Mattering.

I'm beyond ready to be back at school. It'll be wonderful to be in an environment where I can be productive everyday, be back at the church I'm missing so terribly, catch up with people...and where I can live in a place where I matter again.

I'm not saying I don't matter to people here. I know I do. I would be crazy to think otherwise. What I am saying is that the home where I spend most of my time -- the place that is supposed to be my sanctuary from the world -- really isn't. It's a war zone. The shrapnel is words left lodged in my mind. The nuclear weapons are the unspoken words and mounting tensions. It's a toxic environment. It's leaking into everything. It's starting to shape me to fit some of those negative implications about who I am, and it's tearing me away from who I actually am.

I'm trying to hold on to that faith. I'm trying to be strong and trusting. I'm trying to remember that I don't have to have all of the answers or fix everyone's problems, but I'm not doing so hot at that. If I can't be all that happy right now, I want everyone else to be able to be happy at least.

Oh, end of summer, I greatly anticipate seeing you come my way.

~"In a way I need a change from this burnt out scene. Another time, another town, another everything..." ["Shatter" - OAR]~