I used to wonder why you couldn't feel the world turning, and why when you jumped in the air, the earth didn't scoot over a few inches before you landed on the ground. Growing up was the same way. You don't feel it happening, but it does. I used to have a pair of green and purple slip-on canvas shoes with a picture of Ariel from The Little Mermaid on them. They were too big, and for weeks I would try them on again, just to find that they were still too big. A few weeks later, I tried them on again, and they were too tight to even wear.

This chapter of my life (college and such), for the first time, I really feel myself growing. I can point out milestones, things that make me stronger and events that spurred me on to even bigger things. Changes in thought and opinion, horizons broadened. I really like it. I haven't consciously been aware of my growing up before now. It's always just flown by, unnoticed until I observe myself in retrospect.

Yesterday, I did photography for my first official event-- a 50th wedding anniversary party. It went pretty well, minus the fact that my favorite lens is broken (hopefully not irreparably), and I'm really sore. It felt good, though, to be doing something purposefully, knowing that it was preparing me for bigger things.

Tomorrow, I move in to my new apartment. I had a semi-crisis trying to decide what color to paint my room. I was set on green, but now am deciding between a really pretty blue-green and a light purple. We'll see. I also bought this freakin awesome mirror from World Market. I'm kind of super-excited. Yay for a new place!

I'm starting my last year of college. It makes me feel like I've missed out, for some reason. I don't have any concrete, unforgettable Carolina experiences. It's just been this lifestyle I've gotten used to. I think I'm going to have to consciously soak up Chapel Hill this year.

With love and beginnings/endings,
Megan

-Move to California, preferably San Francisco. Maybe commute from Sausalito. Eat healthily.
-Move to New York. Attend Gallery Church. Reach out to the AIDS population. Stick out like a sore southern thumb. Love the energy of the city. Watch the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Center. Be a part of everything.
-Join Americorps, live in New York, participate in the above.
-Join the Peace Corps, go somewhere. Do something important to help people.
-Join in with a missions organization, go anywhere, and love people.
-Move to Stockholm. Be a tour guide or some kind of working professional. Be a part of a church plant.
-Live in Italy. Work with a school or study abroad program.
-Stay in RDU, do... something.
-Something else.

I can't believe I need to have some kind of clue about what I'm doing in, like, 3 months.

Any recommendations?

With love and entering the real world in less than a year,
Megan

Sometimes I really make myself laugh. I am so vague and nonsensical when I blog. I'll try to be better about that.

I'm moving out today, living at home for the next week or so while I work at day camp (YAY). I am thrilled to be able to hang out with 5-6 year-olds next week. Being at college is awesome, but I really miss kids. I've been super-jealous of all the Carolina kids' camp counselors this summer. But now I get to play with kids for a WHOLE week!!

Man, is God good. I've been reading through Psalms, which is really refreshing. It's nice to see human emotion in the Bible, especially when it's really conflicted and inconsistent. It mirrors me a lot, and sometimes a psalm will start out really angsty, and then at the end the writer reminds himself of God's truth and convinces himself to trust it. I love that, because I feel like it's so much of my own experience-- getting angry and messing up, but reminding myself of God's promises.

It's thundering. So much for going to the pool in a few minutes.

I went to the beach with my Bible study last weekend. It felt so nice to be hanging around on the beach, doing nothing of importance with no itinerary. And it was so sweet to get to know a lot of the girls in my Bible study better. I love that group of girls. And I'm going to choir tonight at church, which is quite exciting. I think it will be great fun.

I need to get more of my stuff moved out to my car before it starts pouring rain! Yikes!

With love and a new favorite hoodie,
Megan

Today I'm feeling the need to escape. To move to New York and get a job, join a really awesome church and start over (Bristol and Emily can move with me-- that'd be great). Why do I always feel like I need to be somewhere else? I am so content, and yet I know there are bigger things... better things that will be within grasp soon, I suppose.

I made a friend recently who has challenged the way I think. Just by his words in everyday conversation, I feel challenged. To think deeply and quickly. To be able to access extensive knowledge because I have read and taken in important things. To be motivated to learn. It's funny how much you can learn from simple conversations with people.



On a totally different note, some things are impossible to explain to people. I'm coming to a point where I'm comfortable with what God has shown me in certain areas in my life. It feels great to know that something is right-- that something is doubtlessly of God. But then when you try to explain it verbally, there aren't nearly enough words. Or there are too many meaningless words.

God has so been my refuge lately. He has been calling me to Himself, and finally I am tuning my ear to Him a little better. Through books and His word and tactile experiences, He is making Himself so real to me. I stood with my feet in the ocean Friday night, looking up at a vast sky of stars and feeling so small but so full. To think that He desires me-- that thought became so simultaneously real and unbelievable to me for the first time. (You know those thoughts that you should have thought before, and you are just now grasping them for the first time? It's kind of humbling.)

Anyway, I guess God is just being Himself, and He reveals glimpses of Himself through my experiences.

And I love Him for reminding me of Himself, even when things seem unbearable. For example, mid-horrible-cry, I think of how sweet it would be to spend time with Him. What could be more comforting?

With love and dehydration,
Megan

also, Nichole Nordeman is just good. "Brave" has been my theme song lately (thanks to Em).

There are a lot of things I don't understand right now-- things that seem to have gone awry, or that aren't quite the way they should be. I trust that they'll be set right. But my heart is heavy with some things... for a friend to understand that he is loved and that his debt has already been paid. And for difficult goodbyes to soften and fade into something new and beautiful.

My hair smells like dye. Ew.

Hello, Secondhand Serenade. You are wonderful. (I am talking to Emily and she is introducing me to new and fantastic music. I love her. And for more reasons than that.)

I miss Firenze a lot. I close my eyes sometimes and mentally walk around Florence. Is that weird? Probably.

with love and sleepiness,
Megan

I'm sitting outside at a bus stop in the rain. My bus doesn't come for another half hour. And my surroundings are really peaceful and I've been so stressed today, so this is wonderful.

And it just got more wonderful because there's a rainbow.

Let me paint the atmosphere for you: I'm at an outdoor bus stop under a dirty overhang. It's been raining, but it's reduced to sprinkles now, and the air is still really thick and clean with rain. I can see the light of a really beautiful sunset on the tops of buildings... it's a deep orangey yellow. There's a faint rainbow directly in front of me. My feet are wet in my leather flip flops (I did not plan well for this weather).

And I can breathe. I had a project due tonight and a test tomorrow, both of which have been consuming my mind all day. It's so nice just to sit, and be in the midst of beauty, even if I'm weird and beauty takes the form of rain and wet bricks and a rainbow partially obscured by the social work building. This is just a really good moment. I don't know.

And there's no one around me, so I can hum and sing softly a tune that's been in my head all day.

I like documenting these really peaceful moments.

With love and wet feet,
Megan

It's funny how some places arouse emotions like crazy. I went to camp last night, which always does that to me. I was there for 10 years. I became myself there. And I have continued to grow since then. I said hellos and goodbyes, and as I was waiting to deliver brownies, I sat on the beach volleyball court in the empty ballfield. The combination of an indigo sky, cricket chirps and somewhat distant familiarity calmed my heart, and I sat, humming a hymn. God has done so much in me. Even though things are different for me now, I look back on working at camp-- and images remain fresh in my mind, and I think of late nights on the porch, staff meetings, and loving those kids. Loving them because God, my wonderful God, was spilling His love over on me.

I'm different than I was that last summer. God has broadened my world and softly coaxed me away from that home-- that beautiful, sacred place where my heart has found rest for so many years. I stood in the middle of the camp road, dust and gravel under my feet, and watched the entire camp gather around the basketball court for fireworks. Fireworks started to go off, and boy counselors started singing patriotic songs in big, silly voices while children cheered, silhouetted by sparks and flashes of green and white light. I cried a good cry--for the first time in a while--as I turned around and walked into the dark to my car. And as I sobbed softly, I felt a familiar peace flood over me.

Some things are so hard to let go of.

With love and watermelon,
Megan