Possibilities

Had something annoying/inconvenient happen the other day to me but was able to get past it quickly by reframing, perspective, and realizing that when bad things happen, it shows you how many people you have in your life that you can truly count on. I'm so incredibly lucky and blessed and sometimes my heart almost doesn't know how to handle all that I feel towards my family, my friends at home, and my friends who have become a family to me here in Chicago. The feeling of knowing that people have your back 100% is indescribably wonderful. So thank you all.

My mind has been spinning tonight in a good way. I got my passport in the mail today. My trip is really happening. I've been talking about this for forever, I've been dreaming of visiting Paris since I heard about the Eiffel Tower when I was like 5. It is happening.

The world is so big but so small in relation to the universe. Chicago is so big but so tiny in relation to the world. It's just insane to think about how little we all are in the universe. Yet our lives seem so big. I started thinking about this a week ago when I did yoga up on the 99th floor of the Sears/Willis Tower. It was such a cool experience and the city was so beautiful. I get a similar feeling when I climb mountains and see the view from the top. We are so small. But we have such a gift to have a life and we can do so much good with it and experience amazing things.

I think it's amazing the amount of opportunities we have these days. Especially as women we are so lucky to be young women in the United States in this era. I don't have to follow one path because it's the only way to have security. I don't necessarily have to get married or have kids. I can have a job that I worked so hard for, I can go back to school and get my doctorate, I could some day go teach or work abroad. Tonight I heard about what sounds like the perfect job for me. Wilderness programs where you can take kids out on hikes in beautiful places and do therapy, yoga, and meditation with them. That is me. Helping people. Experiencing the world. Learning new things.

Life is freaking awesome you guys. Go live it.

"Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning."
-Gloria Steinem

Home--gratitude and expectations

Home can be so many things. I think home is a feeling that you get when you are content with where you are. Home can be several different places, and it can be a feeling you get when you hang with certain people or experience something amazing and connecting.

I feel home here in Chicago. Both when I am alone at my apartment and when I am with the truly great friends I have made here. I had to come here to become who I am today. I question sometimes, who would I be if I had never left KC? I think essentially the same person, but without the experiences I have had here and the people I have met, something really important would be missing.

Home is Kansas City, where I grew up, where I have my family, where I will always be tied to. Home is the Royals championship and parade and celebration I always dreamed about actually happening. It is celebrations and traditions and love.

Home is Colorado and the mountains and hiking and seeing God in nature. Home is setting out to accomplish something like climb a mountain and know that you can do something that seems impossible. It is being called somewhere without knowing why and being sad to leave somewhere when you have no connection to it other than knowing that you belong there.

Life is a huge freaking mystery. A still unwritten story. I don't know when I want to make big changes yet. How do I know that things that I dream and wish for will happen one day? Because of everything I have received so far. A home, my friends in college and Chicago, Royals World Championship, a job. I expect to receive good. I have already received so much.