them beautiful

See love is not blind... love sees absolutely everything and still choses to love.
So maybe thats where the idea of "love is blind" came from...its blind because it sees everything and yet regardless of the tantrums, the hurtful words, the not so pretty face ...it ignores that and continues to love.
Isn't that wonderful?
I doubt thats the reason I had that dream.... but I got a blog out of it.
And so there it is...
Love is...and yet it isn't blind at the same time
It sees all and yet still choses after everything it goes through... to love.

So that's love,
according to others... or well more like according to me.

Tenth "Love, According to them..."

I don't know who the author of this quote is, but thank you.

So that's love,
according to others.