Surround Yourself With People Who Want to See Your Dreams Come True

In September I took a trip to Switzerland. Again. I know right? How does a girl who never even thought about traveling other than wanting to visit her homeland (Italy), end up going to Switzerland twice in two years?

Well, the simplest answer is that when I moved to Mammoth, I was immediately surrounded by people that travelled a lot.

After living in a place where traveling is the norm and streets are filled with foreign skiers and snowboarders, it kind of changes your mindset. Lets just say that it rubbed off on me.

This last trip was a totally different experience than the first.

My first trip was a missions trip. Every day planned and filled with some sort of meeting with people my pastors knew but I had only ever heard of.

This trip was more freeing in a way. When it started, I was in an awesome city with three of my closest friends. I'm sure when we all lived in the Staffhouse together that we were not expecting to all be in Zürich together two years later.

But I think it was a reunion that we all needed. We needed to see each other as we were all getting ready to embark on a different chapter of our own lives.

So in the span of two and a half weeks I went from Zürich to Laax, Laax to Interlaken, Interlaken to Saas Fee, and then back to Zürich to begin my travels home.

It was a very wonderful trip. That's all I can think to say to people when they ask me how my trip was. For some reason I wouldn't really elaborate at all unless people asked. Then I found myself grasping at straws for stories to entertain them.

I think now I understand why.

When I was staying in Saas Fee with the Bowman's, my Mammoth family, they decided they wanted to take me to either France or Italy. Since I am a quarter Italian and had always wanted to go I opted for that, so we went.

We drove over the border and into Italy and it was as if in my mind I was picturing a new check on my bucket list. Sure it was the equivalent of driving from San Diego into Tijuana for the day, but it meant the world to me. It was probably my favorite day out of the whole trip.

I got to experience this awesome country with the people that I love.

I had real Italian Pizza, a cappuccino, gelato shaped like a flower, and delicious Italian wine.

We talked, we laughed, and eventually we began our journey back to Saas Fee via a very windy pass in the dark of night. In between falling asleep in the backseat we laughed at how fast we were going and how not everyone was cool with it.

A day trip into the country that I had always wanted to go to, all because the people I was with love me and wanted to see this small dream of mine come true.

I think that before I moved to Mammoth, I wasn't necessarily encouraged to follow all of my dreams. I mean of course generally people would try and support what I wanted to do, but it kind of always came off as if they meant they wanted to support my dreams while I followed them from behind the walls of my high school bedroom.

Which I totally understand that when people aren't making crazy leaps of faith all the time, seeing other people doing it may seem irresponsible or insane. Or both.

But when you love someone, you want to see their dreams come true. Even if it means you don't get to be directly next to them when that happens.

I think the biggest lesson that I have learned is that you need to surround yourself not only with people who love you and love what you love, but also people who are going to want to see your dreams come true. Maybe sometimes they'll even help you along the way if they can.

I think the reason I have such a hard time telling people about my trip and the places I went is because the places actually didn't matter to me. Yes yes. Everything was amazingly beautiful. But for me I was just happy to see my friends. I was happy to be with the people that I love and who love me.

THAT is my dream come true.

And to experience a beautiful country together, well, that was just a bonus.

In My Own Head

Two Weeks ago I wrote a blog post about getting to know people and it being extremely hard for me to say goodbye to those people. Last night I had a bit of an emotional episode.

This summer, friends have come back to work at The Station. People that I truly care about and quite honestly I feel as though I was just holding my breath waiting for them to come back.

For some reason I have allowed this future goodbye make me fall apart.

At every point where I am shut out or cut off from community and hanging out with people I feel a little twinge in my heart. Another opportunity to grow closer, missed.

I think that because I decided to open my heart to people and get to know them, my heart feels extremely exposed. It's like I went from feeling scared to open up, to being scared that I'm not opening up enough and I'm going to say goodbye to these amazing individuals again and it's going to ruin me.

I got in my head.

I allowed my mind to tell me that there isn't enough time.

I've allowed my own season coming to an end make me feel as though everything is.

It's as though I spoke out that I wanted to open up to people and get to know them even if goodbyes are hard, and then I'm faced with another huge goodbye that is going to suck.

A goodbye to friends. A goodbye to summer. A possible last summer at The Station. And a possible last summer in Mammoth. A possible goodbye to my home.

But if I start breaking down now, I can't have my last experience.

I can't live in the moment if I'm thinking of the last one we'll have.

So I need to stop.

Somehow.

I need to stop getting into my own head.

What You See is Not What Everyone Else Sees

This morning I woke up with my bun on the very top of my head and at least half of my hair had fallen out from the bottom. In that moment, I knew it was going to be a bad hair day.

My hair was greasy, and my part was now, thanks to my bun, indecipherable.

I finally got ready and did my best to style my hair, ending up with it in a pony tail.

I did my make-up and I picked out my outfit for the day.

Feeling fine with myself, I made my way across the property to the camp office and began my weekly task of cleaning the office.

I was sweeping when one of my roommates walked in to ask me a question.

As they were making their way out the door they stopped and said "you are having a good hair day. What's different?"

And then I say hesitantly, "It's in a pony tail."

"Oh." He replied, "I like it. You wearing make-up?"

"Yes." I say.

"Lipstick?" He asked further.

"Yup." I reply, now just completely taken aback.

"I like it." He said and then turned and left.

As I continued sweeping I felt my "feeling fine" mood lift off of me, and I felt full on happy with how the day had turned out.

There were two things that I realized through this experience.

One being that you never know how someone is feeling about themselves. I was feeling basically crappy about how my hair looked today and then now I feel great.

Because someone went out on a limb and decided to compliment me, I instantly felt better. So we should never hold back when trying to encourage people.

Two being that people see us very differently then we see ourselves. We are our own worst critic, and somehow sometimes we don't think good things about ourselves, when on the opposite end people could think the world of us.

We could think we look crappy as hell, and then people tell us that we need to keep doing what we're doing because we look great. What even is that?

As I begin to walk out this newfound confidence in the fact that I am totally and completely ridiculous when it comes to overthinking my appearance, I hope that you realize that people see you very differently then you see yourself.

So when you look in the mirror just remember, what you see is not what everyone else sees.

With all due respect sir

You don't know me.You don't know what I'm thinking or what I feel. You can't see the hurt behind my smile. And you definitely can't see the compassion that floats just beneath the worried look that you think judges. I have been struck down, and I have been gasping for air above these waters. I have a mind that works nonstop except for the few glorious hours of silence I get from slumber. I over think. I think deeply. I think in connecting dots that circle through my mind. The strain from thoughts displayed by my eyebrows. No I can't hide my emotions that well on my ever revealing face. But at least I show emotion. At least I choose to smile and wave when people look at me. At least I offer kindness to those who are worried and hurt. At least I encourage when people are stressed. I don't strike people when they are down, and I definitely don't pretend to know them. So with all due respect, not that you actually deserve it, you don't know me.