Thoughts from a travel adventure

So sorry for disappearing on you last week. I had a TRAVEL ADVENTURE! (Which means I also had a PANICKED WHAT-WILL-I-WEAR SHOPPING EXCURSION, followed by a HOW DO I CRAM ALL MY SHOES INTO ONE CARRY-ON BAG? DILEMMA. So really, it was a very busy week.

I flew down to Charlottesville, VA with Changing Seasons to encourage a ballroom full of awesome UVA women about two of my favorite subjects: God & boys. While I was there I kept thinking back to my own senior year, and how impossible it was for me to imagine how much bigger the world was about to get once I graduated. I wanted to say to these students, over and over again, "Just because your Mr. Right is not here at UVA right now doesn't mean he's not out there..." But in a huge act of noble self-control, I only said it once. (Or maybe twice...)

After UVA, I came home to Homecoming at Wheaton, and the annual gathering of alumni leaders at my awesome alma mater, only to realize this: The sense that there's something more out there? It never really goes away. Many of the questions we have when we're 20 are still there when we're 40. They're shaped a little differently, and some of the blanks have been filled in. But we still wonder: What's next? Who can I depend on/trust? Do I dare to dream about XYZ or am I being ridiculous?

The answers don't change, either:
We don't know what's next. We guess and try to nudge things along in a pleasing direction, but who really knows?

We depend on who shows up. Sometimes that goes well and sometimes we get crushed. But then we get up, do our best to shake it off, and love someone else.

And yes, we should all dream about XYZ...and yes, we're all being ridiculous. There are worse things. There are millions of people out there living in stunned astonishment at how far a little ridiculous can take you.

Here's to hope, courageous love, and being a little ridiculous :)