#im actually sort of grateful the plans i originally had for yesterday fell apart bc idk if i could have like. dealt w that

[storm-of-feathers]

aaaaaaa

[jess-oh]

Reflection

[song of today]

oOPS, ive been getting kinda lazy again. but before i forgot or fell asleep... i wanted to type this post to just catch up on everything thats been going on.

i just watched part of the thailand team’s vlog and it made me really miss guatemala. i keep saying that theres 1 moment that i will never forget. and while that’s still true, i remembered another time. i remembered on our last day at our first village and everyone was in a giant circle and we were getting ready to leave. but in an attempt to start heading over, a bunch of the kids latched onto me and i pretended to be losing strength as i inched forward, bit by bit. but more and more kids continued to latch on until they were actually too heavy for me to carry and i fell over. but i remember. i remember lying down on the floor in the middle of the circle and being filled with so much joy. i laughed in pure bliss along with the kids. and i didnt care that we were in the middle and i could feel my team judging me for just suddenly breaking the circle. but i didnt care. i was so happy to just be there in that moment with the kids. i just remember hoping that claire was taking a video or at least a photo of us bc it was a moment that i never wanted to forget. and i can feel my memory slipping away but man, that kind of joy...it doesn’t come everyday. i miss that feeling. of just laughing my head off without a care in the world, just so incredibly glad and blessed to be with those kids. having that childlike spirit. what a powerful moment that i hope to never forget.

and the second, just to resolidify the memory, was when our team danced and sang english vbs songs in the pouring rain. we didnt care that it started raining. in fact, we werent even phased. we had a job and we were going to do it. and man, even though the kids and the adults didn’t understand and looked at us with confusing as we sang in english, i will never forget how empowered i felt. as we sang “strength and shield,” and i turned to my team from the front and yelled, “READY? 1. 2. 3!” And then turning back to the front and jumping and yelling, “I’M JUMP JUMP JUMPING FOR JOY! I’M SHOUT SHOUT SHOUTING MY THANK YOU. I’M SING SING SINGING MY LOVE. TO GIVE YOU ALL MY PRAISE TO YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU. GOD IT’S ALL FOR YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU. I GIVE MY PRAISE TO YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU. GOD IT’S ALL FOR YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU.” The body movements. The songs. The singing. Everything. Just being there alongside my team. So fueled and pumped up. I loved every bit of it. And I hope that I never ever forget it. I loved doing all those VBS songs. English and Spanish. And while I’m sad that I can’t remember everything, I would happily learn again. There’s something so empowering about just dancing and singing those songs. 

i remember how awful i felt post mission and how i felt so useless bc i couldn’t adapt to the new situation at hand. and even though it was a mission trip, i still thought so much about how my team saw me and that filled me with so much anxiety and self hatred. i felt so useless on the trip bc i didnt know how to catch up. i couldnt catch up. i was too much of a control freak to account for that situation. and i regret it. i wasnt useless. i drew and colored so many posters. i led the body worship. and even though i was flawed and our lies skit wasnt as as strong as it couldve been, i still served. i did my job and i went through with it and thats what mattered. i impacted their lives. i remember when we had to break off into groups and while at first i thought i was bringing a group of 20 people to my area, 50+ people ended up coming. my group was way larger than anyone else’s but i didnt complain. i adapted to the new situation and i still carried out my duty. i accepted the help from our chisec homies and even though i took longer than everyone else, i still did it. i made sure everyone had the beads and the bracelet. i did it. i felt so shitty bc i didnt plan the crafts well enough. i kept relying and pushing judy when i didnt plan for my own part myself. but i did it. we did it. it happened and everything worked out in the end. on our night of debrief, i wanted to do daily QT&reflection as well as sleep before midnight and while i did try, i kinda gave up. but i have kept up with the reflections at least! but i remember my team saying i should do something that has to do with my family since our relationship was shit. but i refused. and idk if that was the right choice or not but i honestly believe that the time we spent away and apart from each other, helped way more than any kind of talking would have. we’re open now. before? i think we would’ve all been too stubborn to understand. 

Now onto the events of the past few days. Honestly, I don’t really remember what I last posted so I’ll just go by memory and make it brief. The other night. Two days ago? I hung out with Andrew and although it was awkward, I was able to introduce the topic of religion without it being too weird and for that, I am grateful. I’m also happy that God’s been allowing us to spend more time together. Just one on one. He is still Andrew but he does act differently around David. Also, I’m 98% I already wrote about this so let’s move on.

Yesterday, I met up with the PAL Presidents and Hazel. I was pretty salty toward PAL at first bc I waited 20min for them at in-n-out, only for them to ask me to come to El Mo, somewhere I was previously right next to since I went to Chase earlier that day. Begrudgingly I went but I’m glad that I decided to give them a chance. It was nice to catch up briefly with Daniel since we were both in UBMS and hear about their plans for the coming year and share my knowledge and experience as well. They’re on the right track. And while they’ll most definitely have issues with the class, I believe in them.

Afterwards, I met up with Hazel and in-n-out and regrettably ordered way too much food. I didn’t get a drink and yet, I was still dying. I got a double double, animal style fries, and a strawberry shake. But I’m still happy I did it. It was great. She’s pretty nervous about the coming year since she’s the new EIC along with someone else for yearbook and while I cannot confidently say that she’ll succeed, I do believe in her effort. I think she does have a lot of potential and have grown so much since I first met her her sophomore year. And I’m really glad and proud of how far she’s come since then. I do think it kind of sucks that the editors forced the position onto her but I think she’ll try really hard and I’m even proud of her for that. I did vent a bit about how terribly my senior year in yearbook and revealed to Hazel everything that happened behind the scenes. But I’m happy I got it off my chest. But at the same time, I know I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m over gossiping. This was just a step back. I did start looking for files for her but since most everything was on my school email and that was shut down... there was only so much that i could do. I’m still looking for some things that could help her. Admittedly, I have been a bit lazy in my research but I really don’t have a lot of stuff left. I am going to try and drop off my old yearbook binder and notebook and see if that’ll help at all but... who knows. It looks like trash to me but maybe she can find some sort of inspiration from it. 

sidenote: i was so full and lazy from my food that i convinced my sister to pick me. honestly, i shouldnt been more attentive to my phone when i originally asked her to get me but im thankful nonetheless that she actually came back out just to get me. but wtf in-n-out. howd it take you 12min to make lightly cooked fries???

but onto today, 

IIiiii, ran some errands and then met up with Rena today and while we did have a pretty great conversation and were able to keep it up for hours and hours.... we did talk about other people a lot. And I kind of hated that. We never meant to. It just started from her not knowing that so many people were sophomores. But. I kind of hated it. It felt like 2 steps back for me. And I knew it too. I kept trying to ween off that conversation but somehow, we always found ourselves back on it. Talking about other people. Not necessarily in a bad light and they werent people we knew nothing about but still. I think once we started talking about the people we knew in a relationship, it really became gossip but I didn’t know how to drop it. But man, I am filled with such regret. I wish I didn’t do that. I wish I just called ourselves out on it. But I am happy that I got to spend that time with Rena. I just hope she doesn’t see me as the gossip girl now though. I doubt it but... still.

It is something that I still need to work on and be more aware of.