PATHS

mina and i -- reunited once more!! <3

i went down to provo on saturday night to see my friends who are all back from the break.  i expected everything to feel the same, and it did... and at the same time it didn't.  i mean, with my friends, it felt exactly the same.  seeing melina and rob and jewels and brey and amby and kevin and erin and jen and tanner and tom and mike and dennis and brandt.... i could go on.  but that part was the same.  it felt soo good to see them again.  but my apartment no longer felt like my apartment.  i guess that was to be expected but i didn't expect to feel that way.  it was sad feeling like a stranger in what used to be the most familiar place to me.  my ward - who i love to bits and pieces - felt a little more like "home."  but i still felt as though i no longer belonged there.

i guess that's because i don't.

odd how we travel down paths with different people/experiences during our lifetimes, isn't it?  it's not that we have different lives.  my elementary school life and high school life and heber life and provo life and byu life are all the same life.  they're all just different paths that interconnect and make up who i am.  but the friends that i've made on these different paths are different, too.  some are the same and i know they'll stay the same for a long time to come.  but others have fallen away as i've continued to move forward in my life and pursue different experiences.

as i continue to grow and learn, i've realized that's what life is.  people fall in and out of our lives at different points, and that's how it's supposed to be.  sometimes -- might i venture to say most times? -- it's painfully hard.  we become attached to people we care a lot about, and it's never easy to say goodbye.

i'm not looking forward to the many, many goodbyes that are waiting on the horizon of my future.  but i am looking forward to the beginning of a new path.  and as i look back on the many paths i've traveled so far, i feel extraordinarily blessed.  each path has allowed me the chance to meet wonderful people, do amazing things, and unlocked another piece of who shaylee k really is.

here's to preparing to travel down my new path.  i think i'll start tomorrow.