Find your tribe. Love them hard.

{credit}

There are some feelings you will never find words for; You will learn to name them after the ones who gave them to you. Maza-Dohta 

We have to remember what's important in life: friends, waffles, and work.
Or waffles, friends, and work. But work has to come third.
Leslie Knope

Last Friday, you turned up the music on the stereo when OneRepublic’s new single came out. The rhythm of the music pulsed through the car, and you glanced at me, nodding your approval of the new beat. I didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics, but somehow, I knew that the music would frame the moment into a memory that would stick with me through the cold months ahead. I think you often don't realize the weight of a moment until it's past. We blinked in the afternoon sun that flashed from behind the racing hills like the string of traffic light signals leading to your house. 

Stop. Go. Red. Green. 

Lately, life has been acting a lot like we’ve been approaching green lights that force us to go, to keep pushing, and to keep proving ourselves. Yes, green lights mean growing, new driver's licenses, bigger projects, and bright futures, but they also mean saying goodbye. Weeks like this remind us to cherish the red-light moments, moments that make you stop in your track and breathe a small thank-you for the people who stay, for the home team that keeps rooting for you, miles away. I'm thankful for these lazy days spent in Arrowhead, untouched by the fires surrounding fires; for haunts that were once my mother's favorite summertime destinations, and for moments of grace that wrap you around tight. 

Johanna once told me that she didn't like change. Truth be told, I don’t think anybody really fancies the idea of a close friend being taken by a boy, college snatching the idylls of our childhood, going away parties, or people trading picture frame moments for their claim of 'bigger and better’ things. Yet here we are years later - both students knee deep in our college careers that changes so often it can’t be grasped with both hands, both on the verge of saluting our teenage years goodbye, both taking a breather from jobs and classes and obligations that screamed for us to grow up, both with a few more goodbyes written in our ledgers. The change charged so quickly that we couldn't even hold life in both hands. And life was not going to stay stationary for anyone, and somehow along the way, we accepted the fact.  

And yet, six years race past in a blink of an eye and you turn around and recognize a grace that is so much bigger than ourselves. After six years, we both have a few more bug bites, a few more memories, a few more messy notes in our Bibles, a few more songs added to our soundtracks. 

Find the people who don't walk away, who know you at your worst and love you and then some. Find the people who brew you a cup of tea when you have been bitten by twenty yellow jackets. Find the people who can read your face of stone and speak life into your dreams and push you to reach for the stars. Find people who talk about deep things and shallow things and give you reasons to laugh. Find people who, after a year, six years, or a decade, will never leave your side. 
Find your tribe. Love them hard.
xx

also, yes to this.