Must have been the wind

Hey. I’m back. For now. It may only be one post, but I wanted to maybe write something to remember my time in YWAM by. And I need to post something on Facebook, and heck, I miss writing. The amount of times I almost picked up my keyboard to write a post in the last month are countless. Anyway. So this part isn’t getting posted on Facebook because it’s too sad or something. I don’t know yet, I haven’t written it. I left the Base about 80 hours ago, the last person about 65 hours ago (when writing this part) and I haven’t been as broken as I assumed I would be. Everything feels weird. I don’t have constant access to my closest friends, I have my own room, my family fights almost nonstop, people have lives now. Staying in contact is hard when it seems I am the only one who wants to. I didn’t break down like I assumed I would, maybe because that happened three nights in a row before leaving. I have cried a lot though. I picked up my guitar to play the Blessing and predictably couldn’t get through the song. Maybe I never will. Looking through my camera roll has caused those little heart pangs of longing for the past. I think part of me hasn’t accepted that we aren’t just on break and then going back later. A huge part of me hasn’t accepted that we will never all be together like that again. (Oh look, now I’m crying again. Wow.)  DTS is over. I will never again go on outreach with my family. I will never again have small group with the girls. No more random wrestling matches in the Green room, or movie nights with Trevor’s weird popcorn. Instead I’m at a place I am supposed to call home, with people I am supposed to call family, and nothing feels like it should. I feel like my hometown is a mold (think jello) and while I was here before, I grew as much as I could, and then a little more, just enough to give me a desire to get out, but not enough to actually want to leave. But then I did, and the moment that happened, the moment I met new people and saw the world, I grew very quickly into a new shape, one that doesn’t fit the mold that my hometown presents. I have three options. In order from worst to best. 1: cut away those new pieces of myself to comfortably stay here and do what is expected of an 18 year old girl from Small Town Kansas. Work, go to college, work some more, get married, buy a house, work, fight with my husband, secretly hate my kids, and count the days until retirement. 2: not cut away those pieces. Attempt to live outside the norm, in extreme uncomfortability for who knows how long. Perhaps go to a college in Colorado or Missouri, do basically the same process as above, but somewhere that ISN’T here, until eventually, without my doing, those new pieces of me are shaved off bit by bit, never fully gone, but only echos of what I could have been. 3: go back. Follow the wanderlust, follow the calling, follow YHWH into the unknown. This seems the scariest option to some people. My mother for one. “Where will you get money??” The normal society. “You have to settle down eventually. Being a full time missionary is for other people. Not you.” But this feels. Right. All the other options do not fit who I am anymore. I have been called, and I honestly didn’t realize quite how much until writing this out. I have equal parts yearning to get out of here, and to go. I am called to something higher. It might look like I’m chasing a spiritual high. Maybe I am. But I don’t think so. If I could make choices that will help me to further God’s kingdom, why would I ever choose to stay here? This summer will be a period of limbo. I have decided to return to North Cascades in September to attend a secondary school. As of this very moment it is no longer a maybe. Sorting through my thoughts, and thinking about the circumstances of how that secondary school came to be (the timing is solely God) has made me realize that it is the right decision, even if I go alone. However, it is March. September is 6 months away. Camp will take up June. I will work in April and May. Either go to Japan or work in July. August will likely be time to work and wrap things up more permanently in Abilene. March is time to rest. Wow. This could be me moving out in September. My mom always said I would live in her basement until I was 30, but Washington at 19 is preferable. Last random thought. JT has proven the best at staying in contact at least this far in. Jaque keeps the group chat running. Maddie talks to me sometimes. But Ashlin and Trevor have dropped off the face of the earth it seems. I knew things would change, I just hadn’t realized it would be this quickly. I guess that’s what happens when the distance between people goes from just a few feet away to thousands of miles. I hate this. Anyway. This was ramble-y. I should start into the YWAM recap for the rest of the world. I think I‘li post this separately, but expect a more general post at some point soon.