Buried Treasures.

Okay, so have you cleaned out your closet lately?! If not, go do it! You will not be disappointed, not if you are anything like me at least.

Backtracking-- After moving everything from my apartment back home, I made a plan to completely go through my room and get rid of things that have been sitting around unused for the past 4+ years. I knew my closet was going to be a project. I have a closet that is the entire length of one wall in my room, with two sets of doors. One side had a mound of shoes that was draped with random articles of clothing that had fallen off their hangers. On the other side, I had very few clothes hanging, it was more of a space that collected a lot of random knick-knacks accompanied by a stack of school books and a box filled with a variety of things from freshman year in college.

I began tackling the side with the mound of shoes since I knew this would be an easy organizational fix. I hung up the fallen clothes, and brought up a shoe rack from the basement to organize the shoes on. That side of the closet was looking better in no time.

The other side was a different story. I started by unloading two shelving units I had. One was filled with old sweatshirts that I stacked up for Goodwill. The other was filled with old school papers, awards, and random writings. I flipped through some of my old work (high school era) and was so surprised by some of my writings. Just as I had wrote in my blog Catching Up With The Past, You never know how much you can truly learn about yourself through a handful of sentences written in the past. " 

In one assignment (freshman year of high school) we had to pick a song that symbolized childhood, and another that symbolized the teenage years. For the childhood song I picked 'Walking on Sunshine' by Katrina & the Waves, which is pretty self explanatory. For the teenage years I chose 'Life's A Dance' by John Michael Montgomery. This is what I wrote: 

"Lyrics- Life's  dance, you learn as you go, sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow, don't worry 'bout what you don't know, life's a dance you learn as you go. 
I believe that it relates to high school because, well, you learn as you go. Sometimes you are more of an individual, while other times you follow the crowd. It's really just about finding yourself and learning what life is all about."

It's crazy to think that that is how I felt about high school, because really this is how life is for many years beyond high school. We are always learning, always experiencing new things. We are always molding ourselves and gaining new knowledge on what life means, what life is. That last sentence I wrote really sticks with me, and I still believe it 100 percent. 

Another paper I found was one I wrote senior year, we had to write about our philosophy of life. Here are a few excerpts from that: 
-"I believe that the meaning of life is to acquire and maintain true happiness, while helping others do the same." 
-"Sometimes finding happiness acquires us to look beyond the surface..." 
& my favorite part of this paper--
-"In the seconds that we spend laughing with others, we are connected to them with an irreplaceable intensity." 

Yes, i'm aware, much of it is very cliche. But that last sentence, seriously, how cool is it to think about that? I would definitely still stand by those words to this day. When we are laughing with others, really laughing--those laughs that cannot be faked, and cannot be stopped even when you try to compose yourself--those are the moments worth living for. When you are laughing with someone else you are connected to them in some fascinating way that tears down all walls and opens up a special type of companionship. It's laughs like that that are not easily forgotten, and it's laughs like that friendships are built upon. 

Alright, moving on--the majority of the rest of the papers were not as exciting. With many being about various boring books we read and had to write essays on. Although I must admit, I wrote a pretty cool (yet embarrassing) rhyming poem & an interesting little blurb on what the American Dream is to me. Anyway, as I said... moving on.. 

On to the box that was filled with artifacts from freshman year (yes I am making myself sound ancient, but really this was not even 4 years ago). I opened up the box with an idea of what was inside, but when I saw my acceptance packet for Cal State, Northridge sitting on top I was caught off guard and immediately filled with happiness. It just brought me back to how excited I was to find out I had gotten into the student exchange program and how excited I was when I initially received that packet in the mail. I dug a little deeper into the box and pulled out a folder. I opened up the folder and saw a bunch of envelopes on one side. The first one was a card I had gotten from my parents and I assumed the following ones were similar. As I pulled them all out I was thrown off when I saw that they were all letters from soldiers. As a senior in high school I had 'adopted a soldier' and was his pen pal for nearly a year while he was in Iraq. I adopted him off of a website, soldiersangels.org. With adopting him I also had the responsibility (and joy) of sending him care packages. After he returned to the states I wanted to continue my service to the soldiers in some way. Since I was heading off to college I knew that sending care packages would be harder and my funds were going to be lower. So instead, I joined the letter writing team through the same organization. I got one soldiers name per week and I wrote them thank yous/short letters. Being on the letter writing team meant that it wasn't a permanent commitment, and many soldiers may not write back since you are not technically their pen pal, it was just more of a one time card/letter thing. But, there were some soldiers that would write back, and those were what made up the stack of envelopes that I found in that box. After re-reading the letters, I thought to myself that it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick that back up. It was almost like a hobby to me, & one that I enjoyed so much! Finding a letter in the mailbox from someone thousands of miles away, in a place that neither you or I would ever want to be, serving our country, is amazing. Knowing that your letter made it to them, and they wanted to write you back whether it was just to thank you or tell you a little bit about themselves, it was just always such a great feeling. & plus-- who doesn't love getting letters in the mail! 

So anyway, finding the box happened yesterday morning. And yesterday afternoon I went to a close family friends graduation party. At the party was one of my brothers close friends' Mom. Her son, Connor, had joined the Navy and is currently stationed stateside, in Florida. She sat down at the table and started telling us about how he is doing, and how much fun he is having now that he is done with boot camp. She then turned to me and said 'Your Mom was telling me how you adopted a solider off of Soldier's Angels, and I decided to do it since Connor doesn't care about getting letters anymore since he can call and Skype me whenever. I thought it was great that you had done something like that, so I signed up to be an angel too, I just received my soldiers name and address so I'm excited to start writing him and sending him things!' 
This totally through me off guard because 1. I had no idea my Mom had told her & 2. How crazy is it that I had just found all those letters a few hours earlier!?

Okay, so by no means am I saying I inspired someone, but I am so happy for the fact that because I had been involved in something, someone else learned about it and became involved!  I know that she will be a great angel to her soldier, she has such a big heart and I know that whoever her solider is, is one lucky guy. 

As for me, that just solidified the fact that I need to get involved again. Some way, doing something to positively impact the lives of others, even if it's only for the few minutes it takes them to read my letter. 

Well seeing as it's past 2300, it's time for me to sign off for bed, ;) 

xoxo,Kaila. 

Family is Forever

Well even though my last post would lead you to believe something different, these past few weeks have been more than amazing. The bad news brought about great times and lifelong memories.

So, to back track, the morning after I graduated I came downstairs and was sitting in the family room when my Mom told me that my grandpa was diagnosed with Stage 4 Liver Cancer. The doctor said he has 3-6 months without treatment, and with treatment it would hopefully stretch it to about a year. She had found out the day before, but didn't want to say anything since it was supposed to be my 'big day'. My Dad's parents are the only living grandparents I have and they live in Arizona. They had planned a road trip to Illinois and they were going to stay for about 2.5 weeks with a stop in Arkansas on the way back. Since my Grandpa got diagnosed literally days before their trip was about to begin it made their plans change a bit. My Grandpa was determined to still come since it was going to be their last big trip to the Midwest anyway. Mind you, the majority of their children & grandchildren live in the Chicago suburbs & it was home to them their entire lives until about 11 years ago.

So, once the family received word of my Grandpa's diagnoses, my cousin Megan, from Seattle, flew out to Arizona to join in on the road trip to Illinois. My cousin Katie & her husband Justin traveled up from Arkansas for the long Memorial Day weekend to spend time with the family (my grandparents unfortunately had to cut Arkansas out of their road trip plans in order to get back to AZ for treatment).

So to make a long story short, I got to spend a lot of time over the past 1.5 weeks with my grandparents and my cousins that I rarely see. I couldn't have asked for a better time. The days were filled with laughter and love. We made so many irreplaceable memories that I will hold close to me for the rest of my life. This week showed me that when it comes down to it, family will always still be there in the end. Family is made up of the people that will give you some of the best times of your life. Whether we live far or close, see them often or barely ever, they will be there in a second, if need be.

Even though the reason we saw each other so much was because something terrible has happened, it just reinforces what I said above. Thankfully, we have tons of new pictures & closer relationships have developed. For me, I was never really close to any of my cousins. They either moved or were always older than me. I am so thankful to now be closer to my cousins just from this past week. Cousins are seriously one of the best things in life. They are friends, unlike any other.

On Wednesday me, my dad,and my brother headed out to West Chicago for dinner with the family for the last time of the trip since they were leaving early Thursday morning. It was really hard for me knowing that there was a very good chance that this was the last time I would see my Grandpa. I don't know how someone faces knowing that someone they love is dying. I have never been faced with this before. Just knowing that there is only months left of someone's precious life. I still haven't allowed it to hit me fully. Every time I start to think about it too much I just push it away before I end up a complete mess.

It's heartwarming to know that he has been able to live 82 years with nearly 60 of those married to my Grandma. They raised 7 children on my Grandpa's salary for many years and have made countless friends.

They have so much to be proud of, and they have blessed me with so many childhood memories that I will be forever grateful for.

Hold your family close,
xoxoKaila