I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time now.  Well I guess you could say my whole life… But really since August when I left LuHi and made a decision that would change my life forever.  Then started counting (100 something days) after I bought my one-way tickets across the country and the world.  Yep, it’s finally here.  And as excited as I am, as ready as I was, saying goodbye was not nearly as easy as I thought it would be.

I thought 3 months would feel a lot longer than it did. But as this last month slowly withered away, I started to realize just how quick it went and how being back, even for this little amount of time, has meant the world to me.  For the last 10 years I lived far enough away from my family and friends from home.  Living out of my car basically (I know a lot of you are laughing just thinking about the packed Cube).   I always lived within a few hours, but still missed out on a lot of the everyday things.  Things like taking my little sister to dance and helping her with homework, spending Thursday nights with my best friend Diana and her beautiful little girl Ava, working with my dad and getting to see just how good he is at what he does, doing Richard Simmons (on VHS tapes no less) on snowy nights with my very energetic and even more loving mom and movie days with my brother and his girlfriend, who is more like another sister to me.  You take for granted sometimes all the little things you miss out on when you’re always trying to work 5 different jobs and make ends meet.  But this all made me realize, that that’s not what life’s about.  All of the money in the world couldn’t replace the people in my life and the laughter and priceless moments that we don’t always stop and see happening right in front of us. 

I feel like I was put in one of those movies where you get to see what life would’ve been like had you chosen a different path.  Had I not moved away after college?  We often think, okay had I not done this or picked this thing over another, maybe I’d be somewhere different.  What if I wasn’t a teacher, but had chosen a different job?  Or had never moved away?  You can go through all of these scenarios in your head and picture what it would have been like… but why bother?  You’ll drive yourself crazy.  You just have to trust your gut.  No matter how many choices or mistakes you make and how much you go through, you just have to keep going.  Because in the end, it’s all worth it.  Every bit of it shapes you and attempts to prepare you for what’s next.

And what’s next is this week in California. One more week with my dad and stepmom and my cousin and good friends. After saying goodbye to my mom, brother and sister (in the pictures to the left and above) it’s nice not having to be away from everyone just yet. Makes me feel sane still… I mean don’t get me wrong I still can’t help but think that I’m a little nuts sometimes.  But this trip is going to change my life. And hopefully for the better. It just feels right.  So even as I drove away from my best friend with tears in my eyes, knowing I wouldnt be there to watch Ava roll over or crawl for the first time, or just stop by if I was having a bad day, and even though I couldn’t see my mom, or give my little sister a hug, I knew I was going to be okay. It was going to be hard without all my family and friends right there, really hard, but if i’ve learned anything these past few months it’s that no matter where we go in life, the people we love will always be there for us, supporting us, pushing us to never be afraid of living out our crazy dreams, even if those dreams take us halfway around the world.

As I sat on the plane today, this Lady Antebellum song came on. I thought the lyrics were kind of perfect:

“You want to give up because it’s dark.  We’re really not that far apart.  So let your heart sweetheart be your compass when you’re lost and you should follow it wherever it may go.  When it’s all said and done you can walk instead of run cause no matter what you’ll never be alone.”

                                                                                                                           Lady Antebellum- Compass