As a nineteen year old I don’t really feel like I have a right to talk about nostalgia or about the importance of my past; then again do I have the right to go to heaven?... No. So anyway I am currently sitting in the living room of my dear friend and former college roommate. Last year I attended one of the most important (to date) and painful years of my life at Rosebud School of the Arts (a beautiful place). I left broken but determined by every little ounce of rebellion and toughness in me that I would return the next year totally whole and ready to start afresh. The hardest thing I did that summer was break myself down to say that I couldn’t go back. I didn’t, and though it was a hard year at home it has been an amazing year of growth. My writing is... well, picking up. My bible reading is more consistent and my walk with God is much deeper. It has been a good year. Now I am back in Rosebud for a brief visit and I see how much I have changed. So it’s time to be honest, I had my heart broken last year-pounded on really. Broken and partially fixed again three times by the same boy who was one of fourteen students in my class and one I couldn’t avoid. It sucked. Now if I had been the same person who left Rosebud I would have wanted to see him first thing, to get revenge, to show him how well I was doing, to break his heart just a little. I haven’t seen him. I had the opportunity, maybe even a subtle hint that I should but I haven’t. It’s not something I need to put myself through in order to live a better life. I may try to avoid him completely, because I am not ashamed to admit that I may not have the maturity to deal with the situation again. That is something I would not have been able to say. This year at home has taught me to be much more comfortable with the ugly, to respect the other and that essentially all life comes from loving God and yourself- I believe that the love for others flows from the love of yourself which flows from the love of God and it is because I decided not to come back to Rosebud that I learned that lesson. Now I am back and a few things have already hit me that are quite profound... 1 is that I have changed and I notice the different colours of my life by the people that I interacted with differently in my past. I have been brighter then before, perhaps more honest, definitely on more caffeine. Part of me is wholer now, their opinion doesn’t matter as much. It’s okay. I feel much peace with myself and feel at peace with God, he has brought me here to show me that I have come out victorious, that things can get better. To revisit a place that was once painful may not be so bad because people change and the places in our lives are islands of who we used to be. Look back at them and then at what is ahead. It is much bigger and brighter. There may be more trials and they will be harder. But the man with scarred hands is walking beside you and things will always get better. Islands of the past taught me that.
