My newly found spiritual side.
Its almost 1 and even though I have barely slept enough to count in the past month I can't fall asleep. Maybe it's because I chugged a half a bottle of Mountain Dew or maybe I'm just going insane. I've only been home for about 30 hours. Getting home felt so good. After being gone for 3 weeks straight and only sleeping in my bed once in the past month, I couldn't even remember what my room looked like. Walking into it I felt so familiar but somehow it seemed so strange. I feel like I have changed so much in the past month. I'm a new person. Working backwards:
Our mission trip to Idaho was so amazing. We worked extremely hard: sanding and texturizing walls in two rooms, painting three coats on each wall and ceailing in each room, painting one outside wall, organizing the teachers supplies in the flooded basement, unflooding the basement, organizing the library, and putting on a three day program for the indian children. When it was done I felt so accomplished it was the most profitable work I have done in my life and I didn't even take anything material away from it. Over the first five days or so i became really good friends with ______ and when on the sixth day he stopped talking to me because he became friends and was accepted by the "better" girls I was really hurt. It taught me something. I don't want to be one of the better girls to anyone. I don't want to hurt someone just because i thiknk I'm better than them. It is really hard to feel like I am on a lower level of the scale than someone and to be ignored because of it, so I promised myself to try my hardest not to put that load on somebody else. After we finished our work we went up to Yellowstone. It was gorgeous. I felt like I was smack dab in the middle of Gods great creation. Our first day there we hiked for about 5 miles to a waterfall where we sat and thought about our experience and what we wanted the world to think of us. It really made me think to the point of knowing what I wanted to change about myself and what I liked and disliked about my life. We followed up by swimming under the waterfall and it was refreshing. It seemed as though our troubles were washed away. That night there was the most amazing lightening storm. It lit up every inch of space when it flashed and it drenched us and all of our belongings to the extreme. On our last night we thought about the ripples we make in the world, through our family friends community God and self for each part we tied a not in a ribbon and then tied it on our wrists as a reminder. I'm not planning on taking mine off for a very long time.
Before that trip there was the Episcopal Youth Event which was equally amazing but in a very different way. I met so many people from all over our country. They all had similar beliefs and all were there for the same reason. We worshipped in so many different ways and did so many different things I feel like my spirituality is so much wider and diverse. I spent my time with Adrian or as I prefer to call him Sausage. Even though after a month of him non stop i was ready to get rid of him i think he helped me to be myself more and to be open. We made two close friends. Anika who hails from Rhode Island and Peter a.k.a. utah. Anika is one of the most trusting people I have ever met. After knowing her for 24 hours she permitted us to cut her hair, we took off almost 6 inches I think. Me cutting, Peter feathering, and Sausage being emotional support. Afterwards her personality seemed to blossom more with each minute. She became less reserved and more open to the world. I loved her so much and I hope I will see her again. Peter, oh, Peter. Was the most amazing person I have ever met. He always knew exactly what to say and what to do. I fell completely and madly in love with him. Everything I do reminds me of him. I can't wait til next summer when hopefully I will see him again. I became closer with them than I am with any of the people I spend my time with at home. They reinsured my belief in the fact there are good people out there, you just have to look. I've spent a lot of the past two weeks thinking about my experience in Kentucky. I realized I now believe in fate. I decided to try to go to Kentucky for a reason. I became friends with Sausage to help me to learn to accept people's differences and be generous with my belongings because in the end what is material doesn't matter it's what you know and love and experience that counts the most. Meeting Anika made me realize you can find amazing things behind people's masks and if you are willing they will open up and share there wisdom with you. Everything you do has a reason. If I had bought a different model camera I would never have met Peter. For some reason both of us bought Canon Powershot A510's. If some guy hadn't been wearing a Top Ten Reasons Why Girls Are Better Than Boys shirt that I had found extremely amusing. I wouldn't have wanted to take a picture of it and Peter wouldn't have seen my camera, we wouldn't have met, and I wouldn't have found that there are still genuinely good people left in the world. What if?
So after all of that my return home was a bit disapointing. People are still people. Misleading and hamful as ever. The world isn't as pristine as it had been for the past month. I'm not going to have any friends at school. Everyone has left Deer Valley except for a few, maybe I'll hang out with my brother I know he'd love that. _____ who I was infatuated with before I left and who said he liked me too and whom other people told me felt the same way went for ______, the one person who I was planning on trying to be good friends with, while I was gone. Now I don't know what to do. I feel betrayed in a way but I feel like I don't have anything to justify it with. It makes me feel like becoming easy which is totally bad and not what i want at all. It would be so "easy" to just get with guys for a day and then after they would still be your friend, nothing to lose. Maybe thats just the influence of ________. I am quite envious of her outgoingness and sense of ease that maybe I feel like thats one way I could be more like her. I'm not sure. But I'm not going to go that direction. Instead I am going to be myself. I am going to be more responsible. I am going to have a clean room, good grades, healthy diet, and sincere friendships. Starting tomorrow. We'll see how this goes. I'm going to get to bed so that I can wake up tomorrow clean my room, do some summer reading, hygenate, eat a healthy breakfast, and be off to work by 10.
Our mission trip to Idaho was so amazing. We worked extremely hard: sanding and texturizing walls in two rooms, painting three coats on each wall and ceailing in each room, painting one outside wall, organizing the teachers supplies in the flooded basement, unflooding the basement, organizing the library, and putting on a three day program for the indian children. When it was done I felt so accomplished it was the most profitable work I have done in my life and I didn't even take anything material away from it. Over the first five days or so i became really good friends with ______ and when on the sixth day he stopped talking to me because he became friends and was accepted by the "better" girls I was really hurt. It taught me something. I don't want to be one of the better girls to anyone. I don't want to hurt someone just because i thiknk I'm better than them. It is really hard to feel like I am on a lower level of the scale than someone and to be ignored because of it, so I promised myself to try my hardest not to put that load on somebody else. After we finished our work we went up to Yellowstone. It was gorgeous. I felt like I was smack dab in the middle of Gods great creation. Our first day there we hiked for about 5 miles to a waterfall where we sat and thought about our experience and what we wanted the world to think of us. It really made me think to the point of knowing what I wanted to change about myself and what I liked and disliked about my life. We followed up by swimming under the waterfall and it was refreshing. It seemed as though our troubles were washed away. That night there was the most amazing lightening storm. It lit up every inch of space when it flashed and it drenched us and all of our belongings to the extreme. On our last night we thought about the ripples we make in the world, through our family friends community God and self for each part we tied a not in a ribbon and then tied it on our wrists as a reminder. I'm not planning on taking mine off for a very long time.
Before that trip there was the Episcopal Youth Event which was equally amazing but in a very different way. I met so many people from all over our country. They all had similar beliefs and all were there for the same reason. We worshipped in so many different ways and did so many different things I feel like my spirituality is so much wider and diverse. I spent my time with Adrian or as I prefer to call him Sausage. Even though after a month of him non stop i was ready to get rid of him i think he helped me to be myself more and to be open. We made two close friends. Anika who hails from Rhode Island and Peter a.k.a. utah. Anika is one of the most trusting people I have ever met. After knowing her for 24 hours she permitted us to cut her hair, we took off almost 6 inches I think. Me cutting, Peter feathering, and Sausage being emotional support. Afterwards her personality seemed to blossom more with each minute. She became less reserved and more open to the world. I loved her so much and I hope I will see her again. Peter, oh, Peter. Was the most amazing person I have ever met. He always knew exactly what to say and what to do. I fell completely and madly in love with him. Everything I do reminds me of him. I can't wait til next summer when hopefully I will see him again. I became closer with them than I am with any of the people I spend my time with at home. They reinsured my belief in the fact there are good people out there, you just have to look. I've spent a lot of the past two weeks thinking about my experience in Kentucky. I realized I now believe in fate. I decided to try to go to Kentucky for a reason. I became friends with Sausage to help me to learn to accept people's differences and be generous with my belongings because in the end what is material doesn't matter it's what you know and love and experience that counts the most. Meeting Anika made me realize you can find amazing things behind people's masks and if you are willing they will open up and share there wisdom with you. Everything you do has a reason. If I had bought a different model camera I would never have met Peter. For some reason both of us bought Canon Powershot A510's. If some guy hadn't been wearing a Top Ten Reasons Why Girls Are Better Than Boys shirt that I had found extremely amusing. I wouldn't have wanted to take a picture of it and Peter wouldn't have seen my camera, we wouldn't have met, and I wouldn't have found that there are still genuinely good people left in the world. What if?
So after all of that my return home was a bit disapointing. People are still people. Misleading and hamful as ever. The world isn't as pristine as it had been for the past month. I'm not going to have any friends at school. Everyone has left Deer Valley except for a few, maybe I'll hang out with my brother I know he'd love that. _____ who I was infatuated with before I left and who said he liked me too and whom other people told me felt the same way went for ______, the one person who I was planning on trying to be good friends with, while I was gone. Now I don't know what to do. I feel betrayed in a way but I feel like I don't have anything to justify it with. It makes me feel like becoming easy which is totally bad and not what i want at all. It would be so "easy" to just get with guys for a day and then after they would still be your friend, nothing to lose. Maybe thats just the influence of ________. I am quite envious of her outgoingness and sense of ease that maybe I feel like thats one way I could be more like her. I'm not sure. But I'm not going to go that direction. Instead I am going to be myself. I am going to be more responsible. I am going to have a clean room, good grades, healthy diet, and sincere friendships. Starting tomorrow. We'll see how this goes. I'm going to get to bed so that I can wake up tomorrow clean my room, do some summer reading, hygenate, eat a healthy breakfast, and be off to work by 10.