Building Forts

I'm moving out of my house this week. My house that I've lived in for 2 years. My house that has really become more of a home than a house. The girls who have lived in this house with me have become my dearest friends. We've laughed together and cried together. We've been through the best of times and the worst of times. We've screamed about spiders and argued about the dishes. We've composted and hung our laundry out on the line. We've gone on walks, driven warp 5 to church, and taken time to sing Kumbaya on the front sidewalk at 1am. We've danced in the rain and swung endlessly on our sideyard swings. We've played Donkey Kong and Disney Skate Boarding on my PS2. We've made pear cheese pie for breakfast and more shapecakes than most. We've had small parties and blow out parties. We've lived separate lives and pushed the couches up against one another becuase we couldn't handle being apart. I've loved it here.

And then there are the boys around the corner who have managed to become some of my dearest confidants. How did I get so lucky as to be able to have such wonderful boys in my life caring about me and loving me. They have seen me through more than they will ever know and I think that's one of the reasons I love them the most. Even though the boys living in that blessed house have changed as the winds of time have blown, every boy who has lived in that house has touched my life in some way big or small and probably without even trying or meaning to... just because they are them. When I didn't know where else to turn with dissapointements and short comings, with saddness, sorrow, heart ache, frustration, or me they were there. I remember one night being so sad and wanting so badly for someone to make it better. I texted Greg that I wanted to talk to him but didn't want to come in his house because I'd been crying and I didn't want to talk to anyone else. Greg told me to come over because he was the only one home so no one else would see me and we could talk. I trusted him and went over only to have Chandler come down from his room and Evan wander in in his bathrobe. Ha. What a good memory. They loved me despite the mascara stains down my face, don't worry. They were worried about me and offered shoulders to cry on and hairs on heads to play with to distract me. And I loved each of them a little more in turn as a result becuase they'd loved me when I needed it most. Understood when I felt no one could and sent me home knowing that in them at least I had friends. And in that moment I learned that it's okay to let people in.

Greg, Wills, Robbie, Evan, Chandler, Aaron, Gordon, Lance, Collin, Justin, and even Byran. There are 11 girls in this world who I am or will be very happy for and little jealous of. Bless my heart.

So many people in the last two years who have walked in and out of my life. And I have been so grateful. And I will continue to be grateful for the men and women who have been apart of my learning and growing experience in 187 E 200 N. They have seen me becoming whoever it is that I will become someday. And they have been apart of that becoming. They have added and taken away attributes and parts of me that have molded and shaped a better me than would have been without them.

I'm moving this week. But I'm taking these places, people, and experiences with me. I'm moving on but not leaving them behind. They are apart of me and without them I feel I would cease to be me. Instead of packing I tell Sarah that I'm building forts in my room and that is why I have boxes all over and why I've been spending so much time in there alone. Not packing. Building forts. And as I sit here blogging in the middle of the mess that is building forts I can't help but think that with these people and these things that I'm taking with me I'm simply building a new fort on the west side of the freeway on Center Street in Provo, Utah. A fort built out of the best building materials - memories, friendship, and love. And in that fort across the freeway there will be new memories and new people just as there were in my fort at 187 E 200 N. It has just come time to build a new fort so I can build a new me. A me that has a foundation clearly marked 187 E 200 N in big, bolded numbers and letters so as to help me remember where I came from and who I am.

Thank you 187 E 200 N. You have changed my life.

Goodnight, dear void.