ALIVE 

"Home is wherever we are if there's love here too"

People definitely looked at me today and thought "Why the heck is she so happy on a thursday afternoon getting soaked by the rain walking through a thunderstorm". The answer is because with every rain drop I felt, with every thunder that raddled, every crack I tripped over (then laughed at myself for tripping), every tear I felt fall down my face - just made me realize how alive I truly am. As corny as that sounds, that is exactly what I was thinking as I was walking home from the journalism school in the rain. (And by the way, I was the only one bundled up because apparently people here don't think rain is a good enough reason to be wearing warm clothing, which just gave them even more of a reason to look at me strange).

Even with a soaked beanie and drenched hair, I realized I just need to smile. So that's exactly what I did. Through the pit in my stomach I feel from missing home - my family, friends, the beach, the familiarities - through the stress I have to follow my dreams in a way that will make me successful, through the hole in my heart & tear in my eye from the feeling of a missing puzzle piece, through the pain from the last rain drop that hit me in the eye - I smiled. I got some weird looks but I didn't care, that actually just made it better.

So walking down 16th street in the storm, I bobbed my head and snapped my fingers to the new Jack Johnson album, I sang, I danced, I laughed, I smiled, I cried. People seriously thought I was insane. But eventually those people vanished, and all that mattered was that I am alive. 

I have learned that happiness depends soley upon you. You determine whether or not you are smiling in this moment of life. You decide how you are going to take the circumstances you are given. So...why not smile?