reasons why

"It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."
Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller

i came home early today to screaming trees and a week's worth of mail. i was looking through a magazine and saw an ad that read something like "isn't it funny how 'i can't wait to get there always becomes i can't wait to get home." and it is funny. or something. i have missed my bed this past week, and clean laundry, my apartment and other little things. if i had had those things with me, if i could teleport them back to this past week, i may never have come home.

it's interesting how natural vacation is. it doesn't take any getting used to. and in the midst of it you see it's necessity, and it's underrated status in our world of constantly going. this past week was a week of pure goodness, and i am so glad for it.

i met courtney in boston and we stayed with our friend kendra, except for one night when we stayed with courtney's old friend bashir in nyc. it was so nice to feel so welcome and comfortable with old and new friends who opened their homes to us with nothing but generosity.

we went to the beach and got ice cream, explored cities and ate good food, drank lots of coffee, iced and hot. we ran in both disgustingly hot and beautifully cool weather. we looked in shops, saw movies, and talked a lot. we were good about doing and not; about taking advantage of our freedom by both sleeping in and going and doing. i'd say we did a pretty good job of vacationing.

it was a good week of perspective. it's best to gain that, i think, when outside the situation. you can see what's truly valuable and what you miss, and you can see what things are hard or what has been forced for so long, purely out of routine. it is good to talk through those things with your best friend, especially when their heart seems so much in tune with yours. it is funny to talk about those things through tears on a bus leaving chinatown, surrounded by other languages and weird snoring sounds. it is nice to talk through those things and then listen to music, and to hear songs that speak what you have been saying. it is nice to read what you're thinking printed wittily in a book.

i let go of some things this week and made some refreshing realizations. and some scary, i have no control over that, ones. i saw from a new window what pounds in my heart.

it was a wonderful, glorious week, filled with pursuing joy and celebrating friendship.
thanks, friend. it was so good.
now back to figuring out what's next....