Student Blog: This Winter Break...

We have two weeks of winter break left and I’m trying to enjoy every last minute. I have definitely been taking some time to relax and take a breath which has been much much needed and I’ve also taken time to spend with my family and friends which has also been much much needed. This break has been unlike any other for me. My grandmother sadly passed away 3 days after I got home from college. This was something that I never ever wanted to imagine or begin to deal with. I’m still not fully believing it. To say this time off has been needed is an understatement. This break has been a rollercoaster ride to say the least, and I wanted to talk a bit about what I’ve been doing to try and breathe, to relax, and to recoup.

To start, my family celebrated Christmas together. Every year, my grandma would bake cookies for her grandkids to get together and decorate. Even though my grandma wasn’t with us, my grandpa still really wanted us to decorate cookies and do the things we did every single year. At first I really did not want to do this, I thought it was going to be too hard. But, it ended up being really nice. My mom and I made the cookies together and had a heck of a time trying to use my grandma’s cookie cutters that her grandmother had given to her. We were laughing and making an absolute fool of ourselves which I knew my grandma would have gotten a kick out of. Then, the next day all six of us grandkids decorated them with the same frosting we always make and it was actually nice. We laughed and put way too much icing on the cookies than we should. It was nice to laugh and to be together. I’m glad we did it, and I know it would have made her happy. We then had our family Christmas to the best of our ability and ate a lot of good food.

After Christmas, I spent a lot of time in my house on the couch watching Ted Lasso with my mom. We watched season one in a day, finished season two over the course of a few days, and have now begun season 3. We have been just sitting around doing nothing. We spent a week running around and trying to help out my grandpa with everything he needed, so just taking some time to sit and rest was a must. It’s been really nice just being at my house, sleeping, and not doing a single thing.

After that, I ended up going to a retreat called Rejuvenate. Every summer, I am a camp counselor at Green Pastures Christian Retreat Center and it is the highlight of my year. I love this camp, I always leave feeling alive and fulfilled. Rejuvenate was a retreat for the counselors. It was very chill and low-key. We chatted about this past year and what was planned for this upcoming summer. We talked about God and we laughed a whole lot. I got to see people I don’t get to see that often and that was absolutely wonderful. It was super fun, and fulfilling. I love camp and this retreat made me more excited for this summer and what is to come.

That has been my winter break so far. Today, I cleaned my room and did laundry and tried to get a bit more organized. Over the next few days, I’m going to spend time with my grandpa and my mom and meet up with some friends at home. Each day gets easier and easier but grief is a very real thing that isn’t linear and still hits and comes out of left field. But, taking the time to spend with some of my favorite people, to spend with God, and to spend just doing absolutely nothing at all, has helped immensely. I’ve also been trying to find joy in the same things that my grandma found joy in, like the snow and like some of the music she used to listen to, and that has helped as well and definitely made me smile a whole lot more. Enjoy the rest of this time friends. As always, go do great things.

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