.blast from the past.

so i spent the past week at BFA...at which the past 7 years of my pre taylor life took place. and it was interesting....so very interesting...

on one hand, it was AMAZING to be back. it was just like going home after WAY too long. palmgarten dorm life: meals, pots and pans, computerizing, the porch swing, putting little ones to bed, etc... i fit right back in-- everyone knew who i was, why i was there, and where i belonged. even the new girls didn't find it weird that i was there and knew who they were. one told me "even tho i wasn't here last year, it still feels normal that you're here!" (thanks schenk :D) and another asked me to put her to bed (katey, you're great!). people passed me at school and it would take a second for them to realize that i was an abnormality....especially teachers. it was fabulous to be back again...

but on the other hand, i was now looking at BFA from the outside. as much as i told myself and others that i wasn't a "visitor", as an alumni, i'm no longer student, i'm not staff, and therefore am, technically, an outsider. i was able to step outside of what used to be my comfort zone and see both what makes BFA so great, and what makes it not always so great. it's always been hard for me to express why exactly BFA is so special, so unique, such a different experience. but i saw it...michele phoenix somehow managed to put words to it. but i was also exposed to those parts of BFA that could be improved, that are not all that they could be, and was reminded that nowhere is perfect. and i also felt a surprising lack of emotion at leaving...heck i still miss all those people like crazy. but it was good to find that i was no longer unhealthily attached to a place that is my past. sure it will always hold important memories-- many painful, but most beautiful. but i'm glad i was able to find my new "home" to be truly a new home. if that makes any sense.

ya know...it's really the people that make a place what it is. thank you SO much to all you at BFA who made my years there the amazing-ness that they were and who provided those memories that i will always cherish. and thank you as well to all you at Taylor who have helped it so quickly become a huge part of my life. i love you all!!!

.bittersweet.

just like at the end of every year (and just as i contemplated in my last, seemingly unread post) i return again to the word bittersweet. somehow that word totally and fully encompasses everything i feel in these last couple days, and especially last couple hours. in a little under twelve hours i'll be leaving Taylor and all the wonderful friends i've made here this year....for three long months.

as i was talking to a roommate of mine online yesterday, i told her something that surprised me so much i went back and read it and realized that i really liked what i had just told her (ha...i'm lame. i know):

"departures and arrivals; goodbyes and hellos; pros and cons to everything create that bittersweetness that is always so painfully recurring. but euny, without the bitter, we'd never have the sweet. we'd never grow. we'd never be tested. and we'd never have to lean on God to be our everything."

does that mean i like it any more? nope.
does that make it any easier? absolutely not.
does that mean i can get used to it? wrong again.
but does it mean that God's faithfulness will never cease to amaze me? always.

"God is bigger than a 36 foot dragon" and he's bigger than a thousand goodbyes.

.of life and love and poorly timed goodbyes.

once again it's the end of the year.

these always come all too soon, and yet not soon enough.

and somehow, the timing always seems to be so inconvenient.

i'm completely excited for the summer to be here. i'm so sick of school, and homework, and papers, and thinking and reading, etc, etc, etc...

and yet, there's so much here i don't want to leave; so many people i don't want to leave; so many memories i want to hold on to; so much time that i don't want to waste; so many things that i don't want to wait three months for.

but i was told recently, "it'll be alright" and as simple as that statement is...somehow it made everything better. if they can hold me in a hug, say those words and really believe them, it makes me want to believe them too.

and after all, 3 months really isn't that long...

right?