Friends are irreplaceable for reals

In 19 hours I'll be on an airplane beginning the journey to move to South Korea. I'm so excited because I feel like this has been planned for so long and now it's REAL. Over the past few months, I've been answering people's questions and helping friends and family around me understand what life might possibly look like in another country. However, recently it hit me that answering questions felt like I was telling a story and now this is real life! No more story telling...I'm so excited and ready to start this adventure.

FRIENDS!!

I was able to visit Minneapolis for the past week and catch up with college friends. We have quite a strong and quality group of people that have miraculously bonded and grown over the past few years. Somehow we have morphed into the people we call family even though there's no blood relation and the only ones who can match our own personal levels of crazy. I realized this week that we have all put in our work to make these individual friendships unique, strong and genuinely "worth it". We arguably know each other better than most people in this world and will be friends for years to come because we saw the value in having quality people around us years ago. We used to reminisce about old times, funny stories, and memories that more or less have defined the culture of our interactions with each other. Lately, we've talked more about dreams, futures, how we'll make it to each other's weddings, ways to stay connected and how our families will be friends as we grow older and move from life transition to settling down. Growing up is a weird concept, but I think more than ever, I appreciate these strangely motivated people. We're going places and with that, our bond of friendship is growing and getting deeper. To be honest, I'm not sure how many people can say that. Surely, the depth and consistency of communication will ebb and flow with time and life events, but I can't help but believe that the roots and foundations that we've worked hard to build and maintain will stand the test of time. It makes me proud to know such people and confident to follow my dreams and plans the Lord's laid out. Similarly I feel compelled to be each of their biggest support system and the loudest one in the peanut gallery.  Thank God for these friends because without them my life would be a little more bleak, I would be a little less quality, and the world would be done a great disservice.