change.

Its nearly 1am, my cat is snoring beside me, I can hear one of my candles making the crackle sound and I am writing to end this night.  Today was a good day. It was filled with surprises. I was picked up for lunch by a sweet woman, I consider my family. We went to lunch, laughed a lot and then we headed to her friends house. One thing you should know up front, this woman is friends with everyone.

Every. One.

We pulled up to this big house on a farm and walked inside to be welcomed by a super, sweet young girl. She talked about her pets and I thought it would be a short visit because we started with small talk. As we walked further in to the house, we were handed babies and I asked all sorts of questions about their family. They are all adopted, from America, and they live on this farm. One of the girls baked cookies, one girl showed me the soap she makes, another was taking care of the little babes and the few boys were dressed in all camo walking in one room and out the other. They seemed to be on a very important, "mission'. Their mom came home, she is such graceful woman. She walked in was asked 700 questions, answered them all and still had time to answer a phone call.

an hour passed.

While she stood in the kitchen, I fed a baby and my sweet friend who brought me to this magical place introduced me as, 'the one who is moving to Africa.' Their mother asked me all sorts of questions and then paused to shout, "WHY IS THERE A LIZARD IN MY KITCHEN. BOYSSSS." Seconds passed and in walk young boys all dressed in camo, to catch the beast. They caught him, trapped him and we carried on as if nothing ever happened. As I sat there in awe of their story, how their family started, and how I'd ended up at this house on a day where my heart was all over the place -- was beyond me.

The mother left and the other girls asked me so many questions about Uganda. What is it like? Hot or cold? Orphan crisis? Explain. What is your degree in? Who are you going with? Each question I answered with a smile on my face because I knew that I was where I needed to be in that exact moment. However, they would ask me a questions about my life and then I would ask them a question about theirs. My favorite question was, "did you grow up in church?"

I hesitated. Simply, because I did not want these girls to think differently of me. We had such a good talk going. I paused took a deep breath in and with my next sentence I knew I would crush them.

"No, I didn't. I didn't really know who Jesus was until I was 19." -- I justified it by saying that I knew of him, but I didn't truly know him. Their faces didn't change. They didn't wince, they didn't look down. They kept making eye contact and they nodded in joy.

I overcame something major today. I am still sometimes a closed book, especially in one on one situations. I open up and then feel the need to apologize or preface by saying, "promise not to judge me."

I came home to sit on my couch for a bit before I had to do laundry. Then my Papaw came over, sat on my couch and the conversation we had will forever be etched on my heart. It was pure, raw and ended better than any movie ever could.

As I sit on my couch, next to my snoring cat. I write about my day. I make it sound so great and wonderful, which of course it was all of those things. But today was not easy -- I overthought a lot. I cleaned out my bathroom tonight and took down a painting and got teary eyed because it finally hit me today on the morning of Feb. 6th, that I am moving to another country. Sure, it's not fully hit me. That will happen while I am packing my bags. I will pack and unpack and pack and unpack and cry while I do each of them.

Today, I learned a lot about life through -- even through my overthinking. I learned that its best to put that aside most days and embrace the day given to you. It's best to not worry about tomorrow because I have no control over it. It's best to give my undivided attention to young girls who are asking about my past. It's important to love, to love with every fiber of your being because you do not know when that person was last told they were loved. It's best to listen to wise men. And it's okay to cry when you take down paining and clean out closets. That is part of life -- its all about change & that's not a bad thing.