Living a New Life . . . still for Christ

Some of you may have been wondering what happened to me . . . or maybe no one did! Regardless, I'm going to let you know. :-)

I have gone through so many life changes since my last post that I could write a whole blog just about them! In short, I have said goodbye to California (the place I had just learned to call home), packed up my little apartment, drove cross-country with my fiance back to Missouri, lived with my parents while begging God to give me and my fiance jobs, we both found jobs in Kansas City, and I moved to Kansas City and started my new job. Whew, that's a lot in just over a month! I've been completely consumed ever since with preparing for my wedding that is just less than a month away! It's been such a whirlwind since I left California that I can hardly comprehend it all.

Leaving California was heart-breaking. There were small sobbs at my last Mass at StP2 and quiet tears as I watched the last car filled with my friends pull out of the parking lot from my going away party, knowing it was likely the last time I would see them for quite a long time. Saying goodbye to friends and the parish that became my family was something surreal at the time, but is slowly setting in these days. Some days I still feel like I'm just on vacation . . . that's lasted a long time. Other days it hits me like a freight train that I'm not going back to California, at least not any time soon. :-\ Looking back, I don't think I realized how much of a family I had found in the parish. I often find myself wishing the parish I am now at was as warmly welcoming as StP2. Most of all, I miss the friends I made.

Now don't misunderstand, I love being close to my family again, seeing my close college friends again, and most of all, seeing my fiance on a regular basis for the first time since we started dating in 2004. Regardless, I left a piece of my heart in California, and it has not gone unnoticed.

This is to you Cali, thanks for welcoming me as family and sending me off with much love!