The Clock is Ticking

Here is an attempt at my second blog post.

So, as most of you know, I am in Ecuador at the moment, living here with my family for several months. It's nice. But, I'm not gonna lie....it was so hard leaving my life in Colorado Springs. Sure, it's only 9 and a half months, but it's still tough. I think probably the hardest part for me was leaving my tight group of friends and having to watch them live their lives from afar...lives I was used to being a big part of. It really is difficult to be away from friends for a period of time, especially those friends who you are used to being with almost all of the time.

Another really hard thing for me was to leave without my older sister, Christina. I have grown up with her by my side. Even though we haven't done as much things together the last couple of years (part of that has been not going to the same school), I am still so used to counting on her to be with me when I try new things and go new places. It was just a hard thing for me to handle, and I wanted her to come with me so badly...

Although these were hard things at first, I am more than happy with the outcomes. Yes, I miss my friends and my sister (and many others) dearly, but I feel as though I'm growing so much independently this year. I feel as though I'm starting to not have to count on others as much, which is something that I struggled with a lot before. I really like it. Honestly, as much as I miss my sister, I'm sort of thankful I'm on this adventure without her. I'm really growing as an individual in Christ. And not only that, I think this will be such a growing experience for her as well, and I'm so happy for her. (But of course I am still really really really excited for her visit in December! We gonna partay it up!)

And even if I wasn't overwhelmingly delighted with my life here, it wouldn't really matter that much because time is going by so fast. It really hasn't felt like I've been here that long, and yet we started out with 9.5 months here, and already, we are down to less than 8 months left. I know that if it is already going by this fast, the whole time is going to be gone just like that. In that case, I better enjoy every moment here, which I have certainly been trying my best at doing. There are still so many things I want to do while I'm here and I'm excited for all the travel opportunities I'm going to have. There are also so many places I want to go to while I'm here, and seeing that it is only a limited time, I hope that there will be at least one trip each month. The clock has already started to tick. Before I know it, I will be writing a blog saying farewell to mi querido pais, Ecuador. May 24th, 2011, will certainly be a bittersweet day.