Sometimes change is like being notified that your favorite parts of life are being discontinued. Change has brought me the best of things via the hardest roads and every time it’s a challenge to believe that what lies on the other side of the loss and discomfort is goodness.Read More »
Notes from an Ending
In four days I will graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
and this beautiful season will be over. I have wanted to write of the thoughts, lessons, and observations from these past weeks, but I rarely get around to doing so here.
Even so, I still write every day. And so today I decided, that for those of you I know will want to hear, I will share in a way I normally don’t. What follows is a series of excepts from my journal over the past few weeks—little pieces of my joy and indecision and taking in of life.Read More »
Sea Glass
It’s one of the very worst parts of life that all things worthwhile and authentic—the things that nourish us in the most necessary ways—are things we have no ability to control. This has never stopped me from trying. I’ve been attempting to hold onto things since the first time I encountered loss. This mostly applys to very dear people who have made big, comfortable pockets for themselves inside of me. Read More »
Finding Kindness
Life has needed a lot lately in the way of soft spaces—space for a whole lot of trying, a whole lot of unknowing, and a whole lot of blah. It has needed the kindness of a good friend who has reorganized my perceived boundaries of grace. And in her abundant kindness I am finally learning how to be kind to myself. Read More »
Julian
Early Friday mornings and it smells of rain—a delight in a week of 100 degree weather and strict water rations. I’m up early for emergency coffee runs to WinCo with the windows down and the rain splashing in on my leg, because the roommates got home last night and that means together and I’ve lived enough of this rhythm-seeking, mid-twenties life to know that together isn’t permanent or guaranteed. Read More »
He Fulfills His Purposes
I know I’m not alone in the sea of people whose lives are changing, whose futures are uncertain, and who are puzzling again with questions about who they are, where they’re going, and whether it’s worth the road it takes to get there. I know I am not alone among those who need purpose, excitement, and truth to speak. Because life cycles and we change and books end and do we really have to do all of this again? Read More »
Words that Leave the Room
As some of you will know, and some of you won’t, I am spending my Spring Break in New York city where I am attending and presenting at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. I am here where dignitaries, ambassadors and activists alike gather to discuss progress made on the Millennium Development Goals and what we want the world to look like in the Post 2015 Agenda. Read More »
Presenting Me
Last week could be categorized in the top five most stressful weeks of my life—the kind with uncharacteristic mishaps and cruel humor. All the usual margins I plan my life with ran out and one small accident caused every responsibility and demand on my life to come crashing one into the other. Wednesday evening I was scheduled to give my first presentation for a research fellowship I was recently awarded. Read More »
Riding the Wrong Train
Towards the end of my first semester here at Carolina, I sat with a friend in a favorite Saturday morning breakfast spot and had to make a confession. Over buttermilk pancakes and a rare, assignment-free table, I told her that I wasn’t perhaps the person she thought I was. She had come to know me here in this new world of red bricks and Carolina Blue and I was afraid the person she had come to know might not be the most accurate representation of myself. Read More »
As Life Changes
I like plans. I think a successful life is in no small part due to an ability to plan it well. However, a good deal of painful experience has also led me to be convinced that life’s happiness is equally dependent upon how we respond when our plans get changed. I am hopelessly idealistic and once a picture is in my head, it’s hard to let it be painted differently. But such idealism has made me no stranger to disappointment. Read More »
Amy Rochelle 