Hello everyone!  

It's been too long!! My apologies. Well, Let me catch you guys up on what’s happened in my life: 

    - I graduated 

    - I worked  

    - I travelled 

    - I lived (a little bit, anyways)

This season of life is so formative, as many have said. I don't think I realized how formative. I’m done my schooling (for now, but that’s a story for another time), so my days are filled with, well, not as much as I thought. I have to make my own schedule, plan my own routine, which is challenging for someone who would much rather be told what to do than figure it out myself (again, I’ll dive into this another time).  

    I’ve had to think about work in a new light. I’ve grown up with this mentality that productivity is important. This is a good thing, until fear locks you to that security blanket and you submit to its grasp at the risk of forgetting your dream (not that I’m speaking form experience or anything…). My parents are actually amazing. Why? Because they have noticed this becoming an unhealthy and detrimental pattern in my life, and have encouraged me to continue to focus on my dream. So, rather than chasing students so that I can teach piano and becoming preoccupied with this, I have been reassured that my music and my craft are worth pursuing and developing. I don't need to be afraid. Sometimes I label myself as inadequate or incapable and I forget that while I may not know everything,I know a thing or two. And that’s enough to get started with.   

    I have been blessed with opportunity to travel and see a glimpse of the world, and I’ve noticed that I really do like to be home. So many people my age think that “out there” is where self discovery or truth or epiphany lies, and the end up deeply disappointed with what this world has to offer. Magical places can only point to something greater, and beautiful people are mere reflections of something brighter. When you realize the “something” is actually “Someone”, then home means something greater and carries more importance than what you expected. True home is a safe place where the people who love, encourage and support you are; it is there you are pointed to that Someone. That is where those of us who are planted grow. Steven Curtis Chapman once said to me (ok, I know, this is crazy, but trust me, it’s true) “Grow where you're planted”. Instead of desiring to be elsewhere, what if everyone chose to invest in the lives that have invested in them, and invest in lives that crave investment? Wow. I need to think about that for a second.  

    I’ve experienced a real sense of loneliness after coming back home. But, in the same breathe, my heart has been opened to the beauty of second chances, specifically in the realm of relationships. I’ve been with an amazing young man for a little over a month, and I cannot begin to express the gratitude and joy I’ve experienced. If you told me a year and a half ago that I would find myself in this very coffee shop, next to a man I call mine, writing of these experiences…I would have wanted to believe you, but I don’t know if I would. Since then, I’ve seen who my true friends are (both the new and the old), I’ve learned that relationships aren't everything, and yet I’ve experienced the beauty and purity a relationship (any relationship!) can possess.  

I am thankful for all of this. The organized, the messy, and the “Where’d I put that again?”. And to begin this next season, I will be writing more frequently than 7 months between posts. Hahaha!  

Thanks for reading! 

Blessings,

EMILY