For months now, I’ve been trying to come up with a time that I could go away by myself for a week. I especially wanted to do it before my birthday, but didn’t think that was going to work out. I’ve had so, so, so much happen this past year that I feel like my feelings and emotions and life and reality haven’t been able to keep up with each other. I need time to be alone and process stuff. I want to have hours to read through old journals, think, pray, imagine, and let every aspect of life catch up with me.

I have a very definite six-year period of my life that I can look back on. It’s an era that was quite helpful in making me who I am, but it’s over now. And I need to close that chapter of my life so I can open up a new one.

How can I see all the amazing doors opening up before me if I have my head turned around looking at where I’ve come from?

My birthday is in a week and a half, and my parents were amazing enough to find a cabin for me to stay at for five days for their birthday present to me. I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I can’t even tell you how excited I am about this. Last night when I got back from working, I found my tote of old journals/letters and gathered up the ones I have from the past six years. They filled a suitcase.

I want to lose track of time. To lose track of the outside world. To be able to spend countless hours writing in my prayer journal. To daydream about how one thing lead to the next thing. To be at peace with hard things that happened. To read about my thoughts and feelings. To plan some for the next several years of my life. To just be.