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| My time in Ohio is really coming to an end. I know things will be fine and in some ways things will be even better. But it is still hard to imagine my life without the friends, places, and memories that are present here. This place was once so strange and prickly. I came here knowing no one and now I am leaving everyone that I know. It just hurts. | | |
| Lately I haven't been able to sleep. I lay in my bed for hours while my thoughts shift from the most serious of things to the trivial. As my thoughts shift so do my emotions. I think about the man who stuck and dollar in my pocket and asked me what time i started dancing. I am filled with shock and anger and then sadness. I replay my reaction over and over until i feel like i handled it correctly. I wonder how much longer i will work at the golf course. I replay all of the coversations i had today. Some of the people i will never see again and others I will. But i remember all of their words, some edified me and others cut me. I think about my friends and how i am moving away from them. I will grieve thier absence. Most of all I think of the future. I wonder what i will be doing, what new friends will I have, and where i will be. In all of this i feel alone longing for a home. I think about Sudan and how millions of people are also longing for a home. My longing and theirs will never be fufulled here. But surely some how we can live with this longing, acknowlodging that things are not complete and living in a way that reveals our expectation of what is to come. | | |
| There are so many ways that people show love. And i hate to limit it to the five love languages. It is a helpful book, but i think it is missing something. FOr example, my mother just brought me a grande skim mocha with no whip cream. According to the book, this would be under the love language of giving. But it really means so much more. For parts of my life i felt like my mother never really knew me. SHe was always buying me gifts that were just ridicules. I would never use them and would end up givng them away. When i was younger these bad gifts would make me mad because i didn't get what i wanted, but as i got older it just made me feel like my mom didnt know me at all.
So when my mom (who has never drank a single cup of coffee) came into the the house with a tall grande skim mocha/ no whip, it was like my mom knows me! She listens to me and really knows me. This simple coffee purchase means more to me than any other christmas gift.
I guess what i dislike about the five love languages is this: If people really know you then expressing their love for you should come naturally. If they dont really know you then how can they love you? They might love some part of you but not all of you. I think there is an amazing link between knowing and loving. I dont think we can separate these. This book has made me put people under a certain "love language" and made me feel like i know them. But i think people are much more amazingly complex and delightful. The five love languages are good tools to understand each other, but i think it is just a place to begin, it is not copmplete or absolute. We just need to know each other, really know each other. Listening to others and putting the focus onthem is something that is hard for most people to do. Knowing things like their dreams and goals to how they drink their coffee are very meaningful. People long for someone to know them and understand them. I do. | | |
| As I think back at this semester i cant help but to think that it is my last fall at Malone. I am afraid that i get very sentimental. I say afraid because I am. Malone. In that one word so many things come to my mind; wisdom that has revolutionized my thinking, faces of people that give me confidence and love, moments of joy that i wish would not end, cups of coffee that open of the most secret places, periods of uncontrolable laughter, words that have cut through my heart and then made me more whole, and at times loneliness that i thought would never end.
Now i fear that all of this will end and i will have to start all over. This is a reality that i have been waiting for since the day i arrived, but now I refuse to embrace it. I will continue to pour my being into this place, making connections with new and old people, all the time denying that malone, a word that holds so many things, will soon become part of my past. | | |
| So I think most of the people connected to this online journal bussiness have probably given up on me, but i have decided to write. I am living well in chicago with my aunt and for the last month I have been blessed with many experiences that have left me unwilling to go back to malone. I will return, but i think it will be really hard.
I went to a ben harper concert last weekend and i must say it was one of the best nights of my life. He challenges me for some reason! I am sure most people havent heard of him but he
Summers go so fast, too fast! | | |
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