i love

i love it all.
i love my classes and the readings that are sometimes so intresting that i show them to my roommate
i love my professors who pull me to edge of my chair with the way they spin stories and explain history and prepare me for life
i love coming home to 305,
to ray lamontagne and dark chocolate and curling up on my bed for a rest when i just can't go any longer
i love living with curly, blonde-haired emily,
for the pan of brownies she always has sitting on the counter-top,
for our midnight tedashii jams,
and the everything we share.
i love swimming faster than i knew i could,
and being so pleasantly surprised by the open & kind community found there,
in the deep crystal water, smith center.
i love the busyness and the rushing
towards some purpose i'm still working out.
i love all this knowledge filling me up
and the way it makes life living look differently.
i love listening to these women.
i love their stories and i love seeing the certain way they smile as something true
all the sudden becomes real to them.
i love jumping onto bed, completely exhausted,
savoring those peaceful moments when i lie still,
not wanting to fall asleep quite yet because the doing nothing feels so very nice.
i love this community
and the friends who know me. really know me.
i love the hundreds of ways god throws ministry opportunities at my open hands,
and i love that there are more girls to have coffee dates with than i have time.
i love my church,
and i love my quiet time,
at that round table next to the window where the sunshine pours in.
i love how much i'm growing,
so much so.
i love these lessons, even (especially) the painful ones.

blessed. grace.

and i won't forget how,
this is the week i
had an emotional break-down in russian class and in professor valente's office,
made a 60 on the quiz and 66 on the test,
very nearly drowned at my first swim practice,
when i realized
i have no. idea what i am doing.
got locked in the stairwell of the ijm building, on the 14th floor.
i learned where not to try to take shortcuts, and that sometimes
doors lock behind you.
so many new challenges and this week
isn't even over yet.