3 years and a day

I got a cool email today, I’ve been in a casual relationship with this blog for three years as of yesterday. Who’d have thought Heather Milks could keep something alive for three years? Not I, not I.

That means this blog has shown bits of me going through high school dramas, a breakup, spiritual questioning, graduation, discovering college, more spiritual questioning, another breakup, some good loving on my family, more college discovery, and I’m sure this circle o’ life will keep on rolling.

So, maybe I can try and re-enter my own brain three years ago and remember the original purpose of the blog (besides an outlet for teenage angst).

I used to host worship nights in my parent’s living room for my classmates, because honestly that was the kind of place I grew up in and these people were/are my family. Those were some sacred moments and those prayers and voices got me through the second half of high school. It meant 200 Nancy cookies and pizza-dough from Interspar, Annie and Caleb would fight over the sauce, Josh, Isaac and Joel would lead us and we’d just worship because it was just a natural part of being a family of believers together. In the spring we’d sit around a campfire in my backyard and honestly talk about nothing and most of us were just cluelessly flirting, but it was hilarious and lovely just the same.

I really felt like we were simply the most honest about ourselves and what was really going on when we were around our campfires. Those are surprisingly old memories, now this blog is an attempt for me to keep the tradition alive; to get myself to be my truest self and fess up to what God is actually handing me.

I now have a very different relationship with the community I’m in. I think that campfires in my backyard were part of a speical phase of my life, but don’t fit into where I’m at now. Right now, I’m more or less sitting at everyone else’s campfires for a time; learning their songs and jokes and taking it all in. For now, I have a black futon that has a habit towards sagging, an eternal task list, and friends who feel my exhaustion on a spiritual level. But even so, it is good. I’ve never learned so much, been stretched so thin, felt so satisfyingly exhausted, or needed Jesus more. I still love seeing people fill up the futon, even just for the sake of leaning over and exchanging our pep-talks we don’t really believe in anymore. This is my current campfire, my designated space to be as real as I can muster.

I’m not sure I can end this one with a grand challenge.

May you… let someone know who you are? let someone hear your sad stories? introduce them to your family? share your nostalgia?

Surprise someone with your trust, I guess. A hard one but a worthwhile one.

Dude, thanks for sticking with me. I enjoy these.
Here’s to three years together.

Love,
Heather

PC: Andras Kim