The Beauty of Community.

I was fortunate enough to spend last weekend in Michigan with some of my favorite people. The beginning of the trip was with family and the end of the trip with friends. It was refreshing and exhausting all at the same time, but overall, it was just what I needed. No matter where I live or where I go, Michigan will always be home. Staring out the big window in my parent's living room and looking out to the backyard, sitting on the beach, playing in the waves at Lake Michigan and soaking in the sunsets are where I find peace.

That weekend I didn't even spend much time at my actual house, but I was with people in lots of different places. It made me realize home isn't always a place, but it can be who you're with too.

My friends and I rented a house for the weekend. We've been planning this trip for almost a year and we managed to find a time where all eleven people could come from five different states to one of our favorite places, Lake Michigan. When everyone arrived, my heart felt like it would burst because it was so full.

Some of these friends I have known since I was a baby, some of them elementary school, some high school and some have "married into" the group, but regardless of the length of time each person has been in my life, they each mean so much to me and have a piece of my heart.

The weekend was a healing balm and jumpstart to my heart, all at the same time. One group got dinner ready, while others played cornhole and others talked on the porch. We played game after game after game. We sprinted across the sand to meet the sunset. We talked life plans and caught up in ways that can only happen in person. We settled into each other's presence and picked up where we left off. We jabbed and joked with each other and went back and forth, where others may look in and wonder if we're more like siblings than friends. But that's the beauty in community, just because we don't share blood, doesn't mean we can't be our own kind of family.

With each burst of laughter, each heart shared, each question asked, every joke made and every smile exchanged, I just saw beauty. Beauty in friendship, beauty in bonds that last through change, through moves, through life transitions, beauty in new friends and marriages and babies and life milestones celebrated, beauty in community and beauty in the ability to sit down, pick up where you left off and really be together. States, time and life might separate us, but that doesn't mean the beauty is gone. It just means we have to hang on to it when we can and know it'll be there the next time we're together.

We are meant for community. This weekend was a testament of that truth for me. We are meant to open ourselves up to each other and do life together. We are meant to encourage, comfort and listen to each other. We are meant to enjoy, laugh and have fun together. We are meant to be a part of each other's story.

I am so thankful for the community I have and that through the people who exist within my different communities and "families" that I am able to see and experience so much love and so much beauty.

Lessons from my Thesis

I submitted my thesis last night...all 100 pages! (I was excited that it ended up being such a great, round and even number). I can't believe it's done. I'm not sure if I've ever worked so hard on something in my life. I was trying to think of all the hours it took up and I really don't think I can count them. Let's just say, I'm not gonna know what it's like to not have work to do before I go to work in the morning or as soon as I get off at night and I won't be spending all weekend at my computer. I'm not going to miss scheduling interviews at lunchtime, dreaming about coding data or spending 12 hours a day looking at a screen. I feel like I'm about to re-enter society! I'm currently laying in my bed as I type this on my phone because my body and mind vetoed my attempt to actually sleep in until 8 today. I let it sink in that I was done with my thesis and naturally, because I think too much, I started thinking about all I learned this semester through this process. So, naturally, I made a top ten list.

1. Things that are worth it are hard. I could have taken a lot of shortcuts through this process, but I didn't. I actually really do care about what I researched and I wanted to produce a thesis done with excellence. Producing this was really hard, but worth it.

2. I have the best community ever. I wouldn't have made it the last couple months if it wasn't for my family and friends. When I think about how great everyone is I get emotional because I'm just so fortunate to know such awesome people and that I get to have them in my life (I'm allowed to be emotional aboht these things...I just completed a milestone). I actually could really feel the prayers of so many people and the texts, calls and gifts kept me going. The fact that I have friends and family who would transcribe interviews, edit chapter after chapter, let me cry and assure me it'll be okay and make sure we celebrate even the little victories is amazing. My people y'all are the best kind of people.

3. It's okay to say no. I became very familiar with the phrase, "I just don't have the capacity for that." I've learned that sometimes you just have to say no and everything will still be okay. Not gonna lie, still not great at this and am not always good at doing this without pounds of guilt accompanying it, but I'm working on it.

4. Even when you don't think you have time to take care of yourself, you have time to take care of yourself. I'm not just mentioning this because my whole thesis is about self-care, but because it's actually true. Through this whole process (full disclosure: at least up until the last two weeks or so) I have tried to make a conscious effort to still love and take care of myself through the crazy. Not only was I working on my thesis and had another class, but this is one of the busiest times for work too and there was always something that needed to be done. But sometimes, I just took a nap or watched an episode of Parks and Rec (I mean they're only 20 minutes and it's the best show ever...) I also tried to get 8 hours of sleep most nights, I truly think being proactive in caring for ourselves results in more productivity and helps you keep your sanity. I wasn't always great at this in all aspects (don't even ask me the last time I worked out) but I could tell a notable difference from when I felt like I was consciously choosing to care for myself and my soul.

5. Good music matters. Pandora was my BFF for this process, also my "Grad School motivation playlist." The Explosions in the Sky, John Legend and Ingrid Michaelson stations were in heavy rotation. I love music and listening to it while I work makes me feel like I'm not alone in it...(as I typed that I realized that may be weird but it's true)

6. I am highly motivated by rewards and incentives. Yes, call me a child or a puppy, but the range of incentives I made for myself during this process were sometimes ridiculous and comical but effective.

7. The mountains help me think and give me life. I was fortunate enough to get away for a weekend to Gatlinburg to work on the bulk of my research and it was awesome. I had a clear mind, got to be creative and was surrounded by mountains. Even though I barely left the hotel room and I worked 15 hour days, it was life-giving.

8. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes to give you the extra push to get it done. I loved the group messages between me and my classmates and knowing we were all working on this together.

9. It's okay to borrow belief from others sometimes. There were times I wasn't sure I could finish this or felt like what I was doing wasn't good enough or really valuable, but there was always someone around me reminding me those were lies and who believed I could do it. Sometimes when we don't believe a truth, we have to momentarily borrow the belief from someone we love until we believe it ourselves.

10. Every season ends. This was a season. A long, hard, emotional, rewarding, but intense season. Amidst all the work, it's also been a difficult personal time for different reasons, but knowing this was just a season kept me sane at times.

I actually cannot believe my thesis is submitted and I graduate next week! The last two and a half years have been a crazy time. I've learned more than I thought, been continuously blessed by the people I've met through this program and I've grown a lot. I am so thankful for this season, but I'm ready to move into this next season carrying all that I learned through this one with me.

(For real...a HUGE thank you to all of my family and friends and all of your love and support through this grad school season. If I could take out a billboard to brag about how awesome and wonderful you all are, I would...not to be too dramatic or anything) ;-)

Exhale.

I was fortunate enough to spend a week in Washington this month. My whole family was there and we celebrated Jake and Leah's graduations from graduate school and then spent some time in the mountains at an awesome cabin. It was wonderful.

I realized that week that my soul needed to breathe. It needed room to have a nice long exhale without being rushed back to routine. The minute the plane took off I felt lighter and lighter. It's not a reflection on my life in Nashville, but just a reminder that my soul needs room to breathe. I need to make room for my over-thinking mind to rest, my over-empathetic heart to take a break and my always achieving soul to stop. It was a chance to be reminded that I do not hold the world together and that it keeps going when I'm gone.

My soul took a nice long exhale and I was able to rest. I was able to think about things that I usually just push away and cover with busyness. I was able just to be. I was able to exhale and inhale rest, peace and joy.

With every fit of laughter, every game played, every beautiful scene taken in, every short nap in the car, every page read in my book, every breath caught on the hike, every talk with one of my family members, every thought that with these people I am completely known and loved...my soul exhaled.

The hard part is not to feel like you're choking when it's time to get back to reality, to not feel like your soul is getting stuffed back down after experiencing that breath of fresh air. How do I make room for my soul to breathe in the everyday and the ordinary? How do I allow myself to feel that freedom and rest in the middle of the busyness and routine?

This was supposed to restore my soul and give me rest to start again and it did, but it also just made me long for more, long for more room to breath, more room to rest and more room to be restored. So, how do I create the space for my soul to exhale in the every day?  I guess it's something I'm still trying to figure out.

A significant other.

I heard author, Shauna Niequist, speak at Lipscomb University recently. She is one of my favorite authors and I was excited for the chance to hear her in person. You can follow Shauna’s blog here and you should check out her books! Cold Tangerines is one of my favorite books ever. She has a way of writing about life, friendships, faith and hospitality that just makes sense and she’s great at sharing stories. Anyway…this isn’t about how much I love her, but seriously, check her out.

One thing she shared while she was speaking was this, “I want you to know and remember that just because you don’t have a significant other does not mean you are not significant.” It was refreshing to hear her say this and to know that her main audience of college students were hearing someone speak this truth over them.

I think this happens too much in the life of a young person. I know I have been made to feel like I’m not enough because I don’t have a significant other or I don’t have some “plan in place” for when I’ll have a significant other. It’s like my life hasn’t quite made it because I’m single, like my life isn’t quite as significant, like I’m in the waiting room for my life to finally be where it should be. I have been made to feel not enough or lacking.

Another wise woman in my life, my cousin Kendi, and she may not even remember saying this when we were together over Christmas, but we were talking about relationships and she said something like, “I don’t know why people act like having a “significant other” is the only significant relationship in someone else’s life.” My soul breathed a sigh of relief and shouted Amen!

Because that's the other side of the coin, why do we treat other relationships as not quite as significant as a boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife? Now, I know I’m speaking from someone who is lacking in both of those departments and I am in no way minimizing the importance of those relationships, but I think we need to get out of our box and realize we have a lot of significant relationships. In some ways, if someone were to ask me if I had a significant other I would say, yes, lots! (and then have a lot of explaining to do probably) :) But there are so many people in my life that I consider significant and who bring significance to my life. Beautiful friends who pour into my life and meet me where I am and show me that it doesn’t just take blood to be considered family, a beautiful community who shows me what it’s like to be there for each other, to enter into each other’s happy and not so happy places and a beautiful blood-related family who from my earliest of days have shown me acceptance, love and joy. These people are my significant others.

So friends, please know that you are significant, with or without that “significant other”, know that you are enough just because you are you, know that just because you don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife you are not lacking as a person or lacking of significant relationships. Pour into the people around you, love the people around you, make room for the people around you and you will find there are lots of people with significance in your life.