I'm Not Dead... I promise:)

I've just been super busy. To be honest, I don't even remember what my last post was about or when it was. But the past three months have been a WHIRL WIND. It's hard to believe that it's already the end of March - only 5 weeks left to go until the end of the semester (ahhh the joy of getting out the first week of may!)

My first year of college has been absolutely nothing like what I had anticipated it to be my whole life. I think as a typical Pittsburgh teenagers, we tend to grow up expecting to go to college. I mean there are SOOO many here, and of all different varieties, surely everyone must find at least ONE that fits. We expect that we will have the opportunity to leave home and start our own lives living on campus somewhere away from the safety net our parents have built up around us. We long to be free and to experience life for ourselves and see what we can make out of it. It births both extreme excitement and fear in most to actually live out the perfect kodak moment good bye, standing on the front lawn of a campus waving teary-eyed as mom and dad drive away. This isn't reality for a lot of people. Including me :)

If you would have asked me in the fall where I was going to college, I would have nervously told you, "Well, right now I am at CCAC, but I am planning on transferring to (fill in the college of choice that week here) to study (whatever my whim was that week)". Never really owning my decision to go to community college. I guess no one really likes to own going to community college because of the stigma that they think goes along with it. You know, the ridiculous stereotype that "Thats where the people who couldn't get into 'real' college, or couldn't afford 'real' college go." While this may be true of some people, I have found that depending on which campus you go to, it's usually not the case. There are so many people who, like myself, don't know what they want to do and don't want to waste TONS money trying to figure it out.

I hated the idea of community college in the fall, but I knew I wasn't ready to leave home yet to be on my own. I think homeschooling had a lot to do with that. Not that it was a bad decision to home school in high school. I'm finding recently that like all decisions made in life, I made that choice and I have to own it. There is no sense in living with regret of anything because what's done is done, it's in the past, and can not be changed. Decisions build your repitore (sp?) of experiences and God uses everything to teach you something, you just have to look for it.

I lied to myself all the time trying to convince myself that the reason I wanted to stay at home was so I could learn what I wanted to learn when I wanted to learn it. If I were to be brutally honest, it was mostly a decision made out of fear and self consciousness. Like too many other teenage girls, I hated my body and was so 100% consumed in thinking of what others thought of me when we were conversating that I would get flustered because I wasn't paying attention to what the other person was saying enough to be able to ask questions and dig deeper. It's definitely something God has worked out in me over this first year of college, which I am SO thankful for! So, I'm pretty happy that I decided on community college for this year to give myself some time to grown up and come into my own and basically learn what college is about. And I think I'm ready to move on now. Fear isn't holding me back anymore from anything.

Can I just tell you, freedom from fear is probably the best feeling ever and I wish and hope and pray that you can find freedom from something that is tugging heavily on your heart strings today. God doesn't want us to live in fear or regret... that's Satan, my friends.

This song so perfectly describes what I am trying to say...

Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

I am unwritten
Can't read my mind
I'm undefined

I'm just beginning
The pen's in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Oh, oh

I break tradition
Sometimes my tries
Are outside the lines
We've been conditioned
To not make mistakes
But I can't live that way, no

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten

So, I'm issuing a challenge to you (and myself) forgive yourself for the things that have happened in the past because you can't change them! Think about what God wants you to learn from the experience and just MOVE FORWARD! Feel the rain on your skin and live your life with arms wide open to whatever God has coming your way.