Direct flight

Well now. In three short days I will be heading back to Greenville Illinois for my Senior year at Greenville College. When I left Greenville in May, I couldn't wait for these moments I'm now living. I was impatient. I felt like the Summer was merely a layover before my life could continue. Of course I was excited about Summer... please. I missed the shore, I missed hanging with my best friends, and running over to hang out in Philly any chance I got. I love New Jersey. I adore my family. And oh my gosh my head hurt form so much school! But I grew accustomed to my life in Greenville. I loved my life in Greenville. I love school, too. It feels great to constantly be accomplishing something.... I'm a list person. That says a lot about me:)

In the past, when people would be leaving for school, I'd say good-bye, knowing I'd see them again. The way I felt, as one who stayed "home," was life would go on without them around. In some ways, I felt as though their lives would be on "layover" while they did school before coming back to the "real world." Which was obviously where I was. Where their families were. Where their friends were.

But the reality is, they lived. They lived while I lived. When they came back, I'd never considered the lives they lived while on "layover." I guess I just forgot they still lived.

Being on the other side of my old perception, I'm a little stunned. Coming home for the Summer seemed so unexciting. While I've been proved wrong with an awesome and completely fantastic summer, this goes to show that coming back to "reality" is not really so legitimate. Wherever I am is reality. Whatever I'm doing is reality. Wherever I lay my head... that's home. Even if just for a while. The fact is, my life is still mine when I'm home. My life is still mine if I'm rooming with a midwesterner in the middle of hundreds of corn fields in the Land of Lincoln.

While I'm in the midst of "transitioning realities," if you will, It's become clear to me that while I sent my friends on "layover" in the past, they were still living. And they were living wildly. They were experiencing life to the most heightened extents. They experienced things they weren't planning on. They were meeting people that would influence them, and in the end, change their lives. They were constantly being changed. They were continually being challenged. They were coming into their own. They were learning. Every single, stinkin' day. they were writing stories they would tell for the rest of their lives. They were learning what they believe. They were learning why they love what they do. They were learning what they want to be. They were learning they could fit more people in their hearts than they ever thought possible. They were growing. They were walking to class, but with each step, walking towards the person they were shifting to be. They were laughing with friends I'd never meet. They were calling their parents with tears in their eyes, because they didn't understand. They were wide awake far past midnight with questions that were yet to be answered, if answered at all. They were living.

And the next time I'd see them, I'd receive them as if they were living life as normally, and usually as I had been.

But they weren't. They hadn't been.

This is my last year of undergrad school... but it's only my second year away. It didn't take long for me to find that living so far away, on my own (with my brother only a few buildings away... but still) was like living a fast track to growing. To becoming a new person. A fast track to change. But the thing is, it's in an environment that everyone is being completely influenced too at the same time. We're all in the same boat. We're all on the fast track. We're all learning, and embarking on the journey together.

So next time you New Jersey people see me, don't forget that I've lived, even when i wasn't living next to you. Our realities will be in different places for a while, but I'll be back. And maybe our realities will join again. So while you wake up at your alarms for school, and work, I'll probably be sleeping because we're an hour earlier over in IL:) But when you're waking up, and washing your face in the sink, don't forget that I'm walking to class with my sleepy eyes, wondering why I am where I am. When you're sleeping in your own bed, I'll be in a house owned by a man named Howie, with a wife whose name I can't remember while on a choir tour. When you're walking in the church you call your own, I'll be walking into one I may have never gone to before. When you're eating your lunch quietly in an office, I'll be walking back to grab my gluten-free plate form the Richard, my personalized chef ;) When you're going to bed at night, I'll be sitting on my own bed, watching the posters of swing dancing couples as if they'll start dancing off the card stock. I'll be talking to my roommate as we discuss the day's happenings. I'll be wondering why life can be the way it can be, and why it has to treat me as a victim when i want to be a culprit of living it well. I'll be blinking and breathing to the rhythms of confusion and maybe frustration. I'll be remembering my summer realities and wondering how I can keep them with me when I'm living so far away. I'll be waking up and brushing my teeth next to girls you may never know. I'll be walking around a neighborhood that looks like it's 100 years old, with people no younger.

I'll be living a reality. Even though you don't see it.

And you will, too. Even though I don't see it.

So when we meet again, I won't forget that you too, have lived in reality. That life has not abandoned you, nor struck you down from continuing on the journey of reality. Life has taken hold of you, and it has taken hold of me. And we've been given the relentless order to live it. To step inside the skins of existing. To walk around in it. To stand in it. To sing in it. To dance, to shout, to move, to live. In it.

So. Our realities part us for a time, yes? Yes. But I'll be back. In the mean time, live it well. No layovers. A direct flight to reality. Over and over again.