99 Red Balloons

Here it is...99 days till all this ends. When I officially leave this place and try to do life on my own. I am amazed, slightly scared, and very anxious to know what June 12 offers (which is the day after I graduate).

I've been a student for 20 years. I have no idea how to be anything else, and while I have been here, I have come close to understanding that I'm not going to be a student forever. It's so scary. I have no idea what's around the corner, all I know is that it's very possible I could be doing life on my own.

My life is still crazy, it's still hard. I'm grateful for the people who are willing to let me be messy when the grieving starts, which now seems to be on a daily basis. It's so weird to think that this is my last Next Gen Conference, it's the last time with the Axis retreat, it's a lot of last things. And if I'm completely honest and vulnerable, there are only a few people that I want to be with me through this, and these are people who have been with me for three years. But there are a few new people who I desperately want to be on this with me, but I just don't know if I have it in me right now to try anything new.

So, right now, I'm sitting in my office, looking over the things I need to do over the next 99 days. Conversations that need to be had, things I need to get to finishing up, work things that must be done before I leave. Otherwise, I'm sitting in the fact that my very best friend in the entire world is moving. So, now Kansas City has lost some of it's appeal, but that does mean where ever she and her growing family end up, I'll have a warm place to visit. I'll miss her like crazy, but we haven't lived in the same town since 2002, so it won't be any different, but trips to KC now just won't be the same. It was her and her family that I longed to see as soon as I got home...this just now gives me a better excuse to stay a short period of time.

I'm ready for a new season, and not just a physical season, but a new season in life...this one is just so hard that I just don't know if I can continue to do it.