(Anti)social Skills

Once upon a time, one of my friends told me that I cannot love books because they can't love me back. I have been contesting that statement ever since.

Because, first of all, love does not have to be mutual to exist. A lot of heartache and a lot of good literature would never have been made possible if love had to be requited to take place.

As a "young professional" (I prefer to call myself a "baby teacher" - it's much more fitting to where I am in life), I've found that I have free time in the evenings. At first I didn't know what to do with this - I was so used to studying and living amongst college friends, and that, combined with going to class, took up my time. Finding myself now with a few precious hours of my own was a post-grad surprise.

With this time, I've been reunited with my old love, reading: my baby love, my high school sweetheart, the love of my life, all rolled into one. I feel as if fate has had it in store for us my whole life. I was made to ingest words. There has been no honeymoon phase because reading brings me straight goodness and happiness, all the time, forever, amen.

As a result of this jump from so little free time/reading time, to now: lots of it, I've been stimulated to thinking about the difference reading has made in my life. One night recently I couldn't sleep, and I laid in bed considering the multitude of things being a reader has taught me about people and relationships.

There is a difference between reading books and being a reader. Anyone can read books. But a reader pursues books, is always reading something, and maybe even takes books to bars (I do!). Not everyone is a reader, and that is okay, in the same way that not everyone understands calculus. Also okay.

Here is what I have learned about people from being a reader:

• New and best are not the same thing. New is great, but it doesn't mean "best." It mostly means that it takes longer to find familiarity. And, if I spill food on a new book, I get more frustrated than I would if the same had happened with an older, more broken-in book. It's also true for friends: I'm much more careful not to spill food on a new friend than an old one. 

• It's normal to want to own every book I've ever read or loved, but it isn't practical (or financially responsible) to do it. However, I don't need to have every book close to me in order for it to have an impact on my life. Sometimes a story is just passing through. 

• Sometimes, someone I love wants me to love a book. In that situation, I love the book not because I independently love it, but because I love the person. I am committed to those I love: both the people and the books. 

• The books I've had the longest and love the most are the ones I treat the least carefully. Their spines are cracked and they have spent quality time on the bottom of my purse and I've written random notes on their inside covers. I relish them, but instead of expressing it often, I treat them casually. I expect them to stick around, so I treat them as if they will. However, in spite of the familiarity and sometimes flippancy with which I tend to refer to or handle them, they're my favorites. They're the ones I love the most. They're the books I am sure to own and invest in so that they can always be near me. 

• "Don't judge a book by its cover" is sound advice. Some books don't even have covers. The presentation and/or presence of a cover is not indicative of the value of the words inside the book. 

• All books are worthy of respect, on the principle that they are books and that they exist. However, that doesn't mean every book needs to be my favorite. I don't have to read every book just because it's a book (also that's not possible). Limits exist, and that's reasonable, but being biased or judgmental isn't. 

• Some people read books a lot faster than others. Some people understand books a lot better than others. Some people value books more readily than others. 

• Some people read deeply when what was written should be taken at face value, and some people take words at face value when they should be taken deeply. 

• If I read only one genre, I'll only know about one genre. I'll be a much more diverse, well-spoken, and educated person if I read lots of different books about lots of different things.

• Books are written with a target audience, but the reader gets to choose what age-level books he or she reads. I can read children's books or teen books or grown-up books (or no books at all). I'm not mandated to read the books corresponding to the age that I am. 

I like this quote by Maud Casey where she says, "I was born with a reading list I will never finish." I think that this applies both to my life in literature, and to my life with people. I want to always be on the market for new friends. As a baby teacher and a baby grown-up and a new person in a big town, I need to remind myself of this often: make lots of new friends and love the ones you have and always welcome more.

If you think about it, reading is an (anti)social skill. "Anti" because reading is done alone, and social because what a reader learns through reading enhances socialization. What fun irony!

Who knew when we were learning our letter sounds that this skill would affect more than our academic careers? Who could have predicted that reading would increase not only our IQs, but also our relational abilities and our abilities to love those around us?

Love,
Lauralicious

Small Thin Peace

I student taught last spring in 3rd-5th grade resource. One morning I was walking around in a 4th grade class and passed an empty desk with a strip of paper on it. The paper said "small thin peace." I assume that the original writer meant to say "piece," but they didn't, and that makes all the difference.

I hadn't been feeling specifically un-peaceful, but when I saw that strip of paper and thought about what it might mean, it felt like relief, and it stuck with me.

I considered peace. I'm not a Quaker or a hippie or a Buddhist, and I'd never thought much about peace until prompted by this curious piece of paper. I'd thought about it when reading Psalms or when feeling internally conflicted but it had always ended there.

I've tried to provide peace for myself (spoiler: it doesn't work). I've tried to grasp control, to manage the pieces of my life. When things are out of control and unmanageable, I get frustrated and I have a hard time understanding why.

Paul in Philippians says that the peace of God "surpasses all understanding." It's greater than what I am able to understand - and thus, control.

I think the peace of God is small and thin.

I think it can be like horseradish, how a little bit of it can bring tears to my eyes and just a taste of it affects the way everything else tastes for the rest of the day.

Small thin peace is meek. It will inherit the earth.

I came across this small thin peace during student teaching, and now I'm a first year teacher. It's a big job. It's bigger than me. Right now, every day of my life is a learning curve. In the midst of a learning curve, recognizing peace as small and thin is comforting. It's not one more thing to push myself to accomplish today - instead, peace preludes everything else. It's amazing.

everything else will go much more smoothly.

Like salvation, peace requires a request and an acceptance. It requires me to admit that I can't provide it for myself and it requires me to beg for it. It requires my ultimate thankfulness because it is provided. It requires my attachment to Christ. It requires my submission of control.

Small thin peace means that I'm not in charge. Small thin peace means that when I'm confused about what to feel, when I've messed up, when I feel like saltwater taffy, when everything earth-level is not okay, all is not lost. Prior to, during, and after crises and catastrophes and Mondays, the peace of God gives grace and rest. Prior to, during, and after scares and surprises and breakdowns, the peace of God gives grace and rest. Life on earth and the peace of God are not mutually exclusive. That news is grand!

Having peace in my heart, however, does not mean I don't feel stress or want to control things; but it's bigger than those things. Just like how God is bigger than the bogeyman, His peace is bigger than my desires and tendencies. It gives perspective to all of life.

There are always reasons to not be peaceful or to not accept peace. There are always holdups. There will not be a time where life is perfectly restful and quiet and calm and peaceful.

Peace is not contingent upon circumstance. Regardless of circumstance and regardless of understanding, when I put my faith and trust in Christ, and when I let Him be peace instead of trying to manufacture it for myself, His peace transcends my understanding. That takes off so much pressure.

Directly before Paul says that the peace of God "surpasses all understanding," He says to not be anxious in anything. He follows this with telling that the peace of God ("which surpasses all understanding,") "will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

There is no need to say no to peace. It comes from Christ. He guards my heart and mind. I need this.

Love,
Lauralicious

The Same Lake

Last summer, the July before we started our senior year at Clemson, one of my roommates and I got a Peppino's margherita pizza and picnicked at the Botanical Gardens. We sat there and ate during dusk and we chased frogs (I held the pizza box while she chased frogs). Then we went to the rowing docks and sat and talked. The sun had set and we were sitting on the dock in the quiet, being occasionally rocked by waves from boats taking night rides. At one point she had to take a phone call, so I sat and thought, and in my thinking I realized that I have spent my whole life on Lake Hartwell.

No one admits to liking Hartwell. Keowee is preferred and Jocassee is ideal. Hartwell, in terms of Clemson area lakes, is like the Nickelback of lakes. But it's the closest, and it's the university's lake, and it's where the memories are.

All of my summers growing up were spent on Hartwell. I tagged along with friends whose parents owned lake houses and boats for afternoons and sleepovers and we had the most fun long, sunburn-y days. We had birthday parties jumping off of two-story docks. We sang Kelly Clarkson songs at the top of our lungs while holding on to tubes that my friends' dads were trying to throw us off of. We made sand pies (like mud pies, but they don't really stick together) and played pretend. We took evening boat rides and let the wind whip our hair dry. We took childhood and summer for granted, like kids are supposed to do.

Circa 2004-ish probably

When I wasn't a kid anymore, I was a youth. I started youth group the summer before 7th grade. Everyone associated with the youth group gathered at the lake for a huge party: the Moving-Up Party. There was food; there were boats; there was that game where someone had to eat baby food. It was so youth group-y. It was new and exciting. It was pandemonium. It was grand.

All of my youth group years (especially summers) incorporated the lake. On Wednesday nights during the summers we met at people's homes and everyone's favorite were the homes that were on the lake. We swam, then got into small groups and prayed, then sat on the docks with our legs swinging in the water, in no rush to go home or get to the next thing. Those were peaceful evenings. 

youth group at the Kriders' lake house, 2009-ish

Starting my junior year of high school, I got to drive to school. It was liberating - and one of my favorite memories of independence from that time is spring of junior year, after AP exams, a bunch of us went to Y Beach and played volleyball and got our toes in the water. It was an ironic feeling: we felt like truants for being at the lake while our peers were at school, yet the reason we weren't at school was because of advanced placement exams that those peers didn't take. We felt like exceptions to the rules and it was exhilaratingly special.

Senior year none of us had full schedules and usually we used the spaces in our day to study or do homework together, but sometimes we would go to Supertaco (before it moved) and cross the highway to eat it on the boardwalk. These are grand memories.

post-AP exams celebration at Y Beach, junior year, May 2011

Camp is on Lake Hartwell, and I've spent now six summers swimming at lake play and riding the pontoon boat and fishing off the dock (never, in six years, have I caught one fish), tipping canoes, jumping on the water trampoline, etc. Once I had to swim a sailboat full of crying little Bowfins across the cove three times because I don't actually know how to sail and the boat kept falling over.

(I still don't know how to sail)

From my lofted bed in my dorm room freshman year at Clemson, I could see the whole stadium and beyond to the golf course and the lake. I didn't even have to get out of bed to see it. On gamedays I slept in until as late as possible and then rolled over to see all of Clemson convening, cohesively dressed in orange, right below me. The people looked like orange ants, all moving toward the stadium. I felt such pride for my people and my town and my school - and they were all the same: Clemson. Home. 

I felt like this view should be some kind of top secret. The view from the bed of my dorm was amazing and unfair - and in my favor. 

College was full of spontaneity and adventure. We had picnics by the water, we had lake days, we took walks to the dikes, we ate milkshakes on the docks, we had talks in the sand, we went night-swimming, we got Atlas pizzas that we ate on the boardwalk, we studied at Y Beach, we ran to the lake and jumped in. It was a conduit of such adventure! 

Dinner/Chick Fil A picnic with Freshman Five, fall 2012 

(There really were five of us! The boys chose not to be documented)

And so this lake: this lead-filled, super green, oft-insulted/unappreciated lake ties together memories and activities from all of the twenty two years I've had on this earth. Each domain of my life has been impacted by Hartwell - silly Hartwell. And never, until I was so close to leaving, did I really even acknowledge and begin to appreciate it.

Moving Up Party at the Hubbards' house, 2011

I'm a very sentimental person, and I know this about myself. So I know it's trivial to be so attached to a lake - especially one that isn't all that great. But Hartwell was never really attention-seeking. It just did its job, which was to sit there and hold water and let us take from it. It's like the Giving Tree, but a lake. It's a Giving Lake. Too far?

I've moved away, and coincidentally, I now work at Lake Carolina (I still have not located the actual lake, but I am assured that it is an actual lake somewhere), so Hartwell isn't the only lake in my life anymore. But it was my first lake, and I'm thankful for it.

I unconditionally respect it and the times it has given me that have subsequently become a huge part of my Clemson memories.

I love this lake.

Love, 

Lauralicious

I Love You Truly

This summer, I returned to Camp! I got to live there all summer. It was magical. It was a blessing and a challenge in a lot of ways, and I am ever thankful that it exists and for the time I've spent there and hopefully will continue to spend there for the indefinite but hopefully forever future rest of my days.

During the eight weeks I was there this summer, I said "I love you" a lot. I said it to campers, to counselors, to co-supervisors, to my boss, to the Camp dogs, to God, and to the sky - because it's nice to look up and find beauty anytime of day or night.

In addition to saying "I love you," I also sang this lullaby to just about every female camper -

I love you truly
Oh yes I do
I don't love anyone as much as you
When you're not near me, I'm blue
I love you
Yes I do!

Campers, counselors, co-supervisors, my boss, the Camp dogs, God, and the sky all were with me during Camp. I am thankful for the presence of each of these. When I told them I loved them, I didn't just mean that I loved them in that moment; I meant that I was articulating a long-term commitment, a lasting choice. In saying "I love you," I was saying: I am devoted to you for right now, for tomorrow, for the next day, and beyond. I am devoted to your well-being, your learning, and to you seeing and receiving the gospel.

Because if I am a friend but have not love, what am I really? If I give hugs but have not love, if I do paperwork but have not love, if I sing Camp songs but have not love, if I hold hands but have not love, if I do camper laundry but have not love, if I give direction/correction but have not love, if I read a goodnight story but have not love, then I'm useless. My job at Camp and my purpose in life are to show love - love not of me - to everyone/everything around me. If my actions are not infused with love, then I am completely ineffective.

However, here is the thing: I don't have the capacity for all of that. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, socially, I can't hold or dispense love that grand or rich. I'm a girl, not a factory. And I'm a broken girl - any love I have to give is flawed and broken and imperfect.

And so this is what I've learned: love takes faith. I always thought that love just flowed, that it never ran dry, but that's not true. I've been in situations where I ran completely out, and in situations where what I gave was more than what I had, and that showed me that God is love. And I'm His person.

I am a conduit of perfect love (not a producer). I have to put faith in Christ that He will give me what I need, and that He will give it to me when I need it. God has given me Camp and Camp has taught me to ask for what I need and God has taught me to trust His timing.

Because sometimes I tell a person I love them, even though in that moment I am not their biggest fan. Sometimes I tell a person I love them even though I'm not sure what to do to show them that I mean it. Sometimes I tell a person I love them even though they've made choices that hurt me. Sometimes I tell a person I love them even though I'm scared of them. Sometimes I tell a dog that I love it even though it's lazy and I'm jealous because I'd like to lie in the grass, too. Sometimes I tell the sky I love it even though I wish it had not chosen to storm in the middle of the afternoon while we wanted to play outside. Sometimes I tell God I love Him even though I don't understand the way He does things.

I mean what I say each of those times, and in all of those times, I'm trusting that God will give me what I need to really mean it and to show it.

And He always does. During some moments, all I need are the words "I love you." During some moments, I need the actions to prove it. During some moments, I need both. In all of those moments, it's Christ, not me. His perfect love casts out fear and hesitation. It enables me to do my job and to live in the world as one of His people.

It's beautiful. I love learning - I've worked at Camp since I was 17 and I'm not learning any less than I was when I started. This lesson is only one of the things I learned this summer.

Love takes faith. It isn't easy or light. It's serious and intense, yet joyful and wonderful.

Love,
Lauralicious

So This is Love

After careful examination, I've come to realize that I resent Cinderella. I find her so easy to frown at. She's a saint and she's never sassy. That's not like me and I hate her for it.

She doesn't do anything wrong. You can't be mad at her. It's infuriating, and it's ironic. She has the hardest life of anybody, and she's the most humble of anybody. She doesn't pout, and she doesn't roll her eyes, and she doesn't sweat. She is responsible and kind. She looks lovely always, even covered in soot.  She's submissive and an awesome cook, like a good wife is supposed to be. Other girls feel inadequate when compared to her, because no one can live up to her peace and simplicity.

Her prince is perfect, too; he's not into potty humor and he doesn't play FIFA. He's actually not a real dude.

Eventually in her story, Cinderella receives justice for the wrong done to her. She's an underdog. (We like to think we're underdogs). She's the chosen one, like Harry Potter and King Arthur: they all have a humble and abusive beginning, and greatness thrust upon them that they then thrive in ever so diplomatically.

We want to that - we want to be Cinderella. We want to overcome any disadvantage our childhood may leave us with and become the most successful, the most beautiful, the most wise.

So we work really hard. We don't take breaks. We always say yes, because saying no is unhelpful and it's selfish. We turn ourselves into martryrs (It used to be that a martyr was a person who sacrificed self for faith to the glory of God, but now it's someone who sacrifices general health and well-being for being seen as a hard worker to the glory of pride). We are blind followers of good feelings and we bottle up our frustrations because that's what Cinderella did and things turned out really swell for her.

We feel unnoticed and sorry for ourselves and convince ourselves that we deserve grandeur, and we strategize ways for other people to observe this about us, too.

We get frustrated by life, because life isn't fair. We look for reasons for the hard parts of life, and we convince ourselves that we are the victims here, even though we know that's wrong. Life is hard because of sin, and we are sinners. It's the truth, and the truth hurts.

Cinderella is just like Jesus (only not real). She's patient and kind, she endures all things, she's impossibly perfect, and she ascends to the throne after the climax of the story.

Jesus is real and Cinderella is not. Why do we try to emulate Cinderella more than we try to emulate Jesus? No one told us to try to be Cinderella, and we are told countless times in the Bible to be like Jesus. Cinderella can do nothing but disappoint us as we try and fail to become her. We were never supposed to be like her.

Cinderella is a character. Characters don't sin. They don't have sin patterns and they don't have to repent of anything. We can't be Cinderella because we sin. Cinderella is a pauper turned princess, and we are (still) sinners. We were and are and will be.

Cinderella can't do anything for us, and Jesus already did. He came to save us from this silly striving. Here we are, trying to turn ourselves from actual humans with personalities and vices into flat fairy tale characters. He saves us from that. He changes our hearts from wanting to be our own creation to being transformed into His own perfect and pure and complete likeness and creation.

Cinderella isn't real (Harry Potter isn't real. King Arthur isn't real). Perfect princes aren't real. But love is real and Jesus is real.

So this is love: royalty would voluntarily sacrifice grandeur for fools (that's us). And that's how we know real life is better than fairy tales.

Love,
Lauralicious

I'm Still Running

You have brains in your head, 

You have feet in your shoes...

You have brains in your shoes, 

Your brains have shoes...

Yes?

It's not a story of muscles or athleticism or triumph. It's a story of running - not to anything or from anything, but around my town, starting out by tying my shoelaces and then running straight out the door.

It’s a story of a lot of thinking and a lot of subsequent learning. It’s a story of commitment, routine, and unintended but highly appreciated stress management.

The story started one year ago this week. It was the end of spring break of my junior year of college and I was feeling a little funky about life. I felt very stationary. I saw people I had known for years and years doing great and big things with their lives and I kept hearing myself think, “I’m still in college.”

I was feeling a little rushed and a little stuck and a little like being still in college was keeping me from doing anything that mattered. I was comparing myself to others and I was listening to myself think, and I know better than to do either of those things, but there I was.

Coincidentally, around that same time, I started running. I didn’t do it with the intention of starting something new or making life more interesting; I had tried several times in my life to become a runner and it had never stuck – until this time. It turned out that being more physically active helped me to feel less mentally erratic and being more mobile with my feet helped me to feel less stationary with my life.

Then, when I felt like my life was sitting still, I went running. And right now, while life feels like it’s moving super fast and doesn’t really care whether or not I’m caught up, I’m still running.

A year isn’t really all that long, and I know that. Yet I’m excited about having run for a year now. I’ve found myself saying things I never thought I’d say, like this: I think I’m in love with running. It is not at all easy, but I look forward to when I get to go run. I miss it when I can’t. I tell people about how great I think it is all the time.  

At first it was awful (I wrote about it here), but I kept going and I’m not quite sure why. I like it more now – not because I like sweating, but because I like thinking.

I like running because my feet are moving and so is my brain. Running helps me think, have theoretical conversations, calm down when I’m so nervous or angry, and have a more realistic perspective on everything I see. I’m thankful for that.

In addition to giving me a chance to think, running has also helped me to learn new and helpful things. I’ve learned to anticipate others’ actions. I run on the sidewalk and anytime I reach an intersection, I watch to see what the drivers near me will do. Are they going to turn? Are they going to keep going straight? Are they waving me on or are they dancing in their car? These are all important things to know.  

I’ve learned how to make hydration happen. It’s highly necessary.  

But the biggest thing I’ve learned is how to get through life. I’ve learned to pace myself, and I’ve learned that running is harder in practice than it is in theory, but that doing one hard thing a lot of times is better than doing no things at all ever.

I’ve learned that ideal runs are smooth but in real life, running means gravel and anthills and being passed by runners who are faster than me. I’ve learned that it’s not all endorphins and energy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t healthy or productive or peaceful.

I’ve learned that it’s not me who is so great and so active. It’s not me who is keeping my feet moving. I am so often tempted to be so excited and proud of myself for running and moving. But who is moving my muscles? Who is lifting my feet off of the ground? Who is keeping me from falling? It isn’t me. I don’t have that power or that will. It’s the Father, the One who is able to keep me from falling, who is controlling each step.  

I’ve learned to not overthink what’s next. I don’t know what’s around the corner, but I know and can see and can handle what’s right here in front of my feet, so that’s where I will run.

So, it's a story of a lot of sweat. It’s a story that’s still starting. I think it's a pretty good story.

Love,
Lauralicious

On Home

Being in college is a simulation of being a nomad. It's four years of having my belongings constantly spread out in multiple places and of moving those belongings every summer and every fall and sometimes more.

Having all of my things so all over the place makes me a little bit itchy and uncomfortable. I feel like I don't quite have it together, but I really want to have it together. I want to have all of the things that belong to me in one place and I want to hang the pictures and set up everything just how I like it and then I don't want to have to move around or re-settle ever again.

But that's just not realistic. I'm 21 years old. My nomadic years are for sure not yet over, which is mostly okay, although a little scary, but also exciting. And it has me wondering: where is my home base? If everything goes so terribly wrong, where do I go?

The obvious answer is "where the heart is" - as in, "home is where the heart is" - but I think my heart is like a horcrux, spread out all over, and I mostly don't mind that.

I know that this world is not my home - it's not a place to get comfortable, to put up my feet and watch things pass me by. But when all I know is this life and this earth, it's so hard to remember and to know that something greater and more ultimate is coming for my eternity. So although this world isn't where I'll be forever, I don't think it's bad to set up camp here. I think it's okay to have a physical place I can go for respite and to charge me up for the difficulties of living here. I just don't know where or what that place is.

Here's one thing I know: home isn't a feeling. You can't get into your car after a really long and not great day and drive to a feeling. But home doesn't have to always be a house - it could be a place. So there are too many options.

Here are the places I've ever called home, in chronological order -

1. My parents' home - we've lived here since 2001. It holds memories of learning to clean a toilet and learning to have an okay attitude about it, looking for a secret passageway, pretending to be blind out of curiosity, practicing piano (and then forgetting all of it), camping in the backyard, spending hours and hours with my parents so patiently trying to help me make sense of Algebra 1. It's my whole childhood and all of my growing up and now, my retreat from college during the year and from Camp during the summer.

2. My childhood friends' homes - I know I'm at home at these places because I'm expected to help unload the dishwasher when I'm there and I know where they keep the ibuprofen and spare key if I need them. In these homes, we wiggled and giggled, we painted brothers' toenails, we played MonkeyBall, we tried in so many different ways to trick our parents into letting us play longer, we fell asleep watching movies in the living room after long days of playing. These places - others' homes - fostered my social development and taught me how to be a friend.

3. Camp - I didn't start working Camp until I was 17, but it did and still does stretch me in good, hard ways. Camp is the toughest and best thing I've done and continue to do. It's challenge, peace, growth, and even though it's hard and scary, it's comfort. Camp has shown me over and over again that terrifying things will turn out okay and that hiding doesn't make your problems go away (it just makes them more difficult to manage when you come out of hiding). 

What else is there to say?

4. College apartment (Madreland) - I've been lucky to live in the same apartment for three years of college! Which mostly just means that when I move out I have some major cleaning to do. It's guided me into adulthood well (I think). The fire alarm has gone off a lot of times (only once actually due to smoke!), and I've made about seven bajillion batches of cookies in this kitchen.

Many desserts were made here. 

5. Wherever my books are - see here. They are the most tangible and personal and mobile things that are mine. My room is currently covered in books - the bookshelf is bursting with them, the windowsill is lined with them, there are piles next to the bookshelf, next to the windowsill, under the desk, in the closet, next to the trash can, next to the bed, and next to the dresser. The book to floor space ratio is an interesting one. My books are specific to me - where my books are, I am, and I live. They have stayed faithful to me during this nomadic part of life, and I love them for it.

And so my problem is not the worst problem, but it's still kind of a problem - that I have maybe too many homes. I get nervous to call a place home because I don't want to overuse the term or get too attached to a place that I know I can't stay in forever, but I don't want to never call a place home or be comfortable somewhere because I'm holding out.

Life would be simpler if I could be where I am and not worry about where I belong or what constitutes a home, but that's not how I work. I like definitions and clarity and certainty. And so, the question remains: what is home? Can anything be home? Should just anything be worthy of being called a home?

Here's what I've decided: home is fluid, and home is a choice. I can have multiple homes. All of the homes I've had so far have housed (no pun intended!) me during formative times, and that's why I claim them as horcruxes: places my heart will be forever. As I'm moving along and around in the world, I'll have more formative times, and I'll have more places that keep me safe and warm during these times, and I can call those places home, too. I'll just add them to the list.

My heart is so sentimental and so reflective. I will die with a list of locations that I wouldn't have made it through life the same without. It will be a long list, and I think I like that.

Love,
Lauralicious