Beginning of the End

So my plan is this. To take one picture everyday for my last week in England and share why I took it and what I want to remember about it. I have chosen not to do people, because there are way more than 7 that I want to remember :). My picture for today is the view from outside my window, and I actually made a video as well haha. I can crawl out my window in the flat and onto a little landing, and I only discovered this within the my last 2 months of being here. I had always thought about it but never done it. Since finally doing it, I have gone out there a couple times when I needed some time to myself, when I needed to get away. In the past two months I have laughed there, cried there, talk to God there, and tanned there. I have jammed out, chilled out, and pigged out. It became my "spot" really quickly. It made me remember when I was a child and would find all these secret hiding places in my yard, my house, my street. There's something about having a secret place. Something about a space where you go to be with God, and you leave the world behind. I think we need to remember to have places that belong to us and God alone. Places where we feel safe, where we feel closer to God and farther away from the world. And so my place for a short time has been outside my window.

40 Days

40 Days today until I leave. Wow. It seems like eternity, yet thinking about how fast this past week went by and that I only have 5 and a half left makes me realize how short 40 days really is. Here's what I will be doing until I leave:

Health Evangelism.
Beauty Sleepover weekend for the teen girls.
Road trip to Bath.
Writing an article.
Sabbath School Lessons.
YU Ice breakers and maybe another talk.
Pathfinders.
Messy Church.
Coordinating Parallel.
Toddler Club Craft weeks.
Seniors outing to a garden.
Camp Meeting.
Pat's Sale.
Sex and Relationships weekend for teens.
Road trip through Europe for Dejans wedding in Serbia.

And that's just some of the stuff...

mix that in with the other normal stuff, and fit it into 40 days, and you've got time that flies.

It's strange that I have time to write this right now, and I probably don't. I think I am ruined for life. I feel really guilty about having time to myself, like I knw there is SOMETHING I could/should be doing. And sometimes there is so much to do that I cannot focus on one thing to save my life. It is like my head doesn't know where to start and all my thoughts get confused with each other.

Guess what?! I registered for classes at Univeristy. Really stoked about that. I start August 23rd. Which shokingly enough, is less than 3 months away!

Dear June 10th... I can't wait to wake up to you.

Random Thoughts About Leaving

50 days. In 50 Days I will get on a plane. That plane will take me home. The people I see every day here, I won't see at all anymore. I will go from spending most of every day in a church, to spending most of every day at a public university. I will go from my life revolving about what I have to do on the weekends, to what I have to do during the week. I will go from a church of a few hundred to a church of a few... My Mondays will go back to being typical Mondays, my Sundays will go back to being typical Sundays. I won't have to miss my family, because I will be able to see them every day.

I won't have to walk everywhere I go.

I won't have to constantly be aware of being a good example of a Seventh-Day Adventist. Or maybe I should be. But I will be able to paint my nails, and wear earrings with out having to worry about whether or not someone will say something.

I will actually make enough money to buy things I want to buy. But I have learned how much that doesn't matter. So maybe I won't buy the things I want to buy anyway.
I will miss my friends that have turned into family.

Late nights and Songs that have words that are just too right.

"I see your face in my mind as I drive away, Cause none of us thought it was gonna end that way. People are people, And sometimes we change our minds. But it's killing me to see you go after all this time. Music starts playin' like the end of a sad movie, It's the kinda ending you don't really wanna see. Cause it's tragedy and it'll only bring you down, Now I don't know what to be without you around. And we know it's never simple, Never easy. Never a clean break, noone here to save me. You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand, And I can't, Breathe, Without you, But I have to, Breathe, Without you, But I have to. Never wanted this, never wanna see you hurt. Every little bump in the road I tried to swerve. But people are people, And sometimes it doesn't work out, Nothing we say is gonna save us from the fall out. And we know it's never simple, Never easy. Never a clean break, no one here to save me. You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand, And I can't, Breathe, Without you, But I have to, Breathe, Without you, But I have to. It's two a.m. Feelin' like I just lost a friend. Hope you know it's not easy, Easy for me. It's two a.m. Feelin' like I just lost a friend. Hope you know this ain't easy, Easy for me. And we know it's never simple, Never easy. Never a clean break, noone here to save me..."

Breathe by Taylor Swift

oh love.

if there is one thing I could say about love, it's that once you choose to, you can't change your heart. If you choose to love someone, if you choose to give it all you've got, and then you change your mind - be prepared. Because your heart doesn't change easily. Your heart doesn't forget. Your heart doesn't let go. How could you expect it to? We were made to love one person forever. Not for a couple of years. How do you stop something that was meant to never end? How do you shake a feeling that takes over your whole body? I don't have answers to my own questions yet, which makes me realize more and more every day that love is something we can't control once we choose to embrace it.

watermelon. mountains. family. God.

the first thing I want to do when I get home:


Pack a lunch. Go to the mountains with my family and my dog. eat watermelon. hike. lay in the sun. put my toes in the water. eat more watermelon, eat lunch. Talk about God. Talk to God. Love life.

I just wanted to write that down in case I forget, which I doubt I will.

76 Days

76 Days until I am home. 76.

I am struggling so much. Here is my struggle: I love the people in my life here...and I know I will miss them so much when I leave, but I am finding it hard to appreciate being here. I miss my family, I miss America, I miss life being easy, I miss being bored sometimes. I miss my mom cooking for me, and my dad fixing things of mine that break. I miss my brother telling me to stop taking his clothes and using his hair brush.

I know the next 76 days will fly by super fast, and yet somehow, I feel like they are doing the opposite of flying. I feel like they are crawling.

How do you teach yourself to appreciate the here and now? How do you value what you have before you don't have it anymore? How do you learn to love your life in the midst of your reasons to dislike it entirely? Why can't I be satisfied with where I am at right now? Why do I thrive on change? I love to move places, get new jobs, make new friends, change schools, change houses, change change change! Why do I love change? Does change make me secure in some weird way? Is it because I like to start over? Forget my old mess ups and break ups and begin something new?

I am a Christian. I know why I am here, I know where I came from, and where I am going. But that doesn't make it easier, being a Christian isn't supposed to make life easy. But it gives life a meaning, a purpose. If I didn't have God, if I didn't know that someone out there who is bigger than my problems was going to make sure everything would be ok, I would freak out. If I didn't know that someone was watching out for me, someone was guiding me, I would go home yesterday, well I would have never come to England in the first place.

I needed to get on here and let this out, because it is something I am struggling with daily.