I can feel my heart beating

What a journey! What a summer! What a week! What a weekend, to be more specific.

I feel so alive. I need to remember this weekend and it's happenings and feelings and its fullness.

Friday: dance dance! I went to Muskegon with my friends from GRSwing and danced it up in Muskegon. Met some new people, got closer with some acquaintances. Was silly with the ones I'm more comfortable with (ahem Brandon, Jake, and Heather) and learned a new dance. Hoorah! I think the next dance I'm learning is West Coast swing and oh how I long to have an actual partner to learn it with, not a dance partner, but someone who wants to be with me and I want to be with them and we are dancing together, together.

Saturday: Grand Haven with my new friend and kindred spirit Joe. Saturday afternoon was so relaxing and perfect, everything about it was right. The company, the timing, the place... so fun. Saturday night was disappointment and heartache. but Saturday night was also God. and friends. and love. and I wouldn't change anything about it. It was a perfect example of something I wanted not being what God wanted. and bravo to the person who listened to what God wanted.

So then I went to BC Pizza with Brian, Chelsea, and Pokey and we ate breadsticks and went and saw Stardust! Sooo good. I was ready for a good fairy tale.

Sunday Brian and I drove out to Grand Haven and spent the afternoon doing nothing at all, lounging on the beach. Massaging our dreams, talking about the future. I left early to go home and prepare for youth group at the church and connect with some girls there. We went to the high school and prayed over the coming year. How cool is that? I wish I had done things like that when I was in high school. I wish I had had someone who would have done that with me when I was in high school.

Then Pentwater! Josh, Tom, and myself made the drive out after youth group. I really like those guys. I can see God doing things in our friendship... it's going to be an awesome year that's for sure. We arrived at around 11, played some Mafia (of course), talked, and then the three of us went for a rollerblade at 2:45am. Crazy? Possibly. But it was one of my favorite experiences of the summer, and probably the best time I've ever had with either of them.

Plus Jared was there. Jared's home! He gave me the biggest hug I've probably ever received and I felt so loved.

I lived this weekend. I lived, and I loved, and I breathed, I laughed, I cried... and I don't want to forget it. This is a memory blog. This weekend wasn't meant to be recorded in pictures. Like at the pier with Josh and Tom... I was sooo so glad that none of us had a camera. It was such a moment! and it would have been slightly diminished if we had tried to capture it on film..... it was only meant to be lived and remembered. and that's exactly what I'm doing.

L