the day before the madness begins...

So Asheville was perfect… we went out last night for frozen custard, then sat around and watched movies in our pajamas and caught up on some correspondence. We watched this incredible movie called the Motorcycle Diaries… it’s a foreign film… all in Spanish… about this med school student and his friend who take off to explore the country and end up working with lepers and trying to heal divisions in their country… they ended up leading the Cuban revolution.

I don’t know; it made me think a whole lot about where this summer is going… I’m going into it for an adventure, but God, I pray I come out with a mission. With something more.

I’m getting nervous about this week – and watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind right now… it’s a little overwhelming. What’s more important… losing the pain of our pasts, or keeping the memories?

When push comes to shove, the memories make us who we are. I’m learning that about Spearhead, too… their memories bond them together so tightly. What happens when those bonds get torn apart but the memories are still there? A year ago I was in a cute little restaurant in Charleston, dreaming about the years to come, eating this amazing salmon dinner, in love, happy… but deathly insecure, so incredibly pained, dependent on who I thought I was, afraid of who I was becoming. I think. I don’t even remember anymore. All I know is that I’ve changed a whole lot. And that last night in Charleston freaked me out a bit… everyone hurts eventually. I think?

I guess the bottom line is this: tomorrow, new memories will come. I will never forget my first set of campers at Spearhead, the day they came into my life, the impact they will have on me. These memories will shape who I am to come, just as much, if not more, than the memories of my past.

Memories before this year… I let so much hit me skin deep. Maybe because I was afraid to let people go deeper. Maybe because I didn’t feel like I was worth it. I realized that people we love can hurt us deeper, more painfully than anyone else. With each new person in my life, I pushed them away a little bit more. So that’s the difference now… these new memories, I can let them go deeper. I don’t have to be scared anymore. I can start over by going past everything that I’ve spent this year trudging through. I feel like that’s how things have gone… I’ve had to trudge through the muck, figure things out. It’s a clean space now. Time to move in.

So as the campers move into their new space, I get to move into this clean(er), (more) joyful, (temporarily) empty space… the place where the memories to come will go. They are the new people in my life, they are what’s most important now. It’s their turn to take a whirl at my heart, impact my life… it’s my turn to let them in. I’ve got a whole lot of love to give, and lucky them… June 11, 2007. They’re moving in.