Becoming Who I Am

It has recently hit me that I AM getting older. Soon my friends will start getting married, as will I. It means that anyone I date now could potentially be the one person that I spend the rest of my life with. This time next year I will no longer be a teenager, and that thought is a little frightening! I still feel 18, and I would love to stay this age for the rest of my life. Sure, my uncle says that you don't "age," instead you become "vintage." This of course means that you get better with age. I hope to get better with age, in all aspects of life.
Right now I am still exploring my faith, myself, and establishing my existence, trying to find something that others will remember me by. I feel so young and unsure at times.
Love is something deep, and I do not want to toss it around.
I want to live inspired, full of life and love. I want to have wellness; emotional, spiritual, and physical. I want to find an amazing love for God. I want to find what love really is. I am blessed with wonderful friends and family, and also a wonderful boyfriend. But do I really love him? Love him enough to spend my life with him? And if I do love him, would he love God as much as I do, or at least as much as I aspire to? Do I really love God as much as I say I do? Am I strong enough to withstand the temptations I face with my boyfriend?

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[Boone, North Carolina] December 2009

Ahh the Welcome Back Jitters.

First day of second semester! Pulling into school today felt like the first day of orientation, stomach butterflies and welcome back jitters galore. Finally got everything unpacked and I am still not ready for classes tomorrow.
So far the day has gone extremely smooth. I had a very nice lunch with Sara and her dad at Elijah's, a quaint restaurant on the riverside. Well this is just a quick check-in, I don't have anything else to say. Back to getting settled in!

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[On the UNCW Campus] September 2009

Sometimes a loss means a new start.

Just recently my computer did something very mean and weird, it decided to erase all of my main files! This includes all my music, word documents, game statistics, and, to my complete horror, all of my photoshop work!
Talk about a new start.
I now have to start from scratch.
The light in the situation is that I backed everything up, unfortunately it is taking my computer forever to retrieve it all. When I say forever, I really mean days on end.
I am beginning to lose hope that it will do what I want.
The real mystery in the situation is how did this all happen in the first place?
Ugh

Ramble

Stephen.
Stephen.
Stephen...
That's all I hear at the moment.
I was going to write about something else more important to me, but there is an unstoppable voice that goes about 100 mph about this particular guy (aka my sister).
He means almost nothing to me, and yet he means almost everything to someone else.
Intriguing.

Love.
This is the only word in the English language used to express a huge range of admiration for things from cheeseburgers to an intimate relationship with one's soul mate.
It always amazes me how loosely this word is used, but I suppose that it is unavoidable since my culture only has one word to express these things.
It is extremely vexing!
I want to express my feelings for my boyfriend without using the deep "I love you," but there is no way besides saying "I really like you" or "you mean a lot to me" (which is a little better than 'like').
I wish there was a word for that gap between like and love.
To me, being in love with a guy is not comparable to my like of his friendship, and I want the word to have meaning when I finally do feel that way.

End of ramble 1.

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[View of Sunset from UNCW Campus]

Day 1

Well here I am, starting to blog again. This is just day 1 and I don't have anything interesting to say.
I think that I would like to use this blog for my photography or other random thoughts.
Or maybe I'll just use it as a journal.
My aunt challenged me to write about the most interesting thing that happens each week, so maybe this is where those moments will pop up.

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[Wilmington, NC sunset] October 2009