1. On a long, somber road trip, amongst all the songs that make your eyes well up with tears due to the rawness and humanity of them, you will inevitably here the song Low Rider and crack up laughing and just enjoy the drive.
2. Enjoy your family. Don't ever take one day with them for granted. Because you never know when you will need to lean on them, and you never know how many days are written for them. Hug your mom. Talk with your dad. Tell everyone you love them, and really mean it.
3. It becomes clearer and clearer to me that the world we live in is a broken world. We are fixated on pretending that it's not, but it really is. The smell of death hovers over the earth, and it is as un-natural and backwards a thing as any. I just feel in my soul that we are not meant to die. Thank God for eternity.
4. People get really weird around you when they know something bad is going on in your life. It's funny because you can tell they really want to help you somehow, but I think the truth is, in some circumstances, none of us really know how to help, though the desire to do SOMETHING is very present. I appreciate every awkward hug, talk, meal, and advice.
5. There is something beautiful in providing assistance to the person who did everything for you as a baby/child/adolescent. Though I believe it's a broken world, and a broken system, this is a terribly beautiful irony.
6. Never doubt yourself. 10 years ago, I highly doubted I would ever become a college graduate. Four years ago I highly doubted that I would have the drive to even start graduate school. One day ago, I passed my comprehensive exam that is the final straw- I will walk across a stage in 6 weeks and reach a higher level educationally than anyone in my family has ever attempted. With honors. It blows me away what I can do when I just take it one day at a time and trust that God will help me do anything that I feel he calls me to do.
7. Reach for the stars. Live every day to the fullest. Because life is finite, you are only here once. Try not to have regrets. Live, laugh, love, dance, cry, comfort, talk, reach out, pull inward, reach upward.
8. Days that start with time with God are better than days that put it off until the final minutes before exhaustion catches up with me.
9. I don't think we are ever ready to let go of any person we love. We always just want one more day, week, month, year, decade. The human spirit amazes me in so many ways, - but we tend not to be able to let go. To do so gracefully, and trusting in God, will be the biggest, hardest test of my faith ever. But I stand before the storm, take a deep breath, and submit myself to the hard ride ahead.
Well, I'd like to have an even 10...but I think I'm basically circling around the same thoughts. Life feels bittersweet, but right now I have no regrets. God is good, and I really believe that.
Anyway. Ciao!
