story.

"Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons." - Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

I agree with Miller, in general.  I do think it is vital for everyone to leave home, at least for a little while.  Leaving creates character and depth and puts things into perspective.  There is a whole huge world out there with tons of incredible people just waiting to be discovered!  If you never leave...how will you find it all?  And I also agree that coming back after absence, no matter how long, opens one's eyes to new and wonderful things about the place where they have been all along.  Simple things that once went unnoticed become the most important - the sound of a laugh, the smell of a certain laundry detergent, the way the evening light slants in through the kitchen window.  However, I think that perhaps, the things you might love the most when you come back are the very things that you loved to start with - your family, the colors, the way your bed feels after a really long day.  

At least...this is how it has been for me.

I've spent the last few years living in Santa Barbara (with the exception of summers, a couple of weeks at Christmases, and a wonderful semester in Europe) and I have loved every  single minute of it.  I love this town, I love the people I've met here, I love the way the wind blows through the palm trees, and I love the sunset light spilling across the ocean.  And most of all, I love the challenges I've experienced, the ways in which I've grown and the person that I've become here.  However, my season here has ended.  I find myself looking at Santa Barbara, the place I've come to know as home, through the eyes of one who is preparing for goodbye.   

I'm not sad, though.  I'm SO ready.  

I'm ready to end this chapter of my life, and start a new one.  One that is new and scary and unknown, but familiar in it's foundation.  Familiar in the colors of the leaves and the ones I love and the mountains which speak to my heart in a way the ocean just never could.

I've decided to return to my roots - I'm moving back to Colorado.

I'm going back at the end of the September - currently without plans for living situation, roommates, or a job.  I'm going, though, whether those plans fall into place or not.  The thought of being back for a Colorado fall is just too enticing.  I've been playing with the idea of moving for a while now, but ever since I have committed to myself (and my parents!) that I'll be back at the end of September, I've allowed myself to think about all of the things that I love and have missed about Colorado (listed below in no particular order):

- socially accepted country music

- necessary fleece jackets

- MY PARENTS

- the colors (there's a reason it's called "Colorful Colorado")

- four distinct seasons

- snow in the winter

- Qdoba

- open spaces

- leaves that change color

- my best friend

- cold weather clothes

- camping

- chick-fil-a

- wearing baseball caps

- sunshine all the time

- Texas Roadhouse

- Noodles & Co.

- my pets

- crisp air

- pine trees

- fall weather

- and so, so much more

But most of all, the thing that I've missed about Colorado is that it's a place where I see my own future taking place.  I can't wait.

Of COURSE I'll miss Santa Barbara.  I'll miss this place dearly, and even more, I'll miss the people here.  But I know that those dear ones, the ones I love, will be in my life whether or not we are residents of the same area code.  So this is the time for moving on and starting this next phase of my life.

This quote, from Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller, has always been one of my favorites.  However, as I've revisited this book in the past week, it has had new life breathed into it, and I find it more relevant than ever:

"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play.  My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God.  We get one story, you and I, and one story alone."

And so, here I go.  Into the next chapter of my one single story, trusting in my dear Father to give me the feet for this newest path He has set before me, and confident that His love will surround me always, no matter where I may be.