Part of the Plunge

Friendship in unexpected places is one of the most beautiful things in this life.

Coming home after a long year at school is always a scary adjustment. I feel like in some ways I lose a huge support system of friends, professors, bosses, and mentors who have spent months and months pouring into me. In college, change happens fast. I feel like growth is explosive... happening quickly, painfully, and exponentially. Coming home slows everything down. I must adjust to a new support system, the new pace, and the slower growth. I must realize that most people at home don't know who I'm becoming... or how I've been changing.

In the past, I felt like it was too long of a story. Too long to bother sharing where I am, where I've been, where I'm going. Home was merely temporary. A gap between another year of school, chaos, friends, busyness, and growth. Home was simply a place to nap, catch up, and get ready to dive in again.

But this summer has been different.  I decided to see Home as part of the dive. A place of further plunging. A place where I need to let others in, to allow others to begin seeing me as an adult and not a child. To take initiative. To dive deep. To be present.

Part of that is making new friends. And not just friends my age.

I am especially enjoying friendships that span generations... friendships filled with smile wrinkles, misunderstandings due to diminishing hearing, and requests for glasses when we play Scrabble. Gray-haired souls who understand so much, see so much, yet still struggle with the hard things in life and wrestle with some of the same questions that tear at my brain too.

I love impromptu meals, where pizza and a messy house are totally acceptable. Where I don't have to look my best, and where laughing abounds. Where we talk about the silly stuff, the hard stuff, and all the stuff in between.

I love being the youngest of a group, with no peers around. No one to fall back on. But simply to live and love and laugh with people who are generations apart. And to realize that the people I always thought of as my parents' friends are suddenly now my own. For the respect they give me, for the fact that they listen, and are willing to treat me like an adult.

I also love not being in high school anymore. I love being in a place where social divisions and cliques no longer matter. I'm peeling off my high school label, learning to just be with people regardless of how different we are, our athletic capabilities, or our nerdiness. To simply love people and make efforts to connect without the prejudice or the assumption that we have nothing in common.

I love that as I head into my last year of college, I'm beginning to see myself more as an adult than as a child. That I'm realizing that I am my own person. While I am still reeling from these realizations, I am so blessed to have friends who stand alongside of me... both here and at school. To steady me when things get serious, to love me when I feel alone, and to lift me up daily in prayer.