Is Separation Necessary for Personal Growth?

If I could kick myself in the mouth, I would do it.

I want to kick myself for starting this blog so late into my college program,

and I want to kick myself for starting this blog at all.

I figured writing a "real blog" would keep me from sounding like an immature bitty via tumblr text posts. I don't know what it is about typing down and throwing out thoughts into the internet, but it feels lovely. Maybe someone needs to read it. Maybe it makes me feel important, like people actually read what I think because they care about my life. Or they're just nosy. Which still means they care. You obviously care. Hi.

My trainer told me two weeks ago to start blogging because I have a lot of feelings that I will want to remember someday, so here I am. Writing to feel and remember and forget. Public writing is strange because it just is. 

I moved to Orlando five months ago at the end of August because yolo. In all seriousness, it truly was a you-only-live-once decision. I get restless when I am in the same place for too long, but doesn't everyone? Some folk have a higher tolerance for leading a boring life, I guess. I loved the one year I spent in college. It was great. My friends in Nashville have the biggest hearts I have ever encountered, but I was stuck. I entered college a sensitive, close-minded psycho (for lack of a better word) and left the same. I was mentally unstable, emotionally unavailable, and depended way too much on other humans. Something was missing. I was.

The past six months have destroyed me. I was abandoned, ripped apart, and crushed. It was partially my fault, but I guess it always is. I essentially had to rebuild myself, by myself. I was alone, but I needed to be. Last year, my writing professor asked, "Is separation necessary for personal growth?" That thought has consumed my mind over the past half-year and all I have to say is, "YES!!!(a million exclamation points!)". All that has surrounded me since birth was stripped away and I was forced to reconstruct myself into the person I want to be. I learned more about myself when there was nothing left, which makes no sense whatsoever when I type it out. But I had to choose for myself, and stand up for truth, and embrace and express my feelings more than I ever had. I love until my heart feels like bursting, I cry until the tears turn into beautiful memories, and I smile until my face hurts because, as cheesy as this sounds, life is too precious to conceal emotions. This quote from Kurt Vonnegut always makes me feel sparkly inside:

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"

I am happy.
I don't think one ever stops growing, but I like where I am at.

You know when everything in your life is rather peachy and you're just waiting for the collapse? That's where I am now. I keep telling that to friends when they ask how I'm doing, and they usually just laugh and agree. Yesterday, a new friend told me, "Maybe you just got out of something awful, but you don't remember because now you're so happy." Perhaps I have just now walked out of the rain and into the sunniest sunshine, but I forgot about the rain because the sun is so bright and warm and forgiving. 

I am thankful for yolo decisions and separation. I am thankful that God has never left my side through it all. I am thankful for His unfailing love, His forgiveness, His patience, and His ability to make all things new.