Face to face.

Every day is a different day.

There are days where when it rains in life, it really pours -- thunder, lightning, hail, snow, all of the above. There are days when you feel so far under your responsibilities, your priorities, goals, and deadlines that you just don't know how to rise above or if you should even rise above anymore. Then there are days when the 70-degree weather in Mid-January reminds you that just because it's winter doesn't mean it can't be Spring. There are days when the Universe conspires to make everything work out for you, and, surely, there are days when it wants you to wait.

Then there are days like what the past few days have been.

I have filled the past few days with much longing for some type of familiarity, certainty, stability because I, Camille Salazar, am obsessed with knowing everything. The thing is though, I want to know, but I love surprises and not knowing. I like certainty, but I like open-ended things. At the same time, there's this 'thing' within me that longs for home, but at the same time longing to hop back on the plane and fly somewhere new. It's this mixed feeling between wanting nothing more than to be able to stand tall on my two feet, and at the same time go cliff diving.

It has been hard to determine such conflicting desires in my heart for the past few weeks and days even as I have been surrounded with 'home' -- where everywhere you go, there's a familiar face, a hug awaiting you, and you just know where you are, you can anticipate the next place, the next face even if it's not geographically your home. It's been an exciting time looking forward to new chapters of our lives, but when we get there, it becomes even more difficult to turn the next page, because truth be told, you can't even see it yet.

"The only thing in life that's constant is change." You may run the same course for a while, but sooner or later, you'll find yourself on a new track. At the same time, you may be in the same place, surrounded by the same things, but experience life in a completely different way because something happens within and you did or are doing something about it -- which is always a good thing.

As I moved back to Irving, I came back to a neatly fixed bed, but without a roommate. My phone begins to successfully fail. The amazing people I have been friends with are either out of this country or are now off campus. I honestly felt as if I had been thrown into a completely different school, finding my way back into building some kind of 'home' here once more. My lack of comfort, lack of familiar and friendly faces have left me anxious and have kept me up at night wondering if I'll find it all the next day.

It's this annoying feeling of when you're taken to a place you don't want to go to because you don't know anyone, then you are left with a person you don't know, but someone who scares you and oftentimes irritates you. That's what it feels like because that's what it is. At this point of my life, I am taken to a place (as I have been begging God to do -- ha, he answers all prayers after all) where I hardly know anyone, where even the laundry room I once found safety in is now a foreign place with all these foreign faces. At this point of my life, I am throwing tantrums because I am left with someone who scares me, irritates me, and someone I still don't know -- Myself.

As I continue to look beyond what I don't have, the more I long for these things to come to me, for me now -- at this moment. I feel as if my patience is beginning to wear thin until I realized I haven't been patient at all. I haven't been trying. I feel like this excessive want for what I'm used to reflects my desperate desires for some kind of escape. Call me crazy, but while we try to make things happen, we don't realize that things do eventually happen. You were born and you had nothing to do with it. It's possible. There are some things that we have to believe that will happen. Things are always happening, and are always happening for a reason. This is why during days like these, we have to endure them. We have to experience the agony in waiting, experience the purification of being patient. There's a time for everything, and if we don't revel in the now --regardless of the situation, tomorrow won't be any different nor will it be any better.

This longing and anxiety over missing familiarity or some kind of certainty is my clear sign for wanting distraction to keep me from being aware of every little thing going on in my life. Moreover, It's made me aware of what I don't have and can't have on a much deeper level, encompassing every aspect of my life. It's made me aware of the risk taken when you rely on your faith to carry you through life and to God. It's made me aware of the risk of hope. It's made me aware of the risk of love. It's that same feeling that I'd assume you'd get from being up on Mt. Everest and looking down. This time of being stripped of 'home', this time of only seeing what today has to offer has made me aware.

Even if it hurts, I’m not sure pain is the word for it. Just because it hurts, I’m sure this is not a bad thing either. I've finally surrendered and decided that this is as much a part of life as the times I spend surrounded with familiar faces in familiar places. I've decided I need to embrace it as much as I embrace every moment I have with my loved ones. I've decided that this is not where I want to be, and I will keep moving forward, but first, I have to know where I'm coming from. This is one of those days. This is the time.

With all this, I’ve realized, I won't ever know what God wants me to do in particular, but maybe it’s to stop avoiding myself. To stop being so scared of my inadequacy, and at the same time to stop being so scared of the greatness I'm capable of. It seems logical if this is where I am, that there is nothing left to do but to surrender, and face each day instead of trying to escape them every time. Instead of trying to escape myself. I need to embrace every single thing, every single person, every single feeling… to be aware of the sufferings, the struggles now, so that I can fully appreciate and celebrate the victory promised.

Being on our own, being alone with our thoughts is scary because it's easy to accept ourselves when there are others around us who will. It's scary because when it's just us, we actually have to learn how to accept ourselves, forgive ourselves, and love ourselves as well. I have to learn, and remind myself constantly that the love I experience in my life is love simply manifested. However, I was loved way before that, still am, and will always be. Till we know that, we'll never learn how to welcome love that is unfamiliar, different, and, most especially, one that transforms our lives.

All I know is that I am where I am at this point of my life, there’s nothing more or less that I should do, but to experience every bit of it — whether it hurts, or drains me of all my strength, if it’s what the moment is calling me for, then so be it.

There’s a grace about keeping hopeful, without being selfish, greedy or hasty. There’s a grace about desires and longing for the treasures buried in our hearts… but the same Hands that placed them in there without our will in the first place will take care of it until the end of time. If the desire is great, if what we can imagine and fathom is great, what more its realization? Keep hope alive, self. You’ll find that in these times of struggle, the victory will taste sweeter, your dreams will be realer, and you will be fuller.

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us." -- Romans 5:1-5

Hope does not disappoint.