Rumination

[This is a journal entry that I wrote as I was leaving Montana. I think it perfectly sums up how I felt and still feel about my experiences this summer.]

Storm Point, Yellowstone National Park. 6/27/16.

I'm currently on a plane that's taking me away from my heart. Montana's Big Sky Country stole my heart and enthralled my mind. I love this place, and I can't stand that I'm leaving it.

While I love and miss everyone at home, no part of me wants to be going back to dirt, cacti, and 330 days of relentless sunshine. I need peaks, rivers, skies that are clearer than I ever thought possible, and sunsets that are powerful enough to move people to tears. The city moves too fast. It's noisy, smelly, dirty, and no one stops to appreciate the incredible planet on which we live.

Being surrounded by other people all summer who had the same passion and love for adventures, nature, hiking, camping, and exploring was so inspiring, and it kept me motivated to get out. I'm afraid that once I get back home to my old routine that I'll lose my motivation to keep exploring.

I've always thought I was a city girl trapped in a small town, but now I realize that I'm a small town girl who is full of wanderlust. I want to explore cities, towns, mountains, coasts, valleys, fields, and maybe most importantly, people.

As much as the adventures made this summer amazing, it's the people that changed my life for the better. They taught me so much about myself, and they all helped me realize how important it is that I be exactly who I am. I've grown so much as a person, and I need to hold onto that. I'm strong, independent, and I'm capable of anything.

I learned that I can love and be loved. Even though I ended up with a broken heart, I trusted myself to know at whatever happened I would be okay. Besides that, I have friends that I love and who love me.

I found a sense of peace and happiness that I've never had before. I learned that I need to spend time by myself, get out into nature, do yoga and meditate, write, and plan a future for myself that I can look forward to.

Someday, I'm going to return to Big Sky Country to retrieve the piece of my heart that I'm leaving here. Having that to look forward to might be enough to get me through the realities of going to a party school in the literal middle of hell for the next three years.

Take care of yourself, be true to yourself, and you can never go wrong.

-Morgan