one way tickets

to say "life as of late has been hectic" would be an incredible understatement. Last you heard from me I was in Texas; without much hope of ever leaving Longview. What happened? What changed?

I blinked.

Less than a millisecond, and I suddenly find myself sitting in my parent's living room, a one way ticket to Alaska in hand. I was home for three days, barely long enough to reunite with my shoe collection, and I have to have everything I need for the summer in my big green suitcase and action packer. I think I will manage to make this trip under 50 lbs per bag though.

One way tickets are kind of scary. I am sitting here looking around at the home in which I grew up, not knowing the next time I would be here. not sure when I will see my family again. Wondering if everything that I couldnt fit into my luggage will ever make it to Alaska. I hear the phrase "leap of faith" being tossed around a lot, and I thought I understood it. But now as I stare at the piece of paper with no return date, boxes piled haparzardly in the background, I am learning a little better what it feels like to leap.

Since coming back from Africa, I have really been trying to embrace a quote from Jim Elliot: "Wherever you are- be all there." Taking from my pilot-y ways, I have concocted my own version... "I don't need a GPS to tell me where I am. All I have to do is look down at my own two feet and I will know exactly where I am supposed to be."

But there is a time when that theory doesn't work. I have become very familiar with it this year, as I pack my bags about every other weekend to haul them off somewhere new. I guess most people call this time transition. According to my aforementioned life pursuit of using the ground on which I have deemed my perch to tell me where I am, I would define transition as a cannon ball.

A cannonball?
You know, when you run full force toward the pool, pick your feet up, curl into a ball, and make the biggest splash possible.

I am going to finish these thoughts later, I gotta run out the door. Off to Alaska, cya there!