History before us.

I want to travel.
I want to visit places that I've read about all my life.
Real, historical places where these events took place.
I want to see where these people walked, lived, breathed, existed.
I want to walk the streets where Jesus walked.
See the garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of olives, Calvary...
I want to see the annex Anne Frank and her family hid in for years.
The window she so longingly gazed out of when she was allowed.
I want to go down in a submarine and see the Titanic on the ocean floor.
The final resting place for so many people, the signs of life, the vast ship they were enjoying traveling on.
I want to see the concentration camps where so many lives were abused and taken.
I want to visit Columbine High School.
See the graves of Rachel Scott and Cassie Bernall.
Really grasp what their lives stood for.
I want to see the 9/11 Memorial.
Bring to life that moment I watched helplessly on a screen while writing what I felt in my journal.
Learning new vocabulary such as "Hijack," "Terrorist," and "Skyline."

I want to make it all real to me.
I want to remember.
I want to reflect.
I want to experience what remains of these places.

This all really happened.
These were real people
Flesh and bone, just like you and me.
Seemingly normal one day, such an important part of history the next.

I want to revisit Rome.
Take in all the Colosseum encompasses again.
Take the tour, soak in every word, relish in the stories.

I want to take pictures.
Record the wonder of these locations.
Keep my mind wide open to what history can teach us about present reality.
Realize that just how these people were normal one moment, that I'm never certain of what my next one will hold.
I want to live my life with that in mind.
Live it well, so if today is all I'm remembered for, that it'll be worth remembering.
That it won't be a legacy to look back on in shame.

I want to make every moment count.
You never know how many there are left.
Or which one holds the events that change life as you know it.

I want to remain strong.
To face whatever these moments hold head-on, fearless.
To fight when all else seems lost.
To believe when there's no hope left.
To stand when everything around me falls.

I won't let the bad things that come against me define me.
They may affect me, but they'll never define me.

I just found out another Pastor we know died.
Last week, we lot a Pastor, his wife, and their administrator to a freak car accident.
Today it was a freak plane crash.

As we hear of deep sea animals washing up and living on shore of shallow, warm waters.
As we hear of new customs forms, unifying us with the UN and the rest of the world.
As we see more shocking results of the purity of our generation being stripped away as they're force fed to believe that this new, vulgar was is right and good and part of our rights as humans.
As earthquakes and monsoons and early snowstorms and other unusual weather happens simultaneously.

Another check on the list of signs of the times.

Dreams last night confirm it, too.
Ready or not, here it all comes.
We gotta be ready for ourselves. Secure in ourselves. Sure of what our convictions.

Days like these...

I have the immense desire to write, but I can't seem to find the subject.
Something in me begs to put pen to paper, to rid myself of this burden, but I can't think of where to begin.
It makes me wish I was back in school. That I was back at my private school, specifically. Where there was always something to write, always notes to take, always scriptures to memorize.
This new job I have makes me feel like that. I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure what to expect with it. But I'm hopeful.
That camaraderie that I had. Back when life was pure, when there wasn't any distractions. Just simple, focused, normal fun. Life in it's purest form.
I want to find how I can have that in it's escalated version.  The grown up image of myself. The 25-year-old version of 9-year-old Emilee.
That is my new quest, my search. to find that balance; reality of now to the warmth of then.

I wish I could cut out all the distractions. All the things that weren't around back then that do nothing today but make us insecure. The constant limelight we can't escape. Sure, there are things that are wonderful about social media, but there is so much of it that makes life so much more complicated than it has to be.

Dreams recently have been making me curious. I don't really know what to make of them. There has to be something. I need to journal. I need to get this out.

I love funerals.

I hate funerals.
I know, that comes as a contradiction to the title of this post, but allow me to explain myself.
I attended the funeral of a friend I grew up with's dad today. As I sat there among the mourning and tears, I thought to myself how I hated funerals. How I hate the sorrow, how I hate the goodbyes, how I hate the finality of it all. How I hate seeing people grieve with such loss.
For some reason, this funeral really made me sit back and see that everyone on this earth will die one day.
All of us sitting in that room will have a funeral and have people sitting in a room that will also one day sit in a room of their funerals...
...unless, of course, we're caught up in some mass extermination or something... sadly, in this day and age, I can't rule it out.
But, each of us mean something to people. Each of our deaths will count as a loss to someone. Each will cause mourning. Each will constitute a pain felt deep down in someone's heart and soul. So what am I living for? How am I using my time? How am I making the most of the moments I have left?
Funerals are becoming sadly more common recently, and I am starkly aware of the fact that tomorrow isn't promised, nor do we know what it holds for everyone in our lives. Everything can change in a  moment.
As such, every moment is so valuable, so important. We can't waste a single one. Those are what we will leave behind, those are what our loved ones will have to cling to. These moments and how we use them become the memories that cause us to live on or be forgotten after our deaths.
Hearing my friend speak so fondly of her father and how he made the most of every moment, how he took the time to appreciate each one he was given, made me sit back and really reevaluate how I live mine. What I see as important, what I hold as valuable.
See, I love funerals, because it's from these that I tend to learn the most valuable lessons in life. It's sad that it comes to this, but I don't want to lose a single opportunity to learn and be better. That's what this life is about; it's about the legacy we leave and what our days say to those we leave behind. What wisdom can we leave to those we say goodbye to? That's what we should be concerned about.
The next thought funerals always captivate me with is how we're all here, crying and sad, and how in  most of these situations, the person is already in heaven, caught up in eternal glory. They were there, in that beautiful place the moment their soul left here. They're having the time of their lives. And to think of the time when we get to join them, oh how wonderful that time will be! To hold them in our arms again. To look into their eyes... I look forward to it.
When I was little, I used to be a little concerned about having anyone there to meet me when I got there. Little did I know that in a few short years, I would have more than I ever expected... To think of getting to see them all again, my heart fills with such love.

I hope these make sense. I hope you sit back and reevaluate how you live your life. Please, don't waste a moment...
Because that's what life is all about; how you handled the moments.
Make the most of it.

Love is louder.

I just watched the movie "Cyberbully" and honestly, it was way more than I expected.
I figured it would be a stereotypical, cheesy movie, but it wasn't in the slightest.
The acting was well done, the story line was great, and the way it was laid out was perfect.
Honestly, it left me with a heavy heart.
When I was in highschool, all the internet stuff was still fairly new. Bullying on there was done, but not nearly as common as it is now. And knowing how I felt with all the hate shot at me, I can't imagine how much more difficult it is now.
I had people tell me I was nothing, I had people tell me I was a hypocrite. I had people I thought were my best friends turn their back on me. I was left completely dejected and alone, and as I stared at the pieces in my hands, I was so confused as to what I did for life to get to that point. I just came to a new school, with hopes that it would be a great experience. Why was I finding myself like this? I tried my hardest to be the best person I could, and still people walked all over me and tried to shoot me down. I tried my best to just stay out of everyone's way, but still they found me. Nonchalantly telling me how I'm a loser, and how I'm never going to go anywhere or be anything with the way I am choosing to live life. It went around the school 4 times in 3 years that I was a lesbian, simply because I didn't date anyone and I hugged people.
People from my own church kept me at a distance, uncertain of what I really was, and if what these people said was true.
So what did I do? I became a cutter. I took knife or thumb tack, or screw, or safety pin, or razor piece, or screwdriver to skin and plastered the smile on my face again so no one would know anything was wrong.
After all, the only people I had let in to see that inside I was really broken were the people who kept turning against me.
Maybe I'm just too messed up for people, right?
No one knew. My sister read my journals and told my mom, who was in too much of a shock and hurting too much after losing her dad to believe her. After all, I told a pretty convincing story that I was just fine. I was in theater, I was an actress, of course I could convince people. It's what I did.
I made it through high school, bruised and very messed up, but I made it.
And now that it's been 8 years since I walked across that stage, do you know what I've learned?
I'm not too messed up.
In fact, it's not me whose messed up at all.
Those people who said and did such hurtful things, those people I thought were my friends, those people who made me feel that there was nothing else to do about it except slide blade across skin time and time and time again, only stopping short of ending my own life because I couldn't go back on the promise I made my dad after we left the funeral of my friend who had hung himself in his bathroom when I was just thirteen years old.
That there is hope. That I am going to make it and I am going to be successful. That those people who were causing me pain were really just in exponential pain themselves, so all they knew to do was what was done to them.
Sadly, most of them never grow up past what they were in high school. Some do. And some still have no idea that what they even did was hurtful. They just go with the flow of what's going on around them, thinking it's just a joke and not another lash on the back of someone whose already been beaten down.
So what can you do about it?
Live on purpose.
Make sure every move you make is one that you are willing to own up to if it came down to it. Pay attention to your actions, to how it affects people. Say and do kind things. You never know how badly someone is really hurting, even if it's the one who seems to be the strongest. Even if you would get made fun of for talking to that person. Do it anyway.
People need love, and sadly most are being starved of it.
Be that bread they so desperately need.
Live the difference that you want to see.
Keep a level head. Realize that you are no better than the person next to you, but that you have the potential to make a difference.
Even if you don't see it in the 13 years you have in the education system as a student, people see and feel and remember far more than you realize.
Leave a good taste in their mouth.
Love on purpose. You won't regret it.

Love is louder than hate, than rejection, than fear, than hurt, than painful words...
Love is louder.