Well, before I get into all the nice stuff, I'd like to acknowledge Blogger's new look..?
Yeah. It's weird, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Haha. Suppose I have to.
Very well then!
I'm listening to "Secret" by Maroon 5 because I'm anticipating on performing it at an Open Mic, if I end up going. That'd be exciting.
Anyhow, like I was saying:
Wow.
This "Berry Berry Good Lemonade" I'm drinking sucks. It might just taste weirdly because of my allergies, and I may be miserable because of my allergies, but life sucks.
Or maybe it's the fact that my weekend retreat is over.
I'm sure there was some kind of reluctance in everyone's hearts as they left the comfort and safety of their homes to go a church for the weekend. Right, right - Church. You think of the pews and aisles and token at the center-focus of the venue. Of course, not all retreats are held in the actual sanctuary - at least, that wasn't where mine was.
The weekend started out pretty lively and entertaining. To say the least, traveling with parents kin to mine, it's destined to lead us about in a circle or two for a predetermined amount of time, for sure. After an hour had passed, I stumbled from the parking lot, up the stairs, greeted by three teenagers like me, and ushered into an entrance from the side of the church.
It was about forty-five minutes from home, and it was about eight in the evening; sun had set and the only noises I could hear were now the cars outside and the people downstairs. As they told me drop my things amidst the myriad of other belongings, I grew anxious. I didn't know anyone, no one's face was familiar, and I didn't know where to go or what was going to happen.
Nothing in the world could have prepared me for what was going to happen within the next two days.
Nothing.
So, I look back to my mother, the sole gambler who dragged her exhausted limbs into a car to drive for a little over an hour and a half, returning home after it all. At the end of the day, I have to respect her more than I actually do.
But, I digress. Before she scampered off, a face - a familiar one - breached the doors we had once entered through.
"There he is!" Called the individual who invited me on the retreat, one of my professors.
For the sake of anonymity, respect, and confidentiality, we'll call him by his endeared self-dubbed "nickname"...
"Chocolate Thunder." We'll call him CT for short. Sound good?
CT dragged me down some stairs after assuring my mother and her motherly concerns that we'd all be fine and fantastic. After we turned down a corridor I would become relatively familiar with within the next two days, we found ourselves walking into a carpeted room, where I met with another familiar face - Mr. Rose, who ran our Senior Retreat.
To say the least, it was a relief to see him happy to see me.
Well, being an hour late and being received with smiles isn't exactly the first thing you would expect, is it?
.... Well then. = _ =;;
I suppose I should have expected better, sure, but I didn't know better. Heh. It'll resurface, no worries.You'll get a kick out of it, I'm sure.
So, after greetings and all the brief niceness, CT then dragged me into the gymnasium, called to a kid by his name, who we'll dub "TM" [ who was wearing a calendar-necklace on his chest with the rest of his name or nickname. Whatever the case, people didn't call him "TM" ] and he was my partner for whatever game they were playing. I found that it was a familiar and classic from our retreat back in January [ or March since I'm REALLY good at this game hahah ]: Perch & Birdie.
Basically, a bird perches, right? So, when a bird perches, it hops on a branch [ or whatever it's perching on ] and stays there, right?
I think you can get the visual of a myriad of people leaping onto one another, simulated by an aura of Musical Chairs and Simon Says. It's fun, definitely, and it shatters awkward walls people tend to find time to build rather than make friends.
TM and I were in it to win it.
Except we were, y'know, runner-ups.
It fell through when TM decided to switch roles and do the same thing the Birdie was supposed to do when he was actually the Perch.
Whatever. Not the focus of this retreat. Hahah.
TM and a number of other individuals were then revealed to me as "Team Leaders", or our peers who would be leading and helping us along our search this weekend for whatever it was we were looking for.
Sorry, I took a little moment there to keel over from my allergies.
The next game we played was OLMC Says - the customized version of Simon Says, only with OLMC being the initials of the church we were in for the weekend. After a few rounds, we turned it over to starting the retreat.
The entire retreat was amazing, to say the least, and with this as a preface to the occurrences, more or less, I'm glad to say that I went.
I've learned a lot of things I've forgotten.
A lot of things that I needed to remember to figure out:
- Who am I?
- Why am I here?
- Where am I going?
And, to say the very least, our theme song for the Legend of the Hidden Temple Retreat was "Today is the Day" by Lincoln Brewster.
It reminded me that, while life's pretty darn difficult, there's always a way to get through it.
And I'm here to relay the baton to you all.
<3 ~ Monty.
=]
No comments:
Post a Comment