[home is where the heart is]

As soon as the plane landed, I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding since May. Every single moment during the too-short visit to San Diego felt like home. I was struck by the beauty of the life I had created there- the relationships that more closely resemble family than friendship, the church that convicts me to live a life of intention and action, the ocean walks that fill me with awe and reverence.

"Do you feel like you're where you are supposed to be?" I was asked.

Sonoma County is breathtakingly beautiful, and the redwoods make my heart soar. My family is here, and I can see my grandparents and cousins within a five minute drive. {Yet it isn't a question of the merits of my hometown.} My soul longs to be elsewhere. I am in a waiting period, biding my time until I can leave. I rush through every day, wishing time would pass faster. I have spent much of my life waiting to live: waiting to move to college, waiting to find the right career, the right man.

But is that how my life is meant to be lived? Hurried through to get to something hopefully better? Not noticing the beauty around me, the work God wants to do in me right here, right now?

We may be fairly happy now, but there's always tomorrow and the prospect of a happier place, a happier life. So all options are left on the table. We never fully commit. That is, I think, a dangerous thing. We can't love a place, or a person, if we always have one foot out the door.

[Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner]

I feel like I'm in a desert. A place of forgottenness. But looking back at my times of waiting, I know that deserts aren't that at all. They are times of tremendous growth- fresh buds popping up all over the place. It's a time when I learn to be humble, when I learn that I have limits and am fragile, and when I learn where true strength comes from.

The color of the day is sea green. The color of the ocean on a sunny San Diego day, of the bracelet that travelled to me from my best's adventure in Nicaragua, and of the succulents that sit on my windowsill who thrive and grow in arid conditions.

Can these dry bones live? They can, and they will. There is still beauty in my life, every day, that I walk right by. {And I can choose to not only see it, but celebrate it.} To be aware of these tiny glimpses of heaven in my life. To be all here for the time that I am here. To know that while I may or may not end up in San Diego, that my life doesn't stop, or pause. That this is my life right now. And I must notice it.

Somewhere out there...

You've heard the phrase "location is everything." Well lately, it has been... everything that's on my mind, that is. Where I am, where I should be, where I'm going, where I want to go, where I'm needed, where I belong.

Place is such a powerful thing. Different places hold different atmospheres, different spaces, different opportunities, and, potentially, different lives. Here in San Diego, I've been to the beach four times in the past week.... and it's "winter." Believe me, I'm not complaining about it, but there are certainly many times when I feel it's the right time to move on. Of course, as soon as I embrace the possibility of leaving, something (or someone) bigger than me whispers ".... not yet."

There is an aching inside of me to get out into the world. But I'm trying to be present and wait. Patience is the hardest thing everrrrrrrrr. Seriously. So if you see me meditating and drinking tea and think to yourself- who is this person and what happened to Ashley? just know that I'm trying to let it be and trust that it will happen when it's supposed to. This new Zen thing is actually kinda working for me.

Color of the day is wisteria, which is a lavender-colored flower. I mean, that color just screams serenity, right? Well, it would if it weren't so gosh darn serene.