I've got your vulnerability right here.

So I won't lie to my readership, because, well, I feel that those of you who read this, know me pretty well and deserve to skip all the shallow and masked updates. That being said, adjustment back to school life has been somewhat of a challenge. Theres many things I love about being back here, but for all the good there seems to be even more struggle. This summer left me very broken, very vulnerable, very sensitive to pain. I'm really beginning to loathe being so openly a mess. I feel like its just common knowledge that I don't have anything together, that at times its almost laughable. I'm so governed by these uncontrollable emotions. And while feeling like this reminds me that I am alive, reminds me that I have no walls around my heart anymore, it still hurts.

I mean I miss the comfort of home, or even the comfort of Prague. I just feel like theres so much work associated with being in college. And I mean that in not even a school-work way, but work in relationships. In Richmond I feel like I can just BE. By the end, I felt it in Prague too. But I don't get that here. I think people would disagree and disagree and disagree with me on this, especially many of those within the christian community here, but its true at least for me and many people I know. You're never as funny as the next girl, you are never as intelligent as that other person, you are never as friendly as the hospitality team, and never as cool as the stylish, musically savvy kids. It inevitably leaves a sense of striving, trying to make your place, trying to find what it is about your identity that makes you an individual.

I hate this. Especially since I am probably the least proactive person who ever walked the earth, I don't do the whole "striving thing." I mean, I know who I am. I know I am a mess. I know I am Type B to the max. I know I have a mind that probably thinks a bit too much. I know I love my sisters and the outdoors and books and coffee and watching the Redskins and being adventurous and pushing the limits. I know I can easily be deeply hurt. I know I am not the most friendly person. I know that I am terribly cynical and at the same time widly idealistic. I know I lack in many warm, endearing qualities and I struggle constantly with pride. And I know I need to work on these things. I know all this, but where does this leave me? It still doesn't make me stand out. I doesn't make me think I have a stellar identity that will draw people to me. If it does anything it makes me think no one will want to be friends with me. But back to that whole not-striving aspect of my being, I just sit hoping that people will love me despite. And honestly, at home I feel that. Krista and Brennan and Annie and too many others know me so well that I don't even need to say anything to win them over. There's such a sense of warmth and love and deep knowledge of the other person, and respect and grace as a result. That is not here, with the exception of a few choice people who I love very very dearly. Other than them, there's only striving here.

But I am not as worried about myself. I get upset about the people around me who do actually strive and get no where. The people who don't have that comfort anywhere. The girls who I know who have found no one at this school who genuinely care for them. I am fine. I mean, I am tired of it but I am okay. There are those around me, who aren't. This frustrates me beyond words.

All this to say, I miss home. I miss Annie and HOPE and Kat and the Quinbys and Nicole and being at her kitchen island. But it doesn't mean I am pining away. I have had some great times so far. I spend numerous hours at the local coffee shop, watch a lot of gilmore girls, ride my bike all over the place with my pretend brother Jake, listen to U2, watch football games, and enjoy the beginning of fall.

So all that to say, adjusting to school has been trying. And many times, I wish I was just at home. But this is where I am supposed to be right now. Even if the reason behind it alludes me, I can trust there is purpose. But trusting and knowing doesn't necessarily make any of this easier. Especially when you fight with your closest friend and your computer crashes and your little sister is having a hard time and there's nothing you can do about it, and you fall in love with your professor who you can never have, and you just want to feel whole again.