i believe the sun also rises

Oh yeah, I'm home.

Since rolling into the Bay around 2pm on Wednesday, I've spent copious amounts of time with Steph & Family prepping for the wedding, worked a shift for my dad, taken lots of naps, talked to Canadian Mike at COTW on the phone (!!!), bought a new bathing suit, went to the eye doctor, did some Ebay-ing (Seychelles shoes and Anthropologie skirts, to be precise), and have not unpacked a single thing.

I enjoy being home because it gives me a chance to decompress from a frantic 9 months in Davis and then, once properly decompressed, to get excited about the next frantic 9 months. Talking about the graduate program hasn't gotten old yet, which is nice, nor has talking about the new apartment and the new(ish) boyfriend and the (frighteningly impending) future.

Being back at home makes me feel very adult and very childish all at the same time. Steph and I are amazed that our 1st period PE class freshman year at St. Francis was over 8 years ago now - sometimes it feels like we ran the mile together just last week - but at the same time we are proud to be college graduates, going to grad school and getting married and expected to be real adults. Being 22 is such a funny age because I'm not entirely sure where I stand right now. Sometimes I'm a big adult and ready to take on the world and other times it's my first day of high school and I don't know anyone in my homeroom and have a huge zit in the middle of my forehead.

I just want a peek at my future sometimes, just to make sure that everything turns out OK. Will I be a good teacher? Will Daniel and I get married next summer? Will I stay in Northern California (perish the thought!)? Will I eventually get to do AIDS education in Africa? Will I get back on stage someday? What if all these things I'm so passionate about get pushed aside for something else that I haven't even thought of yet?

You see, I often come home and get overwhelmed with all the possibilities. I don't think about them much in Davis because I'm preoccupied with papers and junior high students and the drama of small town living, but I come back home to a house so big and a Bay even bigger and I think about all the places I could go and all the people I could be and I pray that God, in His awesome power, crafts something undeniably "me" for me, so that I can be everywhere and do everything and accomplish something incredible for Him.

I come home and I want to write novels and travel the world and be an amazing mom. I come home and want to learn how to cook and sculpt gorgeous abs and build an impressive library of books no one has heard of but that everyone should read. I come home and I remember who I am - where I came from and what I came through and, most importantly, who I've always wanted to be.

Hold me
Break me
Mold me
And Make me more and more like You