[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.

Cheers to changing or staying the same.

Welcome, 2011! Not only is this the first week of 2011, but is also my first official week of post-graduation freedom (the last two weeks were too hectic to consider them free).

New Year’s resolutions get a bad rap for being unrealistic goals forgotten by February. And that's a good point. But there’s also a very real attraction to the idea of having a clean slate, of starting fresh. But really, we don’t need a day on the calendar to tell us when it’s okay to start over.

For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

-Monologue from David Fincher's film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I get caught up and let others’ expectations of who they expect me to be dictate who I am. That’s not fair to me, or to those who love me. After all, change is one of earth’s most innate characteristics. And to change in the most beneficial way possible, I’ll be attempting to take advice from a wise sage who said “be the change you want to see in the world.” Hefty responsibility, right? Well, baby bites make it easier to chew on.

Color of my new year: Granny Smith Apple, representing the growth and renewal that I’m trusting God to show me in this coming year. I’m looking forward to the laughter, the tears, the struggles, and the achievements. Cheers to you, mate!