Any possible title for this is just too cheesy.

Sometimes I think I avoid writing because I'm not happy with where I am. Its like I don't want to be able to look back and say, "damn that was a tough time."

Why are we so afraid of this? Why are we so afraid to look back and remember defeat?

It's the reason I do this, it's the reason I journal: to document. To be able to keep myself accountable and keep myself in check. So I can look back years from now at this time and if I'm in the same place, I can take it as encouragement that I've probably forgotten, and move on.

Take a step forward.

So, let's be honest. I haven't been in the best place this past year. I've had my moments, and I don't feel defeated about it. But this has been a tough year.

College has been a tough few years really. A lot of weight, a lot of feeling defeated, feeling rejected, judged, and pushed away.

But, the past few years have also been combatted with feelings of love, affirmation, encouragement, and confidence in who I am.

Right now, sitting in a place thats been my home and my refuge for the past four years, I'm reminded of all those moments spent in this exact place, writing on this stupid blog, documenting moments, and coming to blessed realizations that love wins, and that my God is greater than any love or pain I will ever feel.

Goodness, I am so unbelievably thankful for that.

I am so thankful for the heartbreak, the love, the pain, the loss, and the gaining of anything and everything.

I guess I'm getting a bit nostalgic. I am graduating in two months, things are coming to an end, relationships are ending...and really ending fast and hard.

I am definitely going to miss this place and the context it carries. But does it make me awful to say how unbelievably ready I am to leave?

As much as I have loved this community, too much time in one small place brings judgement, criticism (and not a good kind), and discrimination coupled with disrespect. It just happens. It's not just Milledgeville and my community here. This happens in every group, small or large, and in ever community or family that exists.

It is 100% inevitable.

and its also 100% possible to be handled.

People just don't. We ignore it and say, "this isn't how it should be."

And we hold onto that statement, hoping it will just happen.

Here is the conclusion I've come to about love and loving people in a family, community, or any relational setting: it does not just happen. Love is a complete choice. And we have to choose it.

But so often we don't.

So, I guess what I'm saying in all of this jumbled around crap is this:

-I need to not be afraid to document the parts of my life where I'm not as happy with how things are.

-I'm so ready for a change and to be somewhere my heart has wanted to be for years, but I want to be present and choose to love being here while I'm actually here.

-Love is a choice, we must choose it.

Atreverssiamo.