I wish people would stop judging teenagers for their naive and often stupid actions and remember how hard it was at that age to make wise decisions.  

What is a "coming-of-age" moment?  I know I'm obsessed with it because I missed my opportunity to have one.

***********************

How often does that glorified "coming-of-age" moment truly take place? How many young adolescents develop an enlarged understanding of the vastness of this universe in a series of thought provoking events? ************

As a child and teenager, I was sheltered to an extreme.  Not only did I spend my teenage years homeschooled and in church (from which the majority of my social life came from), I grew up in a comfortable middle-class living situation with my dad in a prestigious career and my mom at home.  We lived in a safe neighborhood close to the beach and I never once had to worry about money or anything else for that matter.  Nothing bad ever happened to us - no tragic deaths in the family, no 

***********

I think the war in Lebanon when I was eleven was a big thing. Just having everyone on so many evacuation boats and trains and planes from so many different places with so many different summer fun goals just thrown out the window just to be shared by one which was to go home safely. Home felt like it was eons away. Some mean kid said something to me on my first day back here. my school was full of assholes but I genuinely didn’t care anymore and I was like alright I’m leaving. But that didn’t make me an adult, I was barely twelve. And as you know I didn’t very non adult things until I was out of highschool. But it birthed my understanding of the size of life. Seeing how strong and determined my mom was to get us out touched me. Like when the soldier wouldn’t let us on the boat she got on her knees and begged and he yelled at her to shut up but she didn’t care

But there were very many of those critical moments though later arguably much more influential that I genuinely believed happened through prayer and I’m sorry to be redundant with that topic but it’s true

The reason why I think we should prefer and think highly of the many crucial and tiny moments is bc they happen again more often. Like one happened after amother awful day with my nanny. I spent half the night furiated at how much she had been bullying me since I was a baby and somehow transitioned to spending the other half praying for her. Whatever I learned that night became a massive massive part of how I deal with people and life and the lessons always comes to mind in similar everyday situations

Dale Partridge

5 March at 11:40 · 

Facebook Creator

 · 

, something doesn't feel right. Vacations are meant to be new, they are meant to be fun, but they are not meant to be better than your normal life. I've been all around the world, and I would never trade travel for what I have at home. Life isn't about the 50 vacations you'll take while you're on this planet. It's about the 25,000 days between them. Stop creating a life that you need a vacation from. Instead, move to where you want to live, do what you want to do, start what you want to start, and create the life God is calling you to today. This isn't rehearsal people. This is YOUR life.

Gratitude

I am thankful for cats - they make you feel warm and fuzzy. 

I am thankful for golden hour - when the sun envelops the earth in its magical glow.

what do you think I'd see? if I could walk away from me?

I understand so much of it now. My incessant frustrations and bewilderment. 

It's interesting how that happens when you start to truly break free, when you start to truly feel, when you start to truly be stretched. 

and that brings it all back to this place ~

don't think about all those things you feel, just be glad to feel......

just don't be scared when that feeling truly starts to break, begins to mold you, begins to grow you. 

i am glad that i can now feel. its all young Lauren wanted - to escape the mundane and the trivial 

even if its left me gasping for breath 

it's hilarious how these words have turned on me ~

how i would kill to make you feel, i'd kill to move your face an inch, i see you staring into space......

does the future hold a regained sense of balance? 

do i deserve that now after the chaos I've opened myself up to?

part of me doubts it, but part of me isn't sure i want it.

there's still more chaos to be found before peace can truly ring true 

peacefully chaotic

don't think about all those things you feel 

just be glad to feel 

truer words were never said

for my life 

the grass broom

 Brooms weren’t meant to be made of grass, she thought as she struggled to carry one down a crowded street, sections coming loose onto the ground. Or maybe grass wasn’t meant to be forced into a broom. She tried to avoid the confused brown eyes staring back at her - or were they?

Why did I decide to do this during rush hour? 

A fat older woman quickly stepped out from a streetside shop, nearly skewering herself with the tip of the broom. 

“Oh, kohtawt, ka!”

She ashamedly apologized, but the fat woman in danger just smiled and laughed at the spectacle of a farang with a broom in one hand and dinner in the other. 

She kept her head up after that, hoping to avoid any further collisions and skittered past the school to her apartment, almost making it without seeing any of her students. 

“Teacher! Why you have a ………” the boy made sweeping motions, unable to find the correct word.

Why did she have a broom? How about why were farangs questioned on everything normal that they do like cleaning their house?

“So that you can clean my house when you are a bad student!”

He scampered away with wide eyes. 

She entered the stuffy apartment, turned on all the fans and sat down with a heavy sigh on her bed. It was always the little things that got to her. Moving to another country? Check. Learning bits of a new language? Check. Teaching rambunctious sugared up children? Check. Walking down the street holding basic household items? Not checked.