Memories.

It is so funny going back to places you haven’t seen in a long time. The memories and feelings you felt so long ago come flooding back along with the blunt and unavoidable realization that things have changed.

         Being back home, I’ve had plenty of these times come up, but today was different. Today it was so in my face that I had to find my old place of rest, Bluestem Bistro, and write. There was no way I could just drive home, not today.

          Exactly 2 ½ years ago, I said, “I do.” I committed my heart to a person and an idea that I believed in. A year ago on the 24^th I was divorced. So yes, things are different for me now. As I walked the familiar streets of campus to Justin Hall, a building where fond, now slightly painful memories linger, I found myself envying the naïve college students. I remembered the lightness and freedom of this time in my life. I remember the feeling of having my whole life ahead of me, and being so excited for it. I wanted to be naïve again. Part of me still wishes I could go back in time and start over. I feel like I have seen too much; experienced more than I bargained for.

         The purpose of my coming back to campus was to meet with an old professor of mine, to discuss the recommendation letter she will write for me. One thing that gives me comfort is the way my old professors, family, and friends still believe in me. Even though I took an interesting journey after college instead of going straight into grad school, they seem to think that I am no worse for the ware, maybe even better for it.

         Something that you gain through the mess of grieving and loss is the ability to empathize, to learn patience with others because of the patience others have shown to you. Nobody wants to trade a care-free, blissful life for a hurricane of crud so thick you can barely see straight, but it happens anyway, and there is always good that can come of it.

         I am currently in the search for the good, for the… “So now what?”

I hope and pray that God makes something beautiful of my mess, and I believe He can, maybe even something greater than my little mind had planned for itself.