Change.

After wanting to start a blog for quite sometime now, I figured there's no better time than today! It's funny how once things get a bit crazy, and life seems to be never slowing down..we always seem to forget about things we've always wanted to do. Such as, start a blog. 

The word "crazy" has been the headliner of my life for the past year and 4 months. After being elected the 2011-2012 Iowa FFA Secretary, things were on a continuous cycle of constant change. A girl coming from small town Iowa, the opportunities I have had the past 16 months have been nothing less than the word, change. School activities, family, friends, and work at the local Fareway consumed my life growing up in Northeast Iowa, giving me minimal reasons (outside of summer vacations) to leave my 50 mile radius stretching from Oelwein to Waterloo. So, when I thought driving the "back roads" to get to Waterloo was a bit on the scary side, it was nothing compared to 70 mph Interstate 35. Last summer, highway 20 and interstate 35 between Fairbank and Ankeny became my best friends, having the pleasure of driving them a minimum of once every week.

As my summer past, I realized the change of my atmosphere, the way I was thinking, what was now important to me, and dreams I never thought I had. No I'm not just talking about the number of miles I racked up on my 1999 Mercury Cougar, the amount of Facebook friend I magically have added, or the hours of sleep that I was now accustomed to; but noticing the way change had effected my everyday lifestyle.

I was now only a regular shopper of a Fareway store, visits to my friends and family were very few and far between, and I was a student at a community college instead of a high school in the middle of a corn field.

I've stated the obvious changes I have had over the past year, however, there's one more piece to the cycle. The most meaningful and important piece is the people I have meet on the adventure to where I am that have changed my life. Whether it was talking to an eighth grader, listening to them telling me their life ambitions, or hearing a senior tell me she wanted to become a teacher to hopefully have an impact on someone; like her teachers have done for her. Or stopping at a gas station in small town northwest Iowa, listening to a group of elderly men tell me about their childhood, it's easy to say I was moved. The determination and motivation these 3 individuals displayed to me, showed me that in even in the confusion and frustration...change is what keeps us going.

When sometimes we get caught in the whirlwind of change, there's one thing we can always cling to...our purpose.