My Last Year Here!!!!

I have been in Milledgeville now for two weeks and can honestly say I am excited about this coming school year. My clinical assignment this semester is with Mount de Sales Academy in Macon, GA and the athletic trainer there, Jenna, is pretty fantastic. Last week I spent pretty much every day (6:30 AM - 8 PM) in Macon with the football team during their three a day practices. I guess I'd forgotten just how immature high school boys are, however, it is refreshing to see myself around them, to really experience myself becoming the adult in the situation. I am proud of myself for being able to appropriately reprimand  them when they do reach extraordinary heights of rude and crude behavior while at the same time stay cool, calm, and relaxed during a situation which I know in the past would have brought me to my wits end. I am loving the fact that I am now able to assess an entire situation before reacting. Just a little self observation, Go Me. :) So I am fairly certain school will start off without a hitch and I have already been approached (sort of) with job opportunities in Macon upon graduation...a little light at the end of my diploma-obtaining horizon.

Things on the home front are still somewhat rocky (with the parentals) but my mother and I had the beginnings of a conversation today I am hoping will come in to complete fruition tomorrow. I am just praying for the strength to remain respectful in a situation where I would otherwise most definitely lose my cool. I will write more about it once things have been fully resolved. I have found such a deeper faith in myself and my abilities--due in part to my ever increasing faith in God and his gift of Jason and his belief in me! 

Jason truly is my stronghold. He never lets me say negative things about the one he loves (:)) and never fails to remind me at any random moment during the day just what a blessing I am to him. He, however, is truly the one who has blessed and changed my life! 

I should be sleeping right now but I opted instead to look through a wedding magazine I bought a week or so ago and rip out and write down any ideas I had. Thanks to Maggie and her amazing wedding planning material I have begun to put together my own notebook of ideas as well as carry around a little notepad to write all of my random ideas on....Both Maggie and Annie have been THE BIGGEST help and encouragement to me during this extremely important and exciting time for Jason and I. I love them and am so thankful they are my soon to be sisters!!! (Now if I could just tell you WHEN exactly that would occur then I would just be bubbling over with happiness....)

Jason and I have decided that along with planning for the wedding we are going to read a book a month as a tool to help us plan for our MARRIAGE. This commitment, on top pre-marital counseling, the pre-marital retreat, personal experience from our close friends and family, and our own diligent spirits; I am confident we are preparing for this marriage in the most responsible means possible! 

There are times, like now, when it is really hard (and can often feel unfair) to be the eldest child. You are typically the first one to experience or take the leap into something your parents have never experienced: the first to date, the first to get a cell phone, the first to drive, the first to stay out late, the first to go to college, and now the first to get married. I suppose I'd rather it be me then my sister or brother and am thankful that God has created me with such tough skin and a diligent spirit; this is just one of those times when you wish that "first born" mentality wouldn't apply. 

I am hesitantly hopeful for tomorrow and excited for the coming months. This year has been so full of new beginnings, leaps of faith, and even new lives being formed I cannot wait to see what's in store!!

My Love & I - 7/21

I can easily say that yesterday was something I cannot really explain in a few words. Needless to say I was thoroughly surprised, blessed, and most definitely filled with LOVE! I'm going to post a few pictures for those who are close to me to look at on here but otherwise I would just much rather show and tell you the whole story in person!!!!

I love you all very much and want to thank you for the support you have given us throughout our relationship and the continued support, blessings, and love we receive from you! I especially appreciate the example each of your relationships has been to us, with God at the very center of us we know that everything is possible!

The prayer just before the proposal. "Lauren Taylor Dickson will you marry me?" - I said Yes of course :]

The ring, my families all there and together to celebrate Jason and I, My best friend since birth, Marlena. 

My love so pleased that he thoroughly surprised me.

I am so blessed.

And in that moment I was a girl seeing a woman become

Today, we'll just call it today because I have not yet fallen asleep. Was quite easily the most alive days of my life.
Today, July 21, 2008 my love came to the place where it all began and chose me as his own. Today. Not 4 months from now, not 8, not even a year but today. All of my negativity, all of my despair, all of my faithlessness disappearing as I walked into the cooler and saw that man. I didn't think about anything except that this was it, this was the moment I'd wanted, whether fully or dutifully, it was mine. Exactly how I'd wanted. Wanted. (theme of camp) And wanting is a very odd thing. My God was and is and has been so real. And he told me he'd show me, he'd give me that moment I was waiting for and I never knew until now just what that was. And I didn't cry, I laughed I smile so hard my heart and my face and my body on fire! The entire day filled with idle conversation, hazy thoughts, and everything as it is supposed to be.
Of course it was odd that I was working over at girl's camp after an entire summer of boys, or that Eric and Matt both were guarding me from ever going into the kitchen. But I had no idea. Not a one. And every single person knew. I am worth it. I am. I am not a liar or a cheat. I am in love with a man whom God designed just for me. And no distance or time or evil could ever keep me from my love for him. With God guiding me, with my faith and knowledge growing, possibilities unraveling, God has plans for me. He has plans for us bigger than I could even know at this very moment but he is revealing. He is!!!
Finally Joanna came through for lunch and the applesauce was empty, I told her I'd refill it for her and she'd asked for an orange instead. I breezed past Eric, never noticing he didn't try to stop me, and was so happy to see Marlena had come to eat lunch with us unexpectedly. I went into the cooler, wholeheartedly looking for that orange, and came out with fiery skin and a firm grip on his hand. He whisked me away with such determination I could not even tell you what was really said, "What are you thinking?", "This is surreal." Laughter and smiles and hand squeezes, so very us.
Around the Pod where we first met around to the very middle of Winshape with the green grass and blue skies and 100 degree weather. My sweet Georgia weather. Talking and telling me a sweet sweet love letter, right there in front of Normandy we stopped and faced one another. Silence. "Can we pray?"
A thanks thanks thanksgiving to the Lord and then, "Lauren Taylor Dickson, will you marry me?" "Yes."
box. ring. hand. hug. kiss!!!
He turned me facing out of Winshape to see my family and his at the bottom of the hill. Several Normandy Innkeepers at the top, my kitchen family peeking out around the wall and a crowd of counselors and campers giving us a standing "O"!
Hugs with the family, LOTS OF SMILES and pictures and time to think and breath and feel
this.
Grand Chalet driving around for over an hour talking, Starbucks, Panera more time to breath at my house relaxing and making phone calls. Tears and happiness!
My love, my life.
He's da best.

see you soon :]

"See You Soon" - Coldplay

It's the act of living, it's the nagging weight of yourself rushing out of you as your chest makes room for another's embrace.
It's the feeling right before the stars awaken in her little eyes.
The moment right before recognition,
how this little person takes the time to fully comprehend your magical appearance before rejoicing in your return. How the little light traces circles from her iris to her pupils, before she's learned how to hide the mind at work, wheels spinning and then she says your name very soft and quiet at first,
a little whisper filled with wonder. And then the world explodes to life as your name becomes the single resonating sound in the room and 20 pounds of energy with starburst eyes beams herself across the room and into your arms.
How weightless she feels when you hear the pure trust of a child in her laughter, when she chatters away every single one of her secrets as you toss her up and up and up and up and up and up, and turn and turn and turn and turn the doorknob, and jump again and again and again and again. There is no such thing as boredom, idle thoughts strictly prohibited in a world without stop signs or cellphones.

It's fast paced and free and that little girl can only begin to imagine just how her smile has given you yours.  

Runners, until the race is run

"Lovers in Japan" - Coldplay 

And it seems to me I'm living, sometimes, between myself and my mind
Sing out, sing loud and long, sing something's worth living, for
There's the ones you've known and the ones you've only just met
and in the beginning, it's always more exciting, elating, filled than the end.
The weight of the end suffocates you inside, paralyzes, for the very notion of perfection is offensive to reality
an impossible word for those of us, living here.
Searching for the sign, for that moment in time when you feel
Him. To search without hope is hopeless, to live without faith
lifeless.
And even when we know that we know that we know, how do we amount?
When is everything, atleast for a good while, okay?
When do we stop the worry, the questioning, the backstabbing, heart wrenching, heartbreaking, judgment of him and then and she and I and us.
When do we let ourselves go, give it up, and truly live, again, like before we'd been buried.
Like we've erased, excised & removed the moments we were broken,
left alone,
forgotten,
sinners,
immoral,
eaten,
ravenous,
begging,
rebellious,
angered,
spit out,
spiteful,
raped, or
plagued.
And when you feel the freedom knocking and can't seem to find the door,
because the inside of yourself is something worth missing
for the prospect of someone else's self to consume,
join you in there.

caffeine

I've been reading this book the past couple of days, nothing of note just an easy read to free my mind of thoughts and pass the time. Anyways in it the topic of narcissism is broached and, upon the pondering of my mind because let's face it that's just what I do about well pretty much anything that intrigues me, I began to think about well, me. My idea of narcissism, idea, understanding, whatever, anyways it was my understanding that narcissism is the complete and all encompassing care of self and only ones self. It is a complexity developed over time by a lack of faith and hope in others and a building up of ones self, usually brought on by one of two things 1) boredom with your current situation or more likely 2) a complete disillusionment with those other than yourself triggered by some sort of bruised or battered ego. It could be a single, earth shattering moment or a gradual biting off of little bits and pieces, much like a pinata, of ones self by others who've been handed a bat much too heavy for them to wield in your candy filled vicinity. Anyway you look at it it's very much like slipping into the shallow end of the pool and attempting to swim and stick to the bottom. You confidently push yourself deeper and deeper, pressing air through your ear canal, kicking legs, digging hands and arms until you successfully reach the bottom only to find you are completely empty. It is that empty fear which catapults, along with your feet pushing your body, you straight up from the depths. No gradual return, no repressurizing, no moments to consider what could've been done better - no time to stop and breath. You just push past it all grabbing any hand that's offered. Losing so much of your conscious self that you accept and take and offer ANYTHING to gasp just another single breath.
So yes maybe, at some time between my high school sinking and my young adult rising I have been unable to find the wading point. I dive in deep and walk safely in the shallow waters. I give what feels right. For me.
I do not write this to say that one or the other was the right thing but to say that I am making that conscious effort to wade between myself and those around me I used to expend my life for.

There is so much more than this but, what with reading the book, I just had to write a little something.

Home Again

It really is hard to believe I am already home again for my third and final summer home from college. Weird. I can tell a distinct difference between this summer at Winshape and last. Of course things were much different between last year and the year before that so that was really no big surprise. I suppose the biggest thing for me is coming back from my trip and feeling a sort of peace about things. Not a complete, all knowing peace but more like a confidence that comes from the feeling that you have actually accomplished something. That what you've been working towards and spending so much of your energies on is becoming something you actually know. The fact that parts of Athletic Training are actually becoming secondhand to me, that's just a wow kind of thing to me.

Anyways, so after my first full week of work Maggie and I spent tonight having girls night. It was a much needed reunion between the two of us and we've FILLED it with food and our own little adventures. After we'd gone to Wal Mart to get food stuffs to cook and movies to watch we headed to Maggie's house where we decided to investigate the blooming blueberry bushes. Most of them were green however we found about 20 plump blue ones! It was a really amazing release to just scan and scan the green blueberry buds until your eye caught the one plump purple one of the bunch. We also discovered a wild berry (blackberry) bush intertwined with the blueberries. There are also grape vines and pear trees...so many little snippets of creation all of which I would love to have my own part in. I cannot wait to begin something from a hole in the dirt and a seed and patiently wait and watch it's growth into flourish. 

So after a little search and find Maggie and I wanted to celebrate our findings so we went to Elizabeth's house and gave her some blueberries. She was the first one brave enough to try the wild berries, they were so sour. Elizabeth's children are fantastic. The were hiding for the first little bit but then started to come out and talk to us. 

It's official: Maggie and I are the next food network cooking duo. 

- Guacamole - Quesadillas  - Oatmeal cookies

My eyes are closing too much right now, I must go to bed. 

This summer is going so well thus far and I cannot wait for it to continue on in  a likewise fashion.