Lauren Gaskill

I looked up from my book, startled by the loud noise of a door opening in our community house.

Thank goodness! Someone is home! I thought.

A few minutes passed and still, there were no roommates in sight. Walking over to where the noise originated, I found the door blown open by the wind. No one was coming home. I was still

A
L
O
N
E.

I don’t get lonely very often; and when I do, I usually self-medicate by reading, whipping up a new recipe, going for a drive, or writing. But tonight was different. Being alone wasn’t something I could push away — it was my reality. Friends sent me pictures of their nights out on the town. My dad sent me pictures of the whole family at a wedding. My grandmother Facebooked “Everyone was out at the house today, except for Lauren.” All in succession.

My heart ached.

I wrote about making friends last week, but as I said before, that’s a process … not something you can force. Knowing that I had no one in the area to call who was available, I threw the blanket off my legs, put my book down, rose from the couch and went for a walk.

A few blocks into my journey, I saw a birthday party of inflatables taking place at a corner house. Children were laughing. Some parents were hugging other parents goodbye as they drop their kids off. Others stayed to watch the little ones have a good time.

Their community and experiences gave me joy.

At one point or another in life, we will all be outsiders. There will be loneliness. Hearts will ache for home. And you can click your heels all you want, but a pair of red shoes won’t magically take you there.

In these moments, there are two options: wallow in the loneliness, or, take a walk. Receive joy from the world around you by looking for beauty and community where you originally saw desolate darkness. At the end of our loneliest nights is the dawn of a new day.

I pushed the thought out of my head as quickly as it had entered. But the lie had already been expressed: None of it mattered.  

Through the airplane’s windows I could see faces — the smiles of the friends I had come to cherish over the course of a few months. I couldn’t have survived my summer in Seattle without them. I was ready to move on, but felt so wrong for having been only a momentary blip in my new friend’s lives.

I felt so insignificant. So ungrounded.

In high school, many of us had consistent friend groups: people we played sports, went to church, ate lunch, or hung out with on a regular basis. On any given day, we’d be reconnected with these relationships. Our whole world could fit within the county lines of our town.

Some stay within those county lines. Then there are those who venture out into the world, where, even though there are plenty of people around, it can become a pretty lonely and fruitless place. There is a sense of uprootedness experienced in this.

So what do we do when we feel like a wandering soul? And how are new friends made in the first place?

Regardless of the amount of time spent with a certain person, friendships matter. None of us could get by without them. The people we come in contact with are inarguably irreplaceable, unique, and deserving of our full attention. But friendship is a process. Relationships are not instantaneous — they are lifelong and involve active engagement.

Sunday marks week two of my Minneapolis affair. It’s taken a bit of time, but, instead of just passing through this part of my life, I’m trying to see each new friendship as a valued opportunity to learn more about the world and my place in it. What I’ve found is that the more people I meet and talk to, the more beautiful and big life gets. Read More

Some things never grow old. Like singing a favorite song while driving with the windows down; watching spring’s first flowers bloom; or taking a bite of any sweet dessert. As John Keat’s once wrote: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

If we believe we were beautifully and wonderfully made, why, then, as we grow older on the outside, do we let time steal our joy? As if age were something to extinguish joy — as if wrinkles and sagging skin were something to hide away?

Last week, I grabbed lunch with my gramma, who had received a hair cut earlier that day. Her hair looked fantastic, but it’s not what I love most about her. You see, my gramma is beautiful for many reasons; what captivates me most is her spirit, the way she lights up when she smiles, and the stories we share. Her spirit is full of so much joy, and for that she is eternally beautiful.

 

The same is true for all of us, regardless of age, appearance, or social class.
An uplifting, remarkable spirit is a joy to be surrounded by forever.

It’s guaranteed that our bodies will change over time, but our spirits will only grow old if we let them.Read More

This poem came out of a dinner I had last night with two former roommates. As we reminisced over tacos, I realized that it had been an entire year since I’d spoken to one of them. She was a wonderful roommate, and I consider her a great friend, but I guess you could say time got the best of us — caught up in the daily grind, our relationship slipped through the cracks.

It’s amazing how that happens, and, oftentimes by mistake. When our minds become fixated on so many things, it’s so easy to lose sight of the people we come in contact with along the way. If we’re not careful, in time our projects will take the place of our relationships. But only if we let them … In the end, we get to choose how we spend our time.

I’m calling this poem “Refocus:” something I hope to do over the next several months of summer. I don’t want to keep saying “I’m too busy” to make time for people. I’m sick of feeling like my days are stuck in a never-ending system of turbulence. That’s one of the reasons why I haven’t been blogging as much recently, because time is valuable. My goal is to start investing more of my time into people instead of stuff.

How we spend our time says a lot about who we are.

Refocus //

The years, they trickle by
like grains of sand through the hourglass of time
And our feet, they slide in the sand
We can’t seem to get a grip, or take a stand
There’s always “too much to do,” yet so much to say
And all the while, we’ve stopped giving God the time of day
What will it take for us to shake this broken record system
Before the curse of the clock claims another generation
No more living in the future, it only leads us astray
Quit banking on tomorrow, because all we have is today.

Question: What about you? Where is your focus?