The Last Full Day

Tomorrow, I’m getting on a flight to England.

In many ways, preparing for a journey is simple.  Make a list of all the things that need to be done, line up the details, and cross them off one by one.  Pack my bags, print out flight details, and marathon the final season Downton Abbey.  (I can’t go to the UK without knowing how it ends!)

However, there are things you can’t put on a list and cross off… like emotions.

In many ways, I’m really excited to finally be on my way.  For months, I’ve been dreaming, waiting, and hoping for this journey.  It boggles my mind to think that, one week from now, I will be at L’Abri living a completely different life.

But… excitement isn’t all I’m feeling.

I’m also nervous.  Nervous about travel plans, nervous about logistics, nervous about details.  In my head, I know everything will be just fine.  The last time I flew overseas, I missed my flight and they lost my luggage, causing me to hyperventilate in the middle of the Air Canada Customer Service line.  Even if the worst happens, I know I can handle it.  But that doesn’t stop the fluttering in my stomach.

More than anything, I’m sad.  I love my family and home so much.  I’ve loved living here for the past nine months.  I’ve cherished every moment.  There are a thousand of things I’m going to miss: family dinners, sleeping in my own bed, cuddling with my cats, going for walks in the orchard…  As thrilling as change is, it’s also really hard.  Whether I come home in four months as planned or in a year, things will never go back to the way they are now.  This time at home has been, in many ways, a return to childhood.  But I’m twenty three.  I can’t be a child forever.  It’s time to grow up and move on.

I’m thirsty for adventure, but adventure comes at a cost.  Striking out solo, getting on an airplane for the other side of the world, chasing the horizon is thrilling.  But it comes with the pain of being separated from people and places I deeply love.

Ultimately, I need to go.  I feel it deep within my very being.  If I don’t take this chance, I’ll always wonder.

I’ll end this post with a quote from the book Love Does by Bob Goff.

“Every day God invites us on the same kind of adventure. It’s not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us. God asks what it is He’s made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, ‘Let’s go do that together.'”

This trip is me responding to this invitation.  Whatever happens from here will be bigger and more beautiful than anything I can imagine.

Weekend Coffee Share: Goodbye Socially-Awkward Hermit Amelia

If we were having coffee, we would be meeting at a local coffee shop because I need to get out of my house.  You’d enter the shop, order a drink of choice, and then would find me huddled over a table with my head in my arms. It’s been that kind of week.  A mug of English Breakfast tea would sit steaming in front of me, but I wouldn’t touch it until you sat down.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about work.  At any place of employment, there are all kinds of little behind-the-scenes things that need doing before and after hours. When you live at the place you work, it becomes your task to work extra and get those things done. I put in three ten-hour days in a row. On Friday night, if you drove by our orchard around seven-thirty, you probably would have seen me on a lawn mower cleaning everything up before the weekend crowds hit.

Since I basically work all the time, I keep forgetting to eat… which is something new for me. I’ll go for six hours at a time with only an apple to get me by. Lunches are a hurried dash of grabbing whatever is fastest (usually yogurt, salad, and an apple) and getting back to work. The other day, I went over to a friend’s house for a bonfire (after I finished mowing) and my first words to her were, “Do you have any meat?” She didn’t, so I settled for almonds instead.

Sundays are my only days off and I am determined (after cleaning the house and getting on top of my blog posts for the week) to lie on the couch reading fun books and watching movies. It’s going to be glorious.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I have written more in the last week than I have since college ended. I love it! Writing 101 has been challenging, but not in the ways I expected. The hardest part is finding time in the day to sit down and write. I I’ve been squeezing time in the morning for most of my posts, although occasionally they have to wait until later in the evening. All the assignments have been fantastic so far. Each one is simple, to the point, and offers a source of inspiration. Every day brings something different.

Since starting this course, the posts I’ve written have gotten at the heart of what I’ve always wanted Keep Your Feet to be about. It’s just taken a year and a half on this site, but I’m starting to find my voice here. Each post offers different pieces of myself as I transition into adulthood—working through why I write, making a list of things I love about living at my parent’s house, discussing the insecurities and perks of my nonexistent love life, random musings about Thoreau, and what it means to learn. I’m very proud of the work I’ve accomplished this week and, if you’ve take time to read it, I’m extremely thankful.  I’m eager to get started on this week’s assignments!

As part of Writing 101, I’ve also been working on engaging with other bloggers.  I’ve loved reading everyone’s assignments and finding new sites to follow!

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about all the plans I’ve been making. Socially awkward hermit Amelia is a thing of the past (for now, at least). In the past week, I’ve had movie nights at two people’s houses and attended a bonfire. Tomorrow night, I’m meeting a friend for dinner. Next weekend, I’m going to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival with a friend one day and attending a concert at a club in Minneapolis the next. I’ve also stolen the Fall Arts Preview of the newspaper and hope to make a list of all the things I want to see and o in the upcoming months. I know all of this probably doesn’t mean much to you, but I’m really looking forward to spending quality time with friends and doing things that fill me up. Plays, concerts, art galleries… I want to soak in as much as I can.

During this time of business, I’m going to have to be extra careful about fitting in introvert time so I don’t become a raging monster and get crabby with everyone.

With all the things on my schedule these days, our coffee conversations are about to get more interesting.

I’ve done enough talking… it’s your turn!  What do you have to share over coffee?

This post is part of the Weekend Coffee Share link-up at Part Time Monster

Keep Your Feet Summer Blogging Schedule!

I’ve entered the enigmatic post-college transition stage and am taking things in stride.

After two short days of rest (which weren’t actually restful since I spent them unpacking and rearranging my room), I’ve begun working full-time.  My family owns an apple orchard and now that the growing season is here, my dad needs all the help he can get.  It’s tiring work, but I’m happy to stay busy and active.  Plus, most of the tasks are pretty menial, giving my brain a welcome rest from four years of college.

During this time at work, I’ve had more than enough time to think.  You see, I’ve been mulling over what to do with the blog now that I no longer have essays sucking from my writing capacity.  Having a schedule with weekly events is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  So, I figured… why not?  I’ve been knocking around a few ideas and have put together a couple new features!

Here we go… *Drumroll Please*

On the Shelf: Using the title from my previous book-themed posts, every week I will be discussing my summer reads.  Now that I have my degree, my reading is no longer constrained by professors and classwork.  I’ve got a massive pile of books in my room that I’m just itching to touch.  Each week in this feature, I’ll provide a brief summary of the text, rate it on a five-star scale, and discuss my thoughts/experience.  To keep myself from burning out, I will only cover one book per week.  These posts will come out on Tuesdays.

Pleasant Valley Thursday: I like to blog about things that go on in my life, and this summer the majority of my time will be spent working on the farm.  So, I thought, why not make a feature about it?  The title comes from the name of my family’s orchard.  In this feature, I’ll give you a taste of what it’s like to live on an apple orchard/pick-your-own strawberry patch.  I’ll list the various jobs that I do throughout the week.  (Which may sound a bit dull, but trust me: reading about labor is better than doing it!)  I will spice it up with the week’s highs and lows and will also try to include at least one photo a week so you can get a sense of what things look like.  I’m really looking forward to these–although it may take a while to get into the swing of things, coping mechanisms of boring, unpleasant work can be varied and entertaining.  These posts will come out on Thursdays.

In addition to these, I hope to publish at least one non-themed post every week.  Those will be more in-the-moment, similar to what I’ve done until now.  I’ll also be putting out Sketchbook Corner posts when enough art piles up.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that WordPress puts on one of their Blogging 101 classes this summer.  I wouldn’t mind sharpening up my site and making new friends.

I hope you’re excited about all summer has to offer.  I know I am!  I’m really looking forward to posting more tightly themed content.  I’ve got a little notebook dedicated to planning my posts and everything!  If you have any feedback on my planned features on how to make them better/more interesting, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.  Also, if you have ideas for any other new features, share those too!

Happy summer!

The Future and why I’m not planning for it

“I’m just so stressed out!  I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life!”

This was said to me a couple of months ago by a high school friend.  I merely gaped at her.  “You’re sixteen,” I thought, “you don’t have to know it all now.”

There’s this idea in our culture that we have to have our entire lives planned out at the age of eighteen.  We need to know where we are going to college, what we will study, and what we will do after graduating.  Then we go to college, change our minds over and over again, graduate, and our careers have nothing to do with what we study.

With holidays coming up, I’m bracing myself for inevitable: “So, you’re a senior in college… what are you going to do next?”

My answer: I don’t know.

I’m twenty-two years old and I do not know what I’m going to do with my life.  And, frankly, I am okay with that.

When I graduate, I fully expect to move home and work until I have the next steps figured out.  A lot of people are ashamed of moving back in with their parents.  I am okay with that.

Ideally, I want to go into ministry.  I want to spend my life doing something worthwhile, building the Kingdom, and serving people.  I’m interested in working within the missions sphere.  I’m not planning on being a missionary, but if that is something that happens, I’m open to the possibility.

I don’t know what steps I’m going to take along the road.  I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now.

But that’s okay.  I’m young.  I’m single.  I can go out into the world and do whatever I want.  (Assuming I get paid enough to pay off my student loans, that is.)

The thing is that people change.  I came to college to study what I’m passionate about, and I have had a blast.  But five years from now, my passions will be different.  Ten years from now, they’ll change even more.

I’m not worried about the future.  Maybe I should be, but I’m not.  I know vaguely where I want to go and, for now, that is more than enough.  The idea that I need to plan all the details of my life right now is ridiculous.  Who knows what will happen?  What’s the point of figuring it all out when it will probably change?

Life is about adventure.  I want to soak in as much as I can.  So I’m going to muddle through the now and embrace whatever comes next.