faith

Quoting Grey's real quick I just want to say "at the end of the day, faith is a funny thing". In all actuality, this won't really be all about faith but more about life. In general. What a wide topic, huh?

I've had such a funny 24 hours. Well not funny in that sense, but I think you get what I mean. It has just been so....ODD. I cannot really describe it. I've had a thinking past 24 or so hours. All I've done is think. About life. About time. About faith. And how somehow, in the past 6 weeks they've all slipped away so quickly and then come right back to me, slapping me. Why does this keep happening?!

Life is so quick...so very fast. It speeds by. I know EVERYONE says it, "time flies!" but really, it does. I can't quite comprehend it. I just do not understand how on earth it is that I come September I'll be in my Senior year. I also don't get how that makes me wiggy when I've been looking so forward to it for such a longtime. But still....one last year until life really sort of starts. How its possible that I've lived in Canada for, dare I say it, almost 3 years. That my parents have been together for 3 years and my daddy has been gone for 4. That my oldest brother is TWENTY FIVE and Jon just turned 22. That Hope will be 8 and when I met her she was just going to turn 5.
I can't really grasp the fact that I am 17. How? I was just 6 years old, playing with my Aunt Heather's hair bow basket and trying to style her hair. I was only 6 just yesterday running around barefoot with Micheal all over the cul-d-sac.

Life passes us by with no warning or pause. It just keeps on going, with or without you. You either keep truckin' with it or you get freakin' lost. That is honestly what happened. I stopped for one moment to take a breath and then time slipped. Gone like wind in the middle of the night. It is so crazy how that happens. I've said this before and I try SO, so hard to live this : Don't blink, don't pause, don't stop because life comes and then it goes and you cannot change the past. Make decisions that you'll be able to live with and make them wisely. Its important to really and truly cherish every single second of every single day. Don't take things for granted because you'll look back on that and think "I wish so much...." and WHY, at the end of your life, do you want to be asking or wishing or questioning yourself?

I really just don't understand time. It rips so many things apart and it also brings things together. I always wondered how that worked because so many things in the world work like that. No one can explain it, its just the way it goes.

So, where does faith play in this? I don't really know. Faith has just been on my mind lately. I mean, I guess you just have to have faith that tomorrow WILL come and that you will be able to live your life to the fullest. That's all really ask for, right? To just be able to live life to very fullest we possibly can. Its not always easy and somedays it can seem like its not very rewarding but when the day comes for you to stand and look back on your life (hopefully a long a full one) you want to be able to say "I lived a faith filled, happy life with the people I loved. I did the things I dreamed of, I accomplished all of my goals and I never gave up on the hope of life". At least, that is what I want to be able to say. Because time...it leaves us. It goes and never returns; it only has one stop and that's the end. You don't really get a second chance to live your entire life. True, you can start new everyday but actually reliving and doing things over again - not an option.

Make your time worth while. Memorable. Fun. Spontaneous. Don't let fear stand in your way- go out and DO IT. Never hold back.

Time. Its constant and quick...hang on to it.

"Time waits for no man. Time heals all wounds. All any of us can wants, is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go" - grey's anatomy

l'amour

I always think that I myself am a passionate person. I don't really know exactly, but I shall stick with that!

While I was in France (still totally missing it) I ran out of books to read! I did not bring enough but lucky for me, my family loves English so they had a bunch of English books! One of which was Twilight. Not many of the other books looked very appealing besides the Harry Potter #4 (I am ADDICTED) so I thought that I might as well read the first book of the Twilight series. Now, a little background about my opinion....
I HATE Twilight(well, hated I guess you could say). Too overrated, too weird. Vampires and Werewolves? NOT my thing. A little to odd for my likings.
So anyway, I read it. Nonstop. All the time. At school. At home. In the car. All I did was read, read and read. It took me approximately 2.5 days to finish. I fell in love, oddly enough. There was just something captivating about the book. I think I know what it was. It wasn't the vampire and werewolf thing...I got past that. Part of it could of been the personality of Bella...a bit relate-able for me. But mostly, it was the fight for love. The constant battle of who to choose, what feeling to trust, which way to turn.

I'm a lover. A lot of people say it and truly the word has lost its meaning. So many people throw the word around too much- love isn't really love anymore. But for me, LOVE still stands. I love LOVE. Yet, I have never really, truly been in love. Lust, yeah maybe. Love? Nah. But still, I feel so connected to the feeling. The idea, mostly.

Reading the books (I've gotten through all four) made me realize that love is not easy. Its not always pretty and fun. Its never going to be perfect and it has it drawbacks and hard times. Like everything else in life, love can be sad. But love is never ending. Its an emotion of eternity and forever. Its happy and peaceful and hard and tiring. The  thing about love is that it is a constant emotion. Its something we all feel, somehow. Like I've said, I've never been IN LOVE. But I love people. I love my parents deeply. I love my brothers and sister so much. I love my daddy immensely. I love my friends. I love lots of things. That type if love is different though.

Twilight gave me a glimpse of true love. Not that I've never seen it because my parents have always shown me what true love is like. The thing that Twilight also let me take a peek into is just how raw love is. The characters fought so hard for love. They had to tirelessly and constantly vie for love. They spent their lives loving someone SO much that it actually hurt. They spent most of their time trying to figure out what emotion to even trust. To listen to the heart or the mind because really, which one is better? It seems to me that either way, you're going to get hurt a little bit. I guess that's the price to pay, though, right?

Part of me envies that. Part of me wants to feel that, too. To love someone so much that I almost hate myself for it. I want to know what it feels like to fight so hard to get someone to love me, too. The fight. The climb. The chase. I want to know that. I want to experience that; to feel for someone that I have to give my life to fight for them. I want to feel the way love comes in steals your breath away leaving you gasping for life because of the beauty. I want to know the experience of being dizzy just THINKING about it. Maybe I am totally crazy to want that...its possible! But maybe not.

The Biblical verse sort of describes it well-hits the nail on the head.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves."

I know one day, who knows when, I'll eventually feel it. I will, some time from now, feel that passionate love for someone. And they'll love me back. And it will be perfectly imperfect like every other kind of love. It will be real and true and lovely. It will also be hard, sad and exhausting. But you fight for what you love. You don't give up on the ones you love or leave them standing there to be left alone. Too many people do that in our world. Too many people love too easily. Love is an emotion all on its own. Nothing is quite like it and nothing really comes close to it. I'm not in a rush..love is big. But I hope that, maybe, soon I can feel a glimpse of it. A little bit of an experience.


Here's to love...and to life. To all of the beautiful and wonderful and difficult things they both throw at us. It's never easy but it will always be worth it. Somehow.

ps. I am currently addicted to this. I am IN LOVE(okay, well not really seeing as though I just posted about that) with this beautiful man. But seriously, I think I might actually be in love with him. I recommend ANYTHING from him. Truly, everything he sings is breathtakingly stunning. So raw, so real.

nostalgic

So, its been a month since I have been home. WOW. One month. Crazy....
I haven't really had the chance to sit down and dedicate a good enough amount of time to writing until now and I won't even be able to do this in one sitting. House duty calls!

It has been a crazy, fast paced, interesting, stressful, slow month. Yes, fast and slow in the same sentence. I don't even know where to start! This is going to be a long post! Okay, I'll start at the return. I had to wake up SO early to come home so I decided not to sleep! We left our house around 515 am and got to the airport at about 615. We checked my bags in(I WAS NOT OVERWEIGHT!!!!) and then caught up with some other exchange family's and chatted. Finally, we noticed our flight would be leaving in about 45 minutes so we all decided it would be best to get through security. That meant goodbyes. And as we all know so well, I am not very good with goodbyes! I was hard. Very hard. I bawled like a baby. Her parents cried, she cried. We gave our letters to each other and said "see you later" and "its not really goodbye, its see you soon". Except, in French. Ha! Anyway, I got through security not so easily and then we sat down for all of about 10 minutes before we had to board. Got onto the flight and sobbed the whole way to Paris. Looking out over Provence as we were flying had me so heart broken and sad. I literally did not understand how I could ever leave this place, how it came so quickly and went by so fast, how I had to just pack up and leave for who knows how long, how on earth I would ever be able to stop thinking about how much I LOVE that place.

We got to Paris and got the LOVELY news that our flight was delayed three hours. Instead of a three hour layover we said a very warm and welcoming hello to a SIX HOUR layover. I hope you can sense the sarcasm in that....So we waited, and lots of people cried for the first couple of hours. We shared stories and laughed and cried and talked about how much we already missed it. Unbelievably, after wandering the terminal (CDG airport is SO nice) and talking, the six hours flew! Got on the plane and waited for like...an hour. I wasn't too happy because I felt like, "If we're going to go, lets just go or else I will probably run off of this plane and never look back". I really wasn't feeling the fact that I had to go home. Not that I didn't want to go home, I did but I wanted to stay there more! The flight, due to the volcano, was SO long. SO FREAKING LONG. We ended up leaving at 515 or something like that and then flight home was almost 11 or 12 hours? Long story short, by the time I got into my house I had been travelling for 24 hours. I was so tired and exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally but because it was already 1230 before I got into bed, my body was saying 630 am..the time I woke up for school every morning in France. Needless to say, I only slept about 6 hours until 630 because I jumped out of bed and was like "OH MY GOD, 1230, SCHOOL...Lena, je sui- oh frig, I am in Canada." Hope was in my bed (I asked her to have a sleepover) and she woke up and looked at me like I was a crazy person.

I was really off for the rest of the week and felt quite sick for a few days. Time changes, who needs those? Ha! So for the rest of the week I did homework, got settled back into the house and all of that jazz. Monday rolled around a bit too fast! I was totally not ready for school! I got there and it was probably the most overwhelming thing; more overwhelming than my first days in France! I had SO many people attacking me- literally jumping on me! People would run up behind me and jump on my back and tackle me...I was squeezed to death for the first two days! It was really good to see people though and start getting into a routine :) So many people complimented me saying that I lost weight and I look so much different and happier! That felt really great.

My classes were all okay- the same as before I left. My teachers were all happy to have me back so that was good, too. I also started back at work which has been the hardest adjustment, I think. I've had a really rough time getting myself excited to go and when I'm there all I want to do is leave. Each shift gets better though so I am finally starting to get back into the swing of it. Everyone at work was really happy to see me back. Lots of hugs and stories went around and still are going around! It's fun to see people each time that I haven't seen yet. I work with great people so it makes it easier!

So far, everything has gone smoothly or at least as smoothly as it can go. Family life is normal just like it was before I left. All of my friends are still great with the exception of a few. EVERYONE changed so much. I don't exactly fit in anywhere right now because they changed and so did I so we all have different priorities and ideas on things now. I know I'll eventually find the right place but I'm not worried about it all. School is okay. I have really good grades in all of my class except in American History. Go figure, huh? I ended up having to drop the class a few days ago because it was just TOO stressful and I had a really bad grade so my parents, my guidance counsellor and myself decided this would be the best thing. Speaking of which, I have the best guidance counsellor anyone could ever ask for. She has gone above and beyond for me, I seriously cannot thank her enough. This whole process was so much easier because of her care, concern and help!!

Otherwise, things are the same. Some things change and some things don't!

I miss France EVERY SINGLE DAY. I wake up in the morning and I think of France and I go to bed at night and I think of France. I'm not sure how long it will take for it to lessen...maybe a few more days or maybe a few weeks or even months. I miss everything about it. Mostly, I miss the simplicity of life and my family. I have not talked to Lena much because we are both so busy. Although, I know there are times when we could both have the chance- I think it just doesn't cross our minds. I want to talk with her on the phone so I can keep my French up but she has a huge exam coming up that she has to really study for. I'm not too worried, I know we'll talk before she leaves for Malaysia!

I miss all of my friends in France and my class, too. It is so weird not to be there! We keep in touch all of the time but it doesn't make it much easier. Usually I will talk with my friends and cry because I miss being there and laughing with them over stupid stuff. Friendships there are so much more different than they are here. In France, they cherish their friends more and they don't back stab or lie or have any drama. No one talks about another friend behind their back or say rude things. Everyone is just generally so much more loving and happier. That's the problem in North America! People here are so toxic- it is such a negative environment!!

I am so happy to be home and be in a routine again but I think of France often. I remember all of my fun times with friends and my family. I even remember all of the quiet times that I spent just enjoying my surroundings. I have an odd mind because I can literally play things in my head and its like a movie- its so clear. But, I am thankful for that because my memories of France are still so fresh and raw and clear. I still haven't processed the fact that I lived there for three months! I want so badly to be back there, to be with all of the beautiful people in a beautiful place. I long to be there. Looking back on things is hard because I want it back so much. But being here is home and that feels good, too.

As I have said so many times before:

I am humbled and grateful and thankful beyond words. I will never be able to express my gratitude to the very many people that made this experience as amazing as it was. I will NEVER forget France, my family, my sister, my friends, my school or the moments. I will guard them in my heart forever.

PS. I plan to write more often. Keep a blog for daily life, life lessons, thoughts. Feel free to be in touch with me through here or through email!