The Asymptote of Life

I haven't been sleeping very well the past few weeks, and I'm not sure why. But I will say that right now I'm looking at the lighted Christmas Tree, sitting under an oversized blanket, cuddling with a tiny pup at my side, thinking about how wonderfully weird life is, and wondering how to stop my train of thought at that last one without ending my sentence in a preposition.

Blogger has those "About Me" sections, you see.. the ones just to the right of this very post. For the past four and a half years of my blog's existence, the first sentence has stayed the same: "Ever-closer to understanding what life is all about, one adventure at a time." This has remained true all those years. Where "understanding life" is considered the first down, I'm still very much standing at 4th and Inches. But man has the adventure part kept me creeping closer and closer. Maybe I should be renaming my blog something like "The Asymptote"? ... No. Anyway, though the first sentence has been unchanged, the sentence that has followed it has changed greatly over these four and a half years:

2011: "For now, as a recent college-grad about to boldly embark on a long journey abroad."
2012: "For now, as an au-pair in Germany trying to figure out what the heck might be my purpose in life."
2013: "For now, as a new teacher tired out of my mind teaching 3 different subjects at my former high school."
And most recently, "...as a grad student and middle school social studies teacher in Colorado."

Reading through the list, I have to sort of throw my hands up. I couldn't have predicted any of these events happening in my life. In fact, I know for certain that if you showed this list of life-seeking adventures to my 18-year-old self, I would have laughed. My 18-year-old self could never understand why anyone would want to go to Europe! (It's so far, and like... America! Amirite?!) My 18-year-old self would never have left California for fear of being too far. My 18-year-old self would want to know why on EARTH anyone would ever live where it is currently 20 degrees outside, or why on EARTH you would ever pay thousands of dollars to go to back to school after you finish college.

Life can be pretty weird.

Despite my lack of understanding for the future, what I can takeaway is how thankful I am that this stream of events in my life have catalyzed big changes to who I am and who I'm working on being. They've brought me incredible friends, given me amazing experiences, and taught me more than I knew I could learn. It's almost as if the Lord knows I love surprises — I truly have not seen this stuff coming. And it has made life an absolute joy.

As for Colorful Colorado and my present adventure... Here's the highlight reel of the past 4 months.

 

 

These mountains. Mmmmmm. Maybe thinking about them will lull me to sleep... well that, and Edelweiss playing on loop.