Moving On

I'm home.

Words cannot describe how good it feels to say that. I had planned to write the whole blog post about the Mission Trip today. But then I was in a cramped car for ten hours and barely got any sleep. So that's not going to happen today. I wish that I could give every detail about the mission trip but I can't. Besides not everybody wants to know every detail about it. To be honest this trip was sad and kind of bittersweet. Sometimes it seemed more bitter than sweet. When we got there I immediately felt homesick. I felt like an outsider. On Tuesday I called Fiona and of course I got emotional. (No one is surprised). I told her that I wanted to come home. It came out of nowhere and it had been the sentence that I had been ignoring. I wanted to be with Fiona and the rest of my friends. I was sitting in a hallway crying because I wanted to go home. Throughout the week it got a little better but there was still that feeling in the pit of my stomach. That feeling that told me it was time to move on. I hate change, we all know this. It's uncomfortable, emotional and scary. I never wanted to leave the youth group and when I began to go it felt like it was never going to end. I had years to go. Those years flew by though. My friends grew up and left, more youth came in and everything started to change. The whole week I couldn't stop thinking about that essay, 'Once More to the Lake.' The last paragraph kept coming to me.

"When the others went swimming my son said he was going in too. He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower, and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death."

I felt the chill of death all week. As dramatic as that sounds. All the sudden I realized how much of an outsider I truly was. I couldn't relate to the people in my youth group, the new youth leaders didn't really know me that well and there wasn't the warm fuzzy feeling anymore. The girls saw me as an 'adult' and not a teenager that they could relate to. By the end of the week I truly wanted to go home. Then I looked back at the picture up top. The girls in the youth group called ourselves the 'Bethel Babes'. It was a tradition to write that on the mission trip paper hanging outside the our door. Then we would all sign our names. This year the church didn't really like that and ripped it off. It was a great beginning to the week. Anyway I look at this picture and I realized that I was the last 'Bethel Babe'. This was just another tradition that was going to fade away with time. That was hard to let sink in. This week made me realize that I need to move on. I need to let go. I need to remember the good times and not focus on the bad. To remember the friends and memories that I made. Because overall youth group wasn't bad it was just a rough end. There is no point in focusing on the bad times because I can't change them. They are what they are. I look at that picture and I am reminded of the good memories and the wonderful people that entered and changed my life. I don't know what I would have done without them.

To the Bethel Babes, stay beautiful.

DFTBA
-AB

P.S. Oh Swag, why do you have to leave? Why do you leave every time I come home? Anyway I don't have the greatest song recommendations like Swag but I'll give one for today. I know you already posted one but I have a song I want to share.

Hands by multiple artists.

Someone sent me this song awhile ago. I bawled, it was so beautiful. What a way to honor the people who died in the Orlando shooting. Grab your tissues.