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You know, its been over a year since I graduated with a master's degree. Some things are the same...but it amazes me how much more has changed in the past year. I still don't have a job, but my identity is not in that. I still haven't passed that license exam...but my identity is not in that. It seems as though it has been a time of change....so what has changed...
My big brother is engaged. He will be getting married this winter. This is a whole new concept...its no longer me and my brother and sister...its my and my brother and my sister and my soon to be sister-in-law... Sister-in-law? How does that relationship work? Seriously. I am so excited for them...but its foreign. Its new. I am excited to support them and stand beside them on this day.
My idea of loving someone has completely changed. To love is not to fix everything or take the pain away. To love is not to be selfish and do things that are easy. Loving is hard. Loving means point out when someone isn't living up to the life they claim to live, loving someone means feeling their pain, loving someone means pulling all nighters in the hospital, loving someone means walking through the hard stuff to see them on the other side. Loving someone is hard...so hard.
Its been over a year since we started working with our Karen family...and today I could never picture not having them a part of my life. It is no longer a family we work with....they are OUR family...we are just as much a part of their family as they are ours. It is incredible to see a child grow up...incredible and so hard. I have become a role model to them...and they look up to us. But that means doing the hard things too.

Hard things....like losing friends, making friends, speaking truth...family stuff...

Eight years ago I spent a weekend with a dear friend from camp. We swam in the lake and we flew in Papa's plane...but since then it has only been infrequent phone calls, an email...a facebook message. But that changed us. We learned to rely on each other for conversations when no one else was around, we shared the hard stuff, and the fun stuff. We talked each other through school and graduate school. But this week we saw each other face to face. It had been so long. And yet now...I miss her so much more....its like I had learned to be where we were...and now that we have seen each other again...i miss her more.

I apologize for not keeping up on this....we'll try to be better...and I'll try to share some of the things that have happened since November...you know....the things that have made me who I am today...