let's get serious.

okay. so listen. it is not often that i get real serious on this here blog. because one, i am a firm believer in keeping it light and fluffy. there are lots of serious things in my life. i don't want my blog to be like that. i imagine my blog wearing a nice flowing dress, not a business suit. and two, it's my party and i can cry if i want to. which is another way of saying its my blog and i get to talk about whatever i want. because i am the boss. and i am sassy. BUT. something else that is important to me is that my blog be a place that i can tell the world wide web bits of my story. and as you are probably aware, i am still in fact alive. which means that my story is not over. which means that it can still change. despite the fact that i am the main character in my story, i don't always know what is going to happen. i am taking the story illustration too far and i will stop now. can you tell i'm stalling? i am. it's my favorite tactic to use when avoiding certain topics. okay.

you may remember a few months ago when i announced that i would be returning to alaska to counsel at echo ranch for another summer. well. plans change. i'm not going. insert five minutes of me staring at the computer not knowing what to type here. i bought my plane ticket to alaska in like january. which is fine. except for that i had major reservations about going back. warning sign number 1. i remember finding the cheapest ticket on orbitz and being nervous that i wasn't buying it through southwest incase i needed to cancel my flight. warning sign number 2. also, if you want to chat about my undying love for southwest airlines, you can just let me know. their honey roasted peanuts are deeeelish and their cancellation/change fees (or lack there of) are deeelightful. anyway. fast forward to like march. i tell my besties that i do not want to go. except deep down i don't really feel like that is the best way to describe it. they say helpful things to make my brain confused and i eventually begin to panic. like totally panic. on the way to the airport to come back to school after easter break i tell my aunt cindy that i don't think i'm supposed to go to alaska but i'm going to anyway because i have a plane ticket. because obviously that is a valid reason to get on a plane and fly a few hundred miles. she tells me not to go. i tell her she's crazy. except that is when i really began to consider not going. i mean i had prayed about it and thought about it for months before that, but it was always along the lines of hey Jesus, can you please put a neon flashing light in front of me that says go to alaska so that i will feel some peace about going except for probably i'll go anyway because i have a plane ticket. so i finally got real about it and i could not shake the unsettled feeling i had been experiencing for the past few months. i made a pro/con list on an oven. with a dry erase marker. i am not kidding. and even though i considered what was on each side of that list, the words unsettled feelings were screaming at me from the con side. i tried to figure out the source of that feeling, but i couldn't. i didn't understand where it was coming from and no, that wasn't frustrating at all. ha. at the bottom of my pro/con list i wrote out romans 8:28 and at the top i wrote even when i don't understand i will choose you. (listen to that song right now. do it. now.) i felt like saying no to camp was saying yes to blindly following whatever God had planned. so i called camp, and i cancelled my plane ticekt. scary? um yes. hard? yes. kdghusekgshuthsldsfoir? yes. all of that. it was so hard.

i have been home for two weeks now. which basically seems like eternity. but, i can tell you with great confidence that i made the right choice. i am supposed to be home this summer. i can also tell you that i am going to cry a lot. despite how strongly i felt that i wasn't supposed to be in alaska, i still wanted to go. i still want to go. i would kill a moose to be in alaska. on mother's day i flew to milwaukee. and i almost cried on my flight. it was supposed to be the first leg of my journey to alaska. i was supposed to fly out of milwaukee to seattle and then to alaska. i should be leaving for alaska today. instead my flight is sunday and it's going to kansas, not juneau. i am thrilled to be spending a week with courtney in milwaukee. and that i get to see laura graduate on saturday. and then see maria and amanda graduate the next day at home. but i won't lie to you, i am really sad. it is really hard to spend several months thinking that i am going back to my favorite place in the world and then not go. but, i said all along that i only wanted to go back if i was supposed to go back, not just because i wanted to go back.

so. i'll be in lawrence until august 15th. i get to spend a summer with some really great people. i am excited about that. alaska will be on my mind a lot. but it will be okay. this is so long. i am so sorry about that. except that i'm not. also, expect a few changes to my blogaroo. i literally can't handle having so much alaskainess all over it. ridiculous? yes. true? yes. it makes me cry like an infant. so yeah.

wow. that was a novel. now i'm going to enjoy some freshly baked cookies with my freshly baked friend. i think being baked means that you are high on drugs, but really i just mean that she got tan today. the only thing she is high on is life. ummmmmmm... anyway. bye.

ko.