Hey guys! Welcome back to my blog 🙂 I hope you all enjoyed my first entry, and thanks to everyone who has been so encouraging throughout the process and for your feedback that inspires me to keep going. It’s the little things that I take to heart, so let’s keep spreading the love together.
Speaking of love, what better time to spread it then during the holidays! I hope everyone has had an amazing year full of smiles and memory making…but today I want to get a little deeper with you all. I want to talk about a topic that I find on my mind pretty much everyday. Grab your needles (and watch those fingers!) Let’s dive in.
I just finished my first semester of college away from home. I’ve had the pleasure of making some pretty amazing friends. And while some of their homes and families are only 20-40 minutes away from the university, my home is 8 hours away. At first it was a difficult adjustment, but after a while I learned to mature a bit more and grow stronger in my independence. Now every time I do get to travel back home, I’ve noticed that my outlook on life has drastically changed. I take time to appreciate what God has blessed me with more often. If there’s one thing you should take away from this blog post today, it’s this: slow down…please.
When was the last time you caught your breath? Nowadays so much is going on in the world and in our everyday lives. Deadlines to meet, events to attend, schools, jobs, etc. Then we sleep with what few hours we have, and the cycle starts all over again…But what about when the deadline finally comes? What about when school ends? What about when CHANGE finally starts to happen? The places you go, the people you interact with…you never know when the last time you’re going to see someone is…Sometimes I find myself studying my mom’s smile when she laughs at something. Sometimes I find my fingers feeling the texture of the cotton t-shirt my father is wearing when we hug. Sometimes I stop dead in my tracks and take as much air in a room into my lungs as I can, and release it out along with all possible worries that could be on my mind…because you never know when what you are most familiar with, could change.
The day before Christmas Eve, I received some news that affected a familiarity that I’ve experienced every year for the past 18 years of my life. It was rough, and it kind of made me lose my balance a little since a crutch, of some sorts, was taken away from me… and if it wasn’t for my family there to support me, I wouldn’t have been able to find the strength I needed to walk without the crutch. Things are going to be okay now, God willing. But ultimately, it made me want to slow down and really enjoy the here and now. Because no “there” and “later” is ever promised.
I understand that we always want to try to get from point A to point B that way we can move on to point C, but remember that if you just plow through the process, you’re not going to know what even the heck to do once you get to point B, let alone point C.
This holiday season, make my wish come true and just hug your family a little tighter, laugh with your friends a little louder, love everyone and everything a lot stronger, and KEEP doing that even once after the holidays are over. Do it as much as you can before you reach the end of the race…do it as much as you can BEFORE you reach point C.
Patches 