We are about to get personal here. I was debating making this a private blog, for journaling purposes, but figured since I haven't posted in years (SERIOUSLY?!) it's as good as private anyways. So for any of the few lingerers around these parts, feast yourself upon my deepest thoughts. Ever feel like life happens so fast? It seems like the last 5 years of my life were spent wishing the time would go faster, waiting for the next thing that would take my life to the next level- waiting for my time to finally "make it". I would watch everyone else living their dreams, and wishing and hoping and waiting for it to be MY TURN ALREADY! Then, all of a sudden, I look around, and things are racing by. Only one more year of school-not only is my nephew a studly almost 5(!!) year old, sweetest Amy is 2 and a half(!!)-starting a family may not be such a distant dream forever- people I love are leaving this earth at an alarming rate, and I am being changed and molded because of it. I look around me, and all I want to do is stop for a moment, focus only on the water bottle in front of me, and pretend like the earth isn't really moving at such an alarming rate. I need to remember these times- these past 5 years- for the truth and honesty that they were. The trials, the blessings, the love, the heartbreak. It has all shaped me into an entirely different person than who I was before. The woman I am now loves deeply- deeper than most. However, with that ability to love comes real, true, honest heartbreak. I now know what it means to loose- and to have lost someone who made you into who you are, and whose absense will be felt for the rest of my time here on earth. And I have learned to be okay with that emptyness. In fact- it's a battle wound. Not everybody has that ability to feel so deeply- to be loved and to love so well. I have learned that I am a woman who cares abouth others- too much sometimes. I let down the walls (not even walls- its pretty much always open) of my heart quickly- too quickly. I have been hurt often because of that. However, with that hurt comes real relationships. Rerlationships that enrich my life, and enrich the lives of those around me. I often try to put up walls around me in the aftermath of the pain. I seem to punish muself for allowing people in who are not able to care for me in return in the way in which I deserve. I make a decision to STOP caring. To stop investing my heart into these relationships. But that isn't who I am, and that isn't who God made me to be. I must be true to muself, and my intended purpose. So, I will love, I will care, and I will live each of my days with my full heart, and awareness of the woman I am, and the woman I will become.