Soak it In

This weird thing happens when you grow up: you start getting lots of different groups of people in your life and a lot of times, these groups never really overlap.  I guess this is good sometimes: if you don’t think your work friends would get along with your high school friends, or your childhood friends are too childhood for your college friends or something like this.  But sometimes, I still imagine how incredibly awesome it would be for all of my friends: from summer camp, to middle school to the friend of friend’s friend could all get together in one beautiful moment, and all the people you care about were in one area, and you wouldn’t have to miss anyone because everyone you cared about would be right there. 

It’s a fun thing to daydream about, I suppose, despite being completely irrational.  But as my mom, dad and sisters all made the long journey to Cape Town in order to visit the daughter on the other side of the world, there were a few less people that my heart was missing, and I was incredibly happy.

It was just really beautiful, I guess.  My real life American family comes and gets to meet my African family.  And everyone is a different color, and not everyone knows all of the same languages, and so many of us are from different places, but you can feel the love. 

And there was something so awesome about seeing my baby sister’s laughing and cooking with my new African brothers.  Or seeing my dad laugh and joke with my new found soul sisters.  You get all the people you love and you put them in one place and you worry that the world might implode with greatness.  But it doesn’t.  It’s really just calms down and maybe spins a little slower and lets you soak it all in.