Happiness is: Haley

I've known my best friend Haley for two decades now. 

Fairly, the first was spent in bitter enmity. She'll recall my bossiness, I recall her wild ways.

When you grow up, though, sometimes the things that prevented friendship are the very parts that keep it together.

Tempered, my bossiness turned into a general maintenance of stability.

Tempered, she learned to understand when to whip out the fun.

Together, we can go out or stay in and make a party out of anything, keeping it small (for me) but raucous (for her).

My mom loves when Haley is around because she's the only person who can evoke a true gut laugh from me, and so easily.

I love when Haley is around because everything seems to have more sparkle and sun when she's with me.

It's been a really long time since we've gotten to hang out but have pieced our long distance together through phone calls and Pinterest and the single hour we shared in person a month or so ago when she was down for her sister's wedding.

It was a great relief and great joy, then, to hear she was coming down from Denver and coming over to me in Arkansas for a day.

I got off work early, we girl talked, went grocery shopping, made enchiladas, went on a run to Goodwill for a Twister search that ended in a blue sequin spandex onesie, had friends over, ate ice cream on the kitchen floor, played games, and talked late into the night.

Growing up can be especially hard on friendships, as you move around or move out of them.

It makes you especially thankful for those friendships which grow with you, flex and form and flow.

Advice for Aspiring Writers

It's rather ironic that I'm writing this considering that I haven't written creatively in two years now. Nevertheless,

1.) Spend some time each day reading. Read everything. Read non-fiction, fiction, newspapers, smut magazines (People is my favorite), poetry, prose, essays, philosophy, theology, modern, classic, contemporary. Broaden your scope as widely as you can. Inspiration comes from collaboration.

2.) Find a writing friend. My best guy friend for a very long time was named Peter. He is bursting with passion and ideas and words and talking to him is like plugging in to to a supercharger. Every time we would meet up for coffee, I would leave buzzing with residual energy, ready to write volumes of work. Actually, it was after he took me to Panera for my birthday that Woodsy was born. It's my favorite thing I've written, a short novel for a class. Bounce ideas off your friend, exchange pieces with one another for critique and accountability. Friends help you build and keep momentum.

3.) Schedule. Each and every day, whether it's in a notebook or a computer, write. Every day. Preferably during the same time slot every day but at least half an hour every single day. Journal, write a vignette of someone, copy down a conversation you overheard, paint a word picture, music and restaurant and coffee shop reviews, something.

4.) Stay away from screens. Speaking from experience, screens suck out your brain, soul, and creative energy. If you have to be glued to a screen for work, write in a journal for a change of pace.

5.) Get out. Leave your house. Leave the office. Go sit in the lawn and garden section or Walmart, go sit in a coffee shop, go to a local art fair, go to a local flea market, go people watch! Talk to strangers, non-stalkerly watch and listen to strangers, volunteer at nursing homes and talk to old people, babysit, go to museums and make up stories about the people in different paintings or the people who painted them, take a foreign language class at the community college, take a pottery class, go to a wine/painting session (Pinot's Palate is fun). Go, do, collect stories.

6.) If you're a recent college graduate especially, get a job straight out of college that has absolutely nothing to do with your english degree and don't take any crap for it. Work as a dental assistant, waitress, night guard at a museum, do something that will force you to build experience outside of the pages of a book. Collect stories. Make up stories. Re-vision stories you have lived.

7.) "Write shitty first drafts" (in the words of my college writing professor). Don't worry if what you're writing is worth a Pulitzer prize. It's not. Accept it and have fun creating without self-consciousness. You can revise and redesign later.

8.) Write everything. Write poems and prose and non-fiction essays and fiction chapters and short stories and children's stories. Write about the construction and maintenance of garage doors, about the men who maintenance them, about the families of the men who maintenance them, about the hopes and dreams of the kids in the families of the men who maintenance garage doors, about the adventures of imaginary friends in the hopes and dreams of the kids in the families of the men who maintenance garage doors, about the glitter pony unicorn pets of the imaginary friends in the  hopes and dreams of the kids in the families of the men who maintenance garage doors.

If you run out of creative juices, remind yourself that you are a creative person because you were creatively made. It's in your genes, in your very DNA. Sometimes it just needs be a little teased out into the open again.

I guess that's where I am, in the phase of telling myself, "I have written, I can write, I will write again."

Something Old, Something New

Frequently, I think up a phrase or really good word or, I don't know, a whole paragraph's description of something and don't have a pen on me. Or paper. So, into my phone they go.

I try to delete it out of there once it's been used.

Today I found an email that I had kept for reference.
I liked it.
So I'll share it because it's encouraging, especially since lately I've been feeling a little lonely. It's amazing. I have friends all over the world but just not one in my state. Funny how our own words can encourage us more than other people's.

Last year in February, a professor of mine sent me an email asking several questions about how I am. It took me about a month to respond. And this is what I said:

"I have indeed found my rhythm. It turns out, we're all kinda lonely. And when you realize that, it's not so hard to find your boldness. I've deepened two of my four friendships from last semester and befriended three of my four coursemates. We hang out now, get coffee, make plans to have weekend getaways and horseback riding days. I can't tell you how many times (I could, actually. It's five) I've heard another person here say the phrase, 'I've found it really difficult to make friends here and am often alone' in the past month and a half. It's crazy how similar so many of us are without realizing it. And yet, we all assume we're the only ones.
I'm able to enjoy my classes more now, am doing less of the actual homework (wow, what? Prioritizing relationships over tasks? Me?!), am giving some serious thought to sending out a couple papers for publishing, and do a lot of baking. They love my baking and apparently, Americans are known for loving (and rocking at) baking. Who knew?!
The Lord is good. What I have experienced since being back could be described as nothing short of a supernatural miracle in teh social sphere. Could never have anticipated or even asked for hte level of grace and favor and love and even "like" I have been given. Wow.
In the past week, I've had three different people, whose last Jamie sighting was December, see me and kind of wig out about how different I look, how alive I look. One Irish lady shock me hard and told me about my exuding 'vim'. Haha. It was so cute. I blogged about it. And the thing is, I feel alive. I wasn't ready to come back. I was a little better, but I was still rocked to my core. Now, though, I could not feel more separated. There wasn't a sudden moment of change; it was gradual, but I am alive. Very. And very passionately. And very thankfully.
So that's my very long and probably very ungrammatical answer. I am well. Praise Jesus."

Culture shock, man. It really does take about half a year to start feeling at home, at peace, and get some gumption to go get 'em.
And when you forget that, it's easy to be discouraged.

I'm starting to finally feel settled enough to think again.
I'm reading, I'm forcing myself to journal a bit each night, the fog in my head is starting to clear up.

Even things at work seem to be getting better.

The reception I hosted in Texas last week was well attended, and the board of trustees seemed to have a really good time bonding with my wonderful, wonderful Texan students.

And, in a couple weeks, school counselors from all over the states will come to our school for an event, and over half are mine. There are even some new ones that have never come to our event before. I'm so excited.

Finally, I learned yesterday that a chunk of the Trifecta is coming back to me.
My six best friends are scattered across the globe. Just...so far away. Colorado, Oklahoma, Australia, Washington DC, Scotland, Northern Ireland.

And, after a job offer to her husband yesterday, my Caity Ruth is moving back to Tulsa. Still an Oklahoma away, but an hour and a half closer than where she is now, and that's where my family is located.

The past few years have been hard for us. It's just difficult to keep someone your best friend when, I mean, they aren't there in a literal way. You aren't doing life with them on the daily. I feel like I'm getting my best friend back. That is a really good feeling.

Life at 23

On my birthday last year, I wrote a post entitled, "The Makings Of"  and gave you a little insight to the tweetables of my last few years, with headings designed after the mix cd titles my best friend Caity made me.

The final year, (as I was counting by school semesters really instead of year to year, which I am now doing) was left inconclusive. So, here's what you've missed, and here's how I got to be where I am today, 23 years in.

Year 22 Fall Semester:
I Guess We Made It, or At Least We Made it this far. 22. 
First semester of my Master's degree was characterized by anxiety, waiting, depression, and the Lord.

-Moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland
-Traveled to Paris, France 
-Fall hard out of love 
-Began writing for a content developing company 
-Gained a second nephew, Samuel Jonathan 

My people: 
Noah Baslé
Leslie Lancaster (penpal)
Kristina Grimes Pugatch (cousin)
Trifecta and Kira/Abby (via text)
Anna (monthly skype friend)
Elaine (housemate)
David Tinsley (gardener)
Hadden Wilson (boss)
My mom

Nobody Likes You When You're 23

Ironically, that just wasn't true for this past January to December. 

No semester/year could have been more different than those first four months in Ireland. 

I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm loved. 

-Made friends

-Second semester of Master's degree 

-Traveled to Prague, Czech Republic

-Traveled to Vienna, Austria

-Traveled to Scotland (and white water canoed into the Loch Ness. Epic) 

-Dyed my hair for the first time ever (dark brown/black) 

-Re-met and subsequently fell for Julius Walt

-Married off my best friend to her best friend 

-Moved to Arkansas into Glenwood Gables 

-Began working for John Brown University as an Admissions Counselor 

-Dyed my hair red 

-Finished writing Master's thesis 

-Traveled to Belfast to graduate from Master's thesis 

-Gained a goddaughter, Fiona

My people: 

-Eli Zuspan and Emily Orf 

-Amy Burnside (Belfast Bff)

-Naomi Deering (BBFF) 

-Lauren, Kiera, and Lynsey (BBFFs) 

-Jo, Amy Finlay, Emma (Master's mates) 

-Megan (BBFF)

-Leslie Lancaster

-Peter Myers

-Adam Howard

-Kristina Grimes Pugatch (cousin)

-Trifecta and Kira/Abby (via text)
-Anna (monthly skype friend)
-Elaine (housemate-belfast)
-David Tinsley (gardener)
-Hadden Wilson (boss)
-Sarah Cowles and Liz Chance (AR housemates)
-Madison Stewart
-Tracy Balzer, Kristi Neerman, Perri Blake (mentors)
-Julius Walt

One Last Day, But It's Not the Same

It's different, very different.
And I love that when I will get to say, "Last December in Belfast" it will not be followed with tears. It will be followed with joy.

David (you absolutely remember David, my sweet, wonderful houseman and groundskeeper)  had stopped by the house twice yesterday to see me, but I'd been away at uni all day.

8am it was! And my reserved, British friend kissed me right on the face. Ha!

I hate that the picture is blurry, but I do enjoy having him in photo form. David will never know or be able to understand the depth to which his practical mercy on me touched my life.
Like the time I came in to see a tulip on the counter and, when I thanked him on my way out the door (he was in the garden), he told me, "Musta been a nail or somethin' break it. Found it on the ground. Thought you could talk to it."

Or the time just after the team left, my boyfriend left, and my nephew entered the world (it was a big three days) and I was alone and sad, he came and found me and asked if I would like to put up the Christmas decorations. David does not ask anyone to do anything. He does things. You would understand if you knew David, but that was his way of taking care of, giving me something to do, something to feel a part of. David is a very good man.

Another very good man collected me for tea just after--Hadden. :)
He was my boss over in Belfast, coordinating JBU activities there. We talked over programme information and life stuff.
Getting back into his car after dropping me off (not even facing me), he said, "Let that young man of yours know that if he doesn't treat you right...I'll kill him". Then drove off.
And he's from Belfast, so you know he ain't lyin'.

Next came Amy and Matt.
We hung out at Lakeside, went to city centre, went out for lunch at a fun little pub, shopped a bit, roamed the Christmas market, took the party back home again, watched Everything is Illuminated, and just had a really good time.

When Amy left, Lauren appeared. :)

Last cuddles all around.

Home is a place you fight for. Home is a place that knows you, that you feel known in. Home is a place you feel wanted and loved. When I left for Oklahoma last December, Belfast was not my home. What a blessing, what a treasure, that it was when I stepped off the plane just one year later.

Lakeside, Belfast, my friends (and a lot of Starbucks goers) saw my soul stripped naked, saw me broken, and saw the Lord rise me up again.
And for that, for seeing, for staying, for speaking out truth, they became my home.

My Jet Lag a Leettle

Confession: I may or may not go to sleep at 8:30ish back home. Sometimes later. But 8:30 is preferable.

So, when I went to bed at 2:30am here, my body thought it was very normal.

I felt an alarm wasn't necessary to get em up and at em for my 11:30am coffee with some mates.
However, when Matt woke me up at 1pm to make sure I was still going to the movie, I was obviously proved wrong. Yikes. Won't be doing that again.

Made it only a half hour late to our film at the Queen's Film Theatre (second to last item on my Belfast Bucket List).

"Good Vibrations" only cost us 13p each, which was awesome, and the film was so so good.
A punk rock "godfather" from Belfast during the Troubles era. AND the screenplay was written by one of my favorite NI authors, Glenn Patterson, who wrote Number 5. Love him,

Then Boojum and books with Matt (and a tour of the library) then a very long, very wet wait for the bus (the visit wouldn't be the same without it).

Belfast: Where Umbrellas go to die

Lauren greeted me at Lakeside and whisked me away to pick up Kiera and have a girls' night.
The Christmas market for yummy dutch pancakes and nutella then off we went to dinner.
Then, to finish up my BBL, we went and saw the Big Fish (also the title of one of my favorite movies, I will add).

The frozen rain tried to immobilize us, and we may have gotten a wee bit lost on the way, but we found it! And danced and laughed and howled into the night before heading home and chatting till midnight.

a glowing "doll on the ball", the much mocked symbol of peace, placed between the two once very divided parts of the city

the beffers

umbrella: conquered 

We've also decided to make a covenant to see each other once at least once a decade.

Another good, long, wet day had. :) I love loving here.

My Jet Don't Lag

The planes over?
Best ever.

From Tulsa to Chicago it was clear skies and sunshine.
Arrived in the dark windy city 30 minutes early actually.

A short 4 hour layover then it was off to Dublin. Had a whole row to myself on the largest aircraft I've ever been on.
Arrived in the dark windy city a full hour early.

Got through passport security with ease and walked straight up to my bag. The whole thing took 5 minutes start to finish. Unreal.

Then:

She drove all the way from Belfast to lift me, wee pet, on almost no sleep. Gem, that girl is.

When we got into Belfast, we had a super search for parking, then got lunch/killed time before 2

At the cafe, though, I heard my name screamed and Lauren appeared out of nowhere. YES!

Ames and I turned in the hard copy of my thesis (hallelujah chorus) then picked up our regalia (hallelujah chorus) and graduation tickets (which I will give to two strangers and ask them to pose as family).

Then home to the "new me" and old friend at Lakeside (where Matt and I had to break back into because he had accidentally locked himself out. oops)

I had brought him Christmas from his family in Texas, so we opened his presents and chatted until my church mate Megan got here.

 

She took us for ice cream which turned into bonding all together until 2:30am.
Very long first day. Very best first day.

Back to the Island

In three and a half hours, I'm hopping on a plane and heading to Northern Ireland.

Tuesday through Saturday morning, I get to battle jet lag whilst spending time with some of my favorite people.

It's a melt that Naomi has up and moved to Spain and Lynsey is on placement in Paris, but all the rest of my best friends and colleagues are in the planner.

I'm so excited I can hardly sit still--early apologies to my aisle mates on the plane--

Graduation itself is at 2:30pm on Thursday; that's 8:30am for my folks back home in the south.

And, Queen's does this very wonderful livestream, so friends and family who want to tune in for some hoods and beautiful accents can do so here when the time comes. Heresay claims that there's curtsying involved. I truly hope that isn't so.

It is a strange and wonderful feeling to be thrilled at the prospect of returning to Belfast.

The first time I went, in the summer of 2012, I was too unsure of what I had gotten myself into to be properly excited.
The second time, I was too in love and saddened by separation to fully appreciate my move.
The third time, I was determined that it would be a better experience than the second, but that isn't the same as elation.

Now, with a stable mind and body and heart, with friends like family waiting for me at baggage claim (literally), I am overwhelmed with thankfulness and joy.

I'm going home. :)

Courtesy of Lauren Esler. :)

Apropos

I believe in you readers. You know that word is "ahpp-roah-proah" and not "a-pro-pros", a kitchy short for "appropriate".

Now that that vocab lesson is covered, onto the real business at hand: the bestie.
Travel season brought me straight into the apartment of my best friend of 7 years: Miss Hannah Lee Kira Kramer. :)

I get to stay with her and Bijou (wee pup) and then drive to Tulsa with her on Thursday.
The last time we had a chance to be with one another truly was on my birthday this past January, which was a miracle in and of itself. The next time I came home from NI for her wedding to Tyler.

Now, 10 months later, we finally get some time to just be with one another.
And, granted, we are exhausted and not very exciting to be around, but that's more than we have gotten in a really long time.

Out of my tight little circle of best friends, K is the one I spend the most time in communication with, whether it be through pins sent to one another on pinterest or texting about our future dream of opening a coffee shop with one another.

The design process is pretty complex; we're pretty dead set on accomplishing this before we die, and also of living together when we're old and our husbands have gone on to the great big coffee shop in the sky.

It's a beautiful thing we've got going.

What it Takes

Recently, I've been contemplating the concept of the "best friend."

What does it mean to be a best friend or to have a best friend?
Are best friends only to be added in the "teen years"?
Does one ever cease to be a best friend?

At various points in my life, I have claimed and have been claimed as best friend.
However, the entire institution no longer makes sense to me.

As a child and high schooler, the best friend was the one I had sleepovers with, kidnapped other best friends with, ran through wal-mart (and, okay, maybe deserted her in a shopping cart when she broke her leg...sans her crutches-turned-oars).
The best friend is the one that calls you at 11pm to show up, let yourself in to the house (because of course you know the garage code), and help zip her into a suitcase (because of course).
The one who kicks it with you in a movie theater parking lot drinking cocktails out of quik trip cups because it's your birthday.
The one who belts Muppet Treasure Island quotes/songs with you in inappropriate places.

But now?

We're all separated. We can't do life together. We get updates but not the live-action.
So does that mean that a best friend is the one you want to see when you go home? Or the one you still call to talk through the minutia of life? Or the one you talk to bi-annually? Or are best friends situational?

I posed my question to my best friend Haley (to which she would say, "your very very best friend Haley?")

Haley's solution to my query was that there are your best friends in various situations and then there are your long-term friends and then there are those who used to be both, who may one day become both, or the lucky ones who were, are, and will be both.

This answer helped me in my classification process because it takes more than mere consistency to be a best friend (though that is important). It's not mere furniture, though.
It's a combination of consistency, of no crap taking, of conflict resolution, of clear communication, of charm and laughter, of compatibility, and of care to understand who you are, even when that person changes.

The long-term beffers have been with you before you became "you" and have weathered the changes and breakups and insanity and distance and all the other pieces that have contributed to your personhood. They stay.

Man's Best Friend

I mentioned it before, but while I drive, I listen to the audiobible.
Now, I'm not more holy than anybody else (probably less holy actually). Full disclosure: I didn't select the audiobible for any other reason besides the fact that it was the only audiobook in our library at school.

It's soothing. Believe you me, trashy pop music has its place in Dallas traffic, but long distance driving goes to the Bible.

Currently, I've made it through the gospels and acts.

Now, I've grown up reading the gospels, studying them in various Bible classes all growing up, and have had all sorts of other interactions. I felt as though I knew those things. Listening to them, though, I heard so many things I had never heard previously. It felt like experiencing the gospels for the first time.

And, listening to them all in a row, I was able to really hear the ways in which they differed from one another in tone and content. The intended audiences were made very clear.

But the one that made me really feel was the gospel of John.

John, as we know, was the "beloved disciple", the "disciple that Jesus loved."
As I listened to John's account of Jesus, I finally heard that. Patty Kirk, my creative writing professor in university, always told us to "show not tell". Yeah, John never said, "and Jesus, the one whom John loved to freaking death", his use of tone and diction demonstrated clearly clearly clearly his absolute delight in the person of Jesus.

His gospel didn't have a "point." It felt as though he wrote just because he wanted desperately for someone to "get it."
The tone John wrote was the same one in which I would have written about or spoken about my best friends, with that distant look in my eye as I looked back to that day in October Haley and I kidnapped and adopted into our friendship the third point to the trifecta, Caity, that slight catch in my voice as I tell others about the day I met Kira and truly saw the joy of Christ for the first time, those elaborate hand motions I use when bringing up Abby and our mutual love for communication and personality tests.

Haley, the seventh grade social studies teacher in Colorado.
Caity, the RUF intern in Oklahoma.
Kira, the photographer in Texas.
Abby, the law student in DC.

They've got titles, but ain't nobody know them like I know them. My stories would differ from every other person.

I bet you John felt really similarly.
Jesus, the risen Lord.
But, to John, Jesus, the man, his best friend, the one whom he could write of all day long, tell every story and yet, if he did, "even the whole world would not have enough room for the books that would be written",

I have long loved Jesus the Lord. But I have just fallen into love with Jesus, the man.

Lasts

• Last lunch with my MA friends (Boojum and Common Grounds after for coffee and traybakes)
• Last goodbye and house reset for any groups I'll be in charge of (Family and Human Services. We liked them very much). 
• Last bonding time with Heather and Jonny (My smallgroup leaders during the past year, featured here with their kids, Heather's sweet sister Lorna, and some cute kids I was babysitting)
  
• Last trip to the special collections (to look up an old MA dissertation for help on how to structure my own)
• Last coffee in the Starbucks on Botanic (the site of many a public tear shed)
• Last night in my room, St. Patrick (They needed my room for one of the other group's students)
• Last "class" (technically that was a couple weeks ago, but I had to return to meet with my dissertation supervisor) 
• "The Last Supper" with the girls (High Tea with Lynsey, Lauren, and Megan)
• Last Botanic outing (dinner with Steve and Hot Greg)
• Last cuddles with Lauren at midnight (really good surprise)
• Last Sunday morning at Belfast City Vineyard (Happy Pentecost, errybody!)
• Last hugs with Kiera and my other church friends (Held it together dynamically until my final hug with Kiera)
• Last hugs with Megs (she came over to drop by a "Northern Irish Must-Haves" gift. So lovely)
• Last tea with Naomi (where I passed the torch of Mac n Cheese and Kool-Aid off to her, we finished the season of New Girl we started when I got here, and she gave me an "on-flight entertainment" gift, wrapped but I'm assured it's customs approved)
• Last bag packed (It was an ordeal. Don't even want to discuss how much cursing happened)

Now to spend my last night in the place I've called home for almost a year now and will forever be part of my soul. Lynsey told me I'm allowed to claim myself as 1/22 Northern Irish now and would be more legitimate in doing so than nearly every American that claims Irish heritage. It made me laugh. And it's probably true. 

These here are my last goodbyes. Wow. 

The Ultimate Penultimate

'Twas the day before the day before I leave and all through the house, there were traces that I'd worn makeup and a blouse.

Megs came to fetch me in her tea-time ensemble, and we met up with the girls on the Lisburn Road. 

For my departure, high tea was called for, and we sat in a dainty room with dainty plates and cups and sandwiches and sweets and felt very proper. Pinkies up indeed. 

Except for the fact that our conversation was all over the place from discussion on times we'd accidentally had soured milk (Lauren claimed it made her tea taste of strawberries) to manroasting to medical stories. Every once in a while we'd chuckle about how everyone else in the room was probably talking about tea-appropriate topics, such as the weather. Or doilies. 

We ended our time together with failed selfies (memories must be documented) and a prayer. Until that last bit there, I'd held it together but, like every single member of my family, one word into talking to the Lord, and I crumpled. We hugged, I gave them letters, and we parted. But not forever. 

The girls that started it all when they adopted me in October. 

Fancy tea. The pot with the flowers in it says, "Belfast Tease", which I think is darling. 

Snuggles and disgust at airplanes and America

Megs. :) And my practically iridescent skin that so does not know what it's in for soon 

Walking into the sunset together. Bye bye besties.

No time for tears, though! 

When Megan dropped me back off at the house, I changed shoes and went right back into  the city with Steve and Hot Greg (nickname since Freshman year of uni. It ain't changed). 

We got dinner at Lee Gardens and could not have had more fun with the ambiance. It was still bright outside, but they lit a candle on our table. From the ceiling were downward twisting light fixtures made of glass daisies. Along the railing (there was an upstairs, too) were blue icicle lights which lit up in sections bottom to top instead of top to bottom. 

And, to top it off, playing from the speakers was a playlist including "Heart of Worship", "My Heart Will Go On", and "Trouble". 

We made silly faces and talked ridiculously and seriously and just had a really good time. Both of those guys have been my friends since the very beginning of JBU and both just graduated and are moving to Florida. So it was nice having a chance to get some facetime with them before we all go off in separate directions. 

The day quieted down then. We got home and played Spoons as well as Resistance, then Nadia and I retired to "our" room to watch a few episodes of The Office while I messaged a friend from home. 

Over, right?

Not quite. 

Around midnight thirty, I got a text from Lauren asking if I was awake. 

A few minutes after, she showed up in my driveway, having been on her way home from the cinema with her mum and wanting one last snuggle. 

As quickly as I could, I unbolted all 9 bolts and burst into the moonlight where she jumped into my arms. 

It was definitely a movie moment and a little tearful, I'll admit. 

Don't know when I'll see these folks again--any of them--but I do know it's not forever. 

One Last Hurrah

Last Friday, Naomi and I hopped a ferry in The Clio and got ourselves over to Scotland to spend the weekend with her brother.

Now, before I went, my mental image of the weekend was hanging with her bro in some sort of little apartment sleeping on the floor and wandering the middle of nowhere during the day.

That is just not what happened.

Naomi had neglected to mention (or I had neglected to remember) that her brother is an outdoor pursuits instructor. So, we spent the weekend in a house just a little smaller than mine in the middle of The Highlands with a bunch of other twenty somethings. It was an absolute blast.

Does this not remind you of "Heidi"? Just a little bit? 

Friday night we were just pooped so, after a cup of tea (Naomi has an addiction), we went to sleep.

In the morning, we and a group headed out with a bunch of kayaks, canoes, and gear to go white water canoeing. Our river ended up in Loch Ness.

Though we called for her sweetly, I'm sad to report that Nessie was feeling a bit of stage fright that afternoon, so we did not, in fact, catch a glimpse of that grand Scottish creature.

What we did do is get fried to a crisp, despite the lack of heat.

Sunday morning, sunburn and all, we went to this wee sweet Scottish church.
Actually, it was in every way just like the church I attended back in Siloam when I went to JBU. Except they all had Scottish accents and there were graves in the front yard. You know, the norm.

After church, Naomi and I, along with her brother and a couple of his friends, went on a "walk."

We had different definitions of walking. It was a scramble. A fun scramble, but a scramble nonetheless up and across large (and small and mid-sized) sharp rocks along the shoreline.

In so doing, we came across a pod (herd? pack?) of seals! Heresay had it that there were also otters about, but we saw none of them.

Monday morning it was time to leave.
Naomi and I had a very, very long day of travel ahead of us.

2 cars, 2 buses (including a layover in Glasgow), and 2 ferries in order to deposit me back at Lakeside Manor, but the journey was gorgeous.