the reality is hitting. hard. i have a little over a month left at highlands and a little over two months left in bolivia and south america.
the pain is as fresh as it was when i was leaving north carolina three years ago. not that anyone can replace my sweet family in the states, but la paz has become my home and its people my family. it is amazing to me how swiftly these three years have passed, and yet how rich they have been. how challenged i've been. how much, by God's grace, i've grown. and how i've felt--more consistently than ever before--so alive here.
i realize the challenges and joys that await me in the states, but at the moment it's hard to look ahead even a couple months to that point. i want to be fully in the present. i wish it were possible to take every precious jewel of an experience and bottle it up for later. every river kid's smile. every uncontrollable fit of laughter with friends. every stunning sunset view from my apartment window. every hug from a first grader. as i move back to north carolina, i don't want to live in the past. but i never, ever want to forget the beautiful memories i have had in my south american home.
i so appreciate what my friend keri (who will also leave la paz soon) posted about being uprooted: http://untameflame.tumblr.com/post/5077205490/uprooting. my home--my mental and emotional stability, my sense of purpose, and my hope when things are changing--is not in a person or place at all, but in fact in the Lord. i hope i can remember this in the coming months, even the coming moments, when the reality of change seems too difficult to do, much less to embrace.
"if we don't change, we don't grow. if we don't grow, we aren't really living." ~gail sheehy
