A Time to Escape, A Time to Learn, A Time to Become

Greetings! Well, for the last week, I have been in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was visiting my older brother and his family and to be quite honest, I was looking forward to the visit little, I mean, I was going to go and get out of my house and away from my hometown for awhile just to get away and escape in a sense. However, I did NOT expect to experience what I did while I was there. Somehow, in the miles it takes to drive from here to there (the 4+ hour drive) I found myself. Yes, that is right. As of right now, I am perfectly comfortable being who I am. On Thursday afternoon and evening, I was able to visit with my friend, Elaine Gustafson, who I met during disaster relief in Reedsburg. I got to chat with her while I cooked up some lasagna at her place and I met her husband too. I had a great day visiting her and wish we did not live so far apart. While I was at Elaine's I was able to speak with Randy Smith and she asked if Liz Vogel and I would like to help out at Empower this next March and I really WOULD love to go and see her again!! I have changed since starting the 60-60 experiment...not as much as I potentially COULD have, but it is getting better and I feel much closer to God. ((if anyone is reading this, at this point in time they should feel bad for me because my father is subjecting me to polka music....OLD polka music...oh the annoyance of the polka!!!)) anywho, I realized that at times, I just need to separate myself from my family's drama and let it all go and be myself. I tend to get SOO caught up in trying to please everyone that I end up unhappy. I'm sick of being unhappy and depressed so I need to change don't you think?? I do!! I have learned that I do not HAVE to be perfect all the time, just myself. I also learned that dressing a little bit more decently will give people a better impression of me and they will take me more seriously so, although blue jeans are nice, they are not what everybody wears to be grown up :( its kind of sad that I have to dress differently for people to treat me differently but I guess things have always been that way in the world haven't they? *sighs* anyway, that is what I learned. The time to become is simply this: this week I learned to become my own person. My own opinions, ideas and thoughts. No one around me forced their opinions on me and said I was wrong for thinking one thing over another. I was treated like an ADULT for the first real time in my life and I loved it. Hopefully, I can keep on what I did so that people will think I CAN be serious. I asked 5 people if they thought I could be serious and out of the 5, only 2 said that yes, I could be serious. That is scary and sad for me. So, from now on, I am going to be more adult like. Oh yay. Peace!