A Skyline of Memories

“They say I'm old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!” – Dr. Seuss

The last few weeks have been a struggle for me with so many unwanted goodbyes staking their claim. I’ve been working on writing this for over a week if that says anything at all.

“It’s the oldest story in the world. One day you’re 17 and planning for someday. And then quietly and without you ever really noticing someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life.” – Nathan Scott

How do seconds turn into months in a matter of minutes? Like the time between the sunrise and sunset…yesterday was hello and today is already goodbye yet a book could be written on all that stands between. A chapter for each friend made, a song for each feeling, a verse for each lesson…

            Nine times I’ve moved in the last two years. Nine times I’ve gotten close to people and had to say the word I dread the most. Nine times. Two years. People always talk about how physically draining moving is but physical exhaustion heals while emotional exhaustion grows. Saying goodbye to people is something that seems to grow increasingly difficult. I used to think I would get used to all the goodbyes and they would hurt less but they prove to be stubborn in their toll.  

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

            In the past 4 months, I have met so many amazing people who have impacted my life in a million different ways; seems to be the story of my life for the last 3 years, constantly meeting amazing people who leave their mark. Maybe the hardest part is thinking about the future without each face there everyday and maybe goodbyes grow increasingly difficult because each of you hold a piece of me as I carry memories of you.

I’ve spent a lot of time feeling unwanted and undeserving and recently someone pointed out to me how much of that was in my head. I’ve been the one at fault. Although important people have decided they didn’t want me in their life, ultimately it has been up to me to allow others to care about me since and to let myself believe I deserve that care. God sure has been trying to show me that the last couple years. Imagine moving so many times and having people at each place reach out and pull you into their lives and families as if you were there all along. I never expected that in all the times I had to pack up and say goodbye. More than that though I didn’t expect those people to keep caring when I was gone. Family is so much more than blood to me.

“No matter how you get there or where you end up, human beings have this miraculous gift to make that place home.” – Creed Bratton (The Office)

            I’m not so sure its about individuals making each place feel like home as they move along, I think it has everything to do with the people who surround you and how welcome they make you feel. I think about all the people who have had an impact on my life since I was just a kid until now and all the people who have welcomed me into their lives and the list amazes me. It took me until now to realize all the people God has put in my life to make me understand people do care. Sometimes it’s still hard to feel like I deserve that care because it feels like I’ve done nothing to earn any of it but then I think about God and how loving He is. None of us have earned His love yet he piles it on us, an endless supply despite our offenses.

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good ol’ days before you’ve actually left them.” – Andy Bernard (The Office)

As much as I hate the goodbyes and even the see-ya-laters, the people I’ve had to say goodbye to are the people who kept me going throughout all the moving and rough times. God put every single person I’ve met in my life for a reason and I don’t think words could ever express how much each of you have impacted my life. In fact, I know they couldn’t. So many people think true friends are measured by the communication kept up with when distance grows and life becomes busy but I can’t agree with that. Life does happen, time seems to become shorter each day as the workload increases and new people are brought into our lives. True friends are the friends who can go months without talking and within seconds of seeing each other feel like there was never a lapse in time.

‘There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things, isn’t that kinda the point?” – Pam Halpert (The Office)

            All of you are going to wonder about some of the things on here and recognize just what applies to you but here it is, a list of the ordinary that is more like extraordinary to me:

• Movie night
• Tiki Island
• Memes…so many memes
• Solace
• Bible study
•  VeggieTales
• Whataburger nights
• Erroneous in Physics…NASA class maybe?
• Coastal Community Church
•  #foreveralone
• Gatherings at Trish’s house
• Beach trips and burns
• Movies so horrible we couldn’t help but laugh
• Late nights laughing instead of studying
• Band trips and competitions
• Skype dates
•  Girl talk by the pool
• Scary movie nights with sushi
• Late nights at Nestle
•  Early mornings at Panera
•  French chefs
• Taste of the NFL
• The times at school when some of us figured out our dreams were different than we thought and others found our calling
• Lunches and dinners outside with the birds
•  Making friends in soup kitchens
• Checkin’ Crew
• Driving just to drive
• Ecuador
• Talks through tears
• Long talks in parking lots
• Bowling
• Family dinners with new family
• Aggie mom meetings
•  Going to every restaurant on my favorite’s list
• Hugs
• Color Vibe
• Making fantastic dinners with an old and new sister
• Scary 5 am parking lot meetings haha
• All-nighters that lead up to those scary parking lot meetings
• Insanity…but really
• Hours of trying on clothes to find the right outfit
• Everyone who has helped me get to where I am, even in the small ways
•  The Quarries (wopping, kitchen adventures, clicking, boy talk)
•  Experiments in the kitchen
• Middle school sleepovers
• Concerts with best friends
•  Fightin’ Texas Aggie Football!
• Exploring
•  Every moment everyone in the room was laughing so hard it was silent
• Funfetti cake box signed for my birthday
• Puddin
• Area competition when the lights went out and we went around telling everyone in our section something amazing about them
• Can’t really sum up all the moments with my siblings…love you guys
• Starbucks
• The game of LIFE
• Beehives
• Trying to plan events for over 200 students
• Endless music copies
•  Birthday celebrations
•  Dancing
• The moments we realized sometimes other people have been through the same difficult stuff
•  Salt and pepper
• Bonfires
• Broken down cars
• Ridiculous zoo trips and pictures
•  Speech class in high school
• Prayer
• Pranks
•  6^th grade shenanigans in science class
•  Darts
•  Boy talk
•  Middle school dances and horrible haircuts
• Endless filing of paperwork and the humor through it all
• La Madeleine
• Bonding over Josh Groban and a million other things in the wee hours of the morning
• Hours of catching up instead of sleeping
• Watching Friends every night with Amadeus
• Houlihans
•  Sticky notes on the wall when goodbye was too hard
•  The days of Simple Plan, wearing all black and the Jalapa
• Sunday mornings over the years
• Stories of scars, broken hearts, laughter and wishes
• Holidays
• Wal-Mart and Kroger runs
• Hours of working out filled with stories, laughing, and funny faces
• Home (all of them)
• The awful jobs and the awesome jobs
• Call of Duty, confetti eggs and fishing
• Shark week and storm chasing
• The bucket list
• Nights filled with venting
• Discussions of favorite shows and the emotions that went along
• Writing
• Quotes that help us put words to how we feel
• Music
• Crazy cakes
•  Sunrise and sunset
• Sitting in chemistry wondering when we were going to learn something
•  Bonding in honors band when our part was nothing more than holding out a note for a trillion measures
•  The weird in us all
• The moments I sat in a class and was taught more than school subjects; I was taught about God, life and that there would always be people who believed in me
• Everyone who has ever been there for me
• Cake decorating
• Drunk coffee pots
• Scrapbooking and making mums
• Inside jokes and quotes
• The good and bad, firsts and lasts, bests and worsts, smiles and tears, and understanding and disagreements that led to this. To today, tomorrows yesterday, and yesterday’s someday.

“I’m glad we had the times together just to laugh and sing a song, seems like we just got started and then before you know it, the times we had together were gone.”

– Dr. Seuss

I’ve learned how important it is to let people know how much they mean to me and over the next few days I’m going to go back in time and continue to tag more people in this post. I don’t want anyone to look at the list of people tagged and feel unimportant or like I just tagged everyone because I couldn’t narrow it down. That’s the opposite of what I want. You all mean more than you could imagine to me and this is my way of saying you will always be someone who had some affect on my life and you aren’t and never will be forgotten. It may seem like a big list of people, but that is truly because God has put so many wonderful people in my life and I promise you everyone tagged has had an impact on my life and I’d say that makes me incredibly lucky.

“If you don’t figure out this something, you’ll just stay ordinary, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a work of art, or a taco, or a pair of socks! Just create something…new, and there it is, and it’s out, out in the world, outside of you, and you can look at it, or hear it, or read it, or feel it…and you know a little more about…you. A little bit more than anyone else does…” – Holly Kennedy

            And there it is. Each of you has been an addition to a masterpiece in the works, an ever-growing work of art. A piece that can be seen, heard, read and felt. With each stroke of the brush, measure of notes added, word written and emotion attached, I learn a little bit more about me. Though paintings may fade, music becomes silent and words come to a finish, emotions leave their mark like a skyscraper built of memories on the life’s skyline.