“Even when the rain falls, even when the flood starts rising, even when the storm comes, I am washed by the water.” - NEEDTOBREATHE

Reminiscing about water, love, music, being thankful and life's new directions...

The last time I put up a post was when my summer ended.  Now I'm posting as school ends.  It's a circle.  This week last year I moved to Memphis when the Mississippi River was rising over its banks and creeping into the city.  I remember turning onto Interstate 40 from 55 and West Memphis, Arkansas looked like a lake.  This time last year I had ab.so.lute.ly no way of knowing how instrumental my summer would be to my growth as an individual, or how much I really loved living by water.  Exploring a brand new city and living on the river was just what my soul needed.  This past weekend I had a new experience on the river: Beale Street Music Fest.  I knew it was going to be fun, that was a given.  But the power of the music I felt in my soul.  NEEDTOBREATHE live blew my mind.  Being fifteen feet away from Florence and the Machine as she ghostly drifted across the stage felt like she was singing right to me and I needed to hear every word.   I needed to hear her tell me to shake off the devil on my back.  Day two was a blur of guitar riffs, hot sun, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and Al Green.  Day three I was a little over my head because I knew I needed to be in Columbia early the next morning for my Master’s project presentation, but I couldn’t pull myself away.  The Head and the Heart was so sweet, Michael Franti and Spearhead put on the most energetic concert imaginable, and lastly, the dear duo that captured my heart last spring, The Civil Wars.  The whole park was so quiet waiting for them that you could hear the river wooshing by.  Their voices drifted out and it was magical.  Tears streamed down my cheeks it was so beautiful.

I left directly afterwards and got caught driving in the worst storm I have ever experienced.  More water, only this rain did not make me feel good.  I have never been so terrified or felt so alone as I did on the side of the interstate that night as the wind whipped debris around my car and rocked it back and forth.  I thought my car would tip over. I curled into a ball, covering my head and shook with fear and cried tears of defeat.  I felt so defeated, like the fact that I have been trying to juggle so much this entire year finally caught up with me in the middle of nowhere Arkansas, with not another human or even building, in sight.  That night, something bigger was telling me to slow down.  Or was it telling me not to leave Memphis?          

I have spent a large majority of this year immersed in graduate schoolwork or on the road.  I have been so busy with school, work, and not sitting still that I have taken a lot of things for granted. This week marks a turning point, though.  Before graduation, it’s one of those weeks of “lasts”.  Last trip to class, last walk across campus from the parking garage to work, last time that all of my friends in my program will be in the same spot at one time again, last expeditions out downtown, and the sentimental list doesn’t end.  I didn’t get this feeling after college because I stayed in the same place.  But not now.  I may not know exactly where I’m going, but I know it’s not here.  I love Columbia, but it has served its purpose, and while I have so so so many amazing memories here with friends and family, I’m going to start a career somewhere else. Missouri will always be the first to have my heart, though, and I feel so blessed to have had my family so close.  As well as my friends, even those who are now scattered across the country, no matter what, I have the best support system anyone could ask for. And I want to say THANK YOU to all of those people who have always believed in me, especially my parents, I would be nowhere without you.   

If you know me, then you know Memphis is where I want to put down roots.  Since moving back to Columbia last August I’ve put countless miles on my car this year revisiting the city on the bluff – searching for something.  A clue that would tell me when to move, that I’d have a great job waiting for me there, a sign that would magically drop me into a new life there.  With graduation one day away, all I know now is just that I own an inherent sense that I am supposed to be there, and create a life there, not be dropped into one.  To be happy there, by myself, making my own happiness because the only person that hinges on is me, myself and I.  Not my job, not my significant other. Just me. But I'm not alone, I have great friends there, and I'm so overly excited for the chance to make more. The circumstances may not play out like I have let myself imagine all year long, but it doesn’t matter.  I’ve always had this private philosophy that life speaks through moments and clues, and yes, cliché it is, but things really do happen for a reason.  Memphis can talk and I’m learning to listen.  I hear it say, “Come back, you can live here, you can be extremely happy here, and the Mississippi River misses you.”  Or, maybe because I’m just such an optimistic dreamer I only imagine what I want to hear.  If it makes me happy, is that so bad?  

So, let's raise a glass to mastering a Master's degree, a new chapter of life, spring storms, job searching, saying, "See you later" to old friends, making some new ones, loving family, and did I mention going to Europe for a best friend's wedding next week?  Drink it up. Life is good.