I'm Back!

After two weeks in Manitou Springs, Colorado, a day in the Black Forest, and a day on the road.  Plus a day of recovery yesterday.  I appear to be on Warp Time Zone--where I sleep on CO time, eat on Hawaii time, and lose track of all time regardless of what's going on.  Forget Kansas time!

So...the Report.  Y'all should check out the website, summit.org.  The Summit, student conference in CO, I can stand as witness to.  It roxx.  Epically.

No seriously.  It's hard to describe :: all of the awesomeness is still swimming around in my head...or maybe that's the change in elevation...  At any rate, it's a shock to come back, like I've got torn up by my roots.  Which is strange.  I wasn't homesick for home while AT the Summit (too busy making friends, learning new things, doing all sorts of stuff, etc.) but now that I am home, I'm homesick for the Summit!

I've always been looking for a place where I fit.  I remember distinctly trying to find it in churches we've been to. Waiting to fit in, to become like the other girls (and I wanted so badly to be like them).  It never clicked.  The church we attend now is very nice and I like it there.  When asked, I would tell my friends, "It's as close to a home as a person like me is ever going to find."

Well, I was wrong.  I found it.  Summit is a place where there are people like me.  Let me explain that, because it's not quite enough yet.  I have various "groups" or "classifications" of friends :: my writing friends, my music friends, my doctrine/theology friends, my friends who think, my friends who laugh.  I hope I can say that for every area of interest, every passion of mine, I have at least one friend I can share that with.

But at Summit, I can be ALL of me.  That means a lot to an introvert like me :: it takes so much work to bring myself into the outside world that it can be tempting to just drag out one element of my character--the entertainer, or the nerd, or the writer, or the musician.  Whichever aspect is most convenient.  It takes about three solid hours of interaction to get past whatever element I pulled out, and then you get closer to the real me.  At Summit, I don't need to be one element.  I can be ALL of me, every aspect, and people know it and they don't care.  They can see me, varying from hour to hour like every other human being.  See the music, see the thinking and arguing, see the joking and laughing, see the need for solitude and peace, see the joy or the pain or the anger.  It's a place where I don't have to review everything I say to check for politically-correct-ness.  THAT aspect alone is worth the price of the conference!

Not to say that we're all alike there.  Not by a long shot!  The difference is, you can disagree without getting stomped on.  You can sit down over dinner and have a nice logical conversation with someone who is vastly different.  People all around you are hearing new things, thinking new things, following their beliefs to their conclusions and seeing where they're headed.  And everybody knows it.

It is nice not to be such a minority anymore.  To have at least five people I can count on to back me up and help me out.  It changes my outlook from argument-weary to argument-worthy.

And this post has turned out super long, so I'll leave you with that.  Tomoz I think I'll give the report of what I did in between all of this home-niche-place-where-I-belong finding. :)
AMZi x x x x x