leaving tomorrow.

it's 11:21 and i have to go to bed. but i just gotta say something first.

i'm leaving to be a counsellor at camp again tomorrow. i'm so excited. and when i say i love camp, i don't mean that i enjoy going there or have tons of fun or love being with my friends. i mean, of course those things are true. but over these 8 summers, camp has become rooted inside of me. it's my second home. my fellow staff members feel like my family. when i'm there, i feel like a fuller version of myself. everything there is fuller and has more meaning. everything is as it should be.

trying to write this down  is pointless. i've got too many feelings. so i'll probably just go sleep. 

roughly 15 hours until i'm there again.

beach-combing.

I've dropped my heart many times and knelt down to pick up the pieces. Sometimes I forget one or pick up a new one along the way. It's like beach-combing, a mundane existence - one that I may be able to leave behind someday when I'm better off.
(pictures from june 2012)

listen.

little things.

"Here are some little things I love. Snickerdoodles. Chocolate Chili Chai . Strings of white lights. Bobby pins. Mechanical pencils. Getting a letter in the mail. Having only lessons on a school day. Efraim's shy smile. Glitter. The #for abbie tag on tumblr. Eating icicles. Pretty earrings. Wavy hair. Zach's giggling. Notebooks. My TOMS. Being on the road. Texting friends. Tweeted conversations. The key of C#. Books that you can't seem to stop turning pages. Colored skinny jeans. Good hair days. Discovering a new favorite song and putting it on repeat. Pine trees. The feel of grass underneath my feet.

And there are so many other things I could list. Some bigger things too, like our piano and the Dining Hall at summer camp and Switchfoot and the baseball field and the view of the sunset behind the church and Lord of the Rings. Just counting them up makes me remember how blessed I am, and the majority of these things that I shared are a part of my everyday life. I can't take the mundane for granted.


And even though it's been -30 degrees every day and I'm much too afraid to go outside, there is still a sky worth gasping at every time I look. You just take one glance at that big blue expanse and you can't help but think, "I'm alive."

from my 750 words entry today.