goodbye to a decent year

Including today, there are thirteen days of school left. We're wrapping up with all of the final assignments being thrown at us, and a blog reflection is required--technically, this post was due on Friday. But, I've been 1) concussed, and 2) putting it off.

I have had a really strange year. I have been homesick, physically in so much pain it has brought me to tears, and unbelievably confused about my purpose in life and why I feel the things that I feel. There have been many nights where I've kept my best friend up late listening to me rant out my panic attacks and also many nights where I've been too sad to engage in any kind of human contact. Time has been a strange concept to me this year. It feels like my life has been on pause since mid-August, but at the same time as it feels ninth grade has lasted 10,000 days. The year has been a blur.

Even though sometimes it feels like it, my year has not been completely awful. When I'm sad, I'm drowning myself in doubt and hopelessness. But my life is not only made up of bad moments. This year, I have grown and gotten stronger. This year, I have learned a lot.

I have learned what it feels like to be at peace while hanging out with my friends, and I have learned how to be selfless enough to take care of my friends. I have learned the extremity of my pain (physical and mental) and how to deal with it. I have learned, at least somewhat, what I want to do with my life, even though I don't talk about it much. I have learned how to write about the things I feel so homesick about to make that aching feeling hurt a little less.

There are things I'm trying to learn but have not really mastered yet: I am learning how to properly communicate with my mom and not be so scared and guarded all of the time. I am trying to understand that I am not being constantly judged. I am learning how to appreciate moments and slow my mind down. I am learning how to deal with the aftermath of visiting my home state, where when I come back to Utah, it feels like a piece of me has been ripped from my chest. I am learning how to talk about my problems and feelings. I am learning how to let go of things I no longer enjoy, but preserve them as a good memory. I am learning to be stricter with myself in some areas, and also more lenient in others.

photo courtesy of Maggie Lindemann

I am learning. I am trying. I am growing. I sure as hell know that I'm not perfect and I am trying my best to get beyond my self doubts and realize that I have a major support system. I am comfortable with my friends, but I need time to really get comfortable with myself. I hope that by this time next year, I have done nothing but improved. I plan on continuing to post on here, but I do not know when that will be. So for now, I'd like to thank this blog for giving me a place where I know I can always rant. But, in peace, I am leaving the shore, and hopefully I will find a better place to plant my roots. I am more than the person I was this year.

May we meet again. Sincerely, Kenzie.

baker lake 2015: part two

The water in Baker Lake is indescribably gorgeous. It's the brightest shade of teal you'll ever see and the sun reflecting off the calm water summons you to jump in. Taking the boat out in the morning is unbelievably rewarding, especially when we get to go to our favorite rope swing afterwards. After one swing each, six boys swam over to us (the boys from the day before). They introduced themselves officially; their names were Gunner, Henry, Moses, Elijah, Riordan, and Nate. We just started talking.

We were with them for hours.

Gunner effortlessly climbing 20 feet up the tree to unhook the rope with the other five boys screaming the Tarzan theme song. Ryan paddling over with a football to throw for us to catch mid-air. No matter what we were doing, it felt like we'd been friends forever. I didn't feel an ounce of the sadness I felt the day before. We went back down to the beach as the sun was setting and the sky was turning lilac and got in the water and talked until our arms were tired from chucking rocks against the log boom and our lips were matching the color of the sky.

After convincing our grandparents to let us have a later curfew, we changed into our shorts and sweatshirts and made a beach bonfire. The sky was inconceivably clear and there were more stars than I'd ever seen in my entire life. The ten of us sat around our fire we made on the beach that felt like ours. We told jokes and ghost stories, and looking back we couldn't have been more cliché, but back then it felt like we were infinite.

our beach bonfire

The next morning, we packed up as fast as we could. It was our last day. We'd planned to eat breakfast with the guys at 7, but our grandparents didn't let us leave until 10, which caused the guys to complain about our evident tardiness. At 10:10, Gunner, Henry, Moses, Riordan, Madison, Morgan, and I sauntered through the warm sand and sharp rocks in between our toes and duck dove underneath the lane rope for the swimming area. Madison and Gunner kept swimming to the logs by the island, whereas the rest of us beached out on the seventh log (the most stable to balance with the five of us). We had so much fun.

We dove for crushed beer cans. Got sunburnt to the point we turned bright red. Screamed at Madison and Gunner. Moses told me all about his, Henry, and Elijah's family, and I told him all about Madison, Morgan and I's. We laughed the entire time. Stumbled over each other to get to the island. Skipped giant, un-skippable rocks. Discussed things like how jet-skis would be better off being called 'boatercycles'. 

Eventually, we were forced to swim back, since Grama and Bapa were getting impatient and couldn't wait any longer to leave. I walked back across the logs with Moses swimming underneath me. We put our clothes back on over our wet bathing suits and scraped our ankles on twigs and shrubs on the trail back to the motorhome. We exchanged numbers and promised to come back at the same time again next year and watched Gunner's cow towel disappear around the corner.

Baker Lake is special. It's a place we've always been able to go to to forget all of our problems and responsibilities for a while. It's a place to go to refresh and re-vamp yourself. Sitting on the island, I realized I had never been more at peace. Baker Lake 2015 will forever be one of my favorite memories, and I am unbelievably ecstatic too see my cousins and new friends and return to our secret little corner of the world again.

baker lake 2015: part one

Summer is my favorite season; there's no school, it's sunny, I get to sleep in and spend time taking care of myself, and I get to go to Seattle for an entire month. With it being just around the corner, I’m often reminded of my camping trip from last summer.

Every year since I was five, my grandparents have taken two of my cousins (Madison and Morgan) and I camping. We skipped around for a couple years, trying a bunch of new campsites, but we always seemed to make our way back to Baker Lake. Whether it was the island or the three rope swings or the hill we declared as ours when we were younger, there was something about that place that was addicting. Last year, after almost month in Seattle, I was exhausted in the best way possible. It was a known fact that I've always been happier in Washington, so the closer I got to my departure date, the more and more anxious I got about leaving and going back to Utah.

Wednesday, August 5th, we arrived at Baker Lake. We pulled into the campsite with excitement streaming through the blood in our veins, awaiting the adventure before us. The fresh air and the smell of rain daunted us down to the beach to run around in the rain before returning to the motorhome to make tea and write in our traditional camping journals. After dinner, we fell asleep to the sound of rain drizzling down the windows.

It was sunny the next morning, so we changed into our bathing suits and went to the rope swing and then the beach. We would walk/swim across the log boom to get to the island, as we have hundreds of times before. But this time, there were some guys on the logs. We ran into them once we reached the fifth log, and made a bit of small talk. We discovered that they went to a high school in Seattle that we knew of, and they'd been coming here since they were five, like us. We hoped that maybe we'd see them again.

view from one of the rope swings on an overcast day

A couple hours later, we came back to the beach to wade around in the water. Now, Madison and Morgan are some of my bestest friends in the world. We've grown up with each other and can tell each other anything, so, we didn't need to plan to rant to each other about the things on our minds; it was inevitable. We sat on our towels at the tip of the boat launch throwing rocks at our feet as we spewed out everything we'd been holding in for months. Sports, school, our family. How reality is going to hurt like hell when we leave our little Baker Lake bubble. By the time our Grama called us back in, everything suddenly felt like our lives were moving at a thousand miles per hour and we couldn't stop spinning. We had three days until I was gone. We weren't ready to leave.

We went on the boat that night. Swung off of one of the sketchier rope swings and basked in the setting sun in the middle of the lake. Started a campfire and made our own cinnamon and honey toast. We were feeling better now that we were distracted with the little joys that Baker Lake brought us, and before we knew it, we were already on the third day of camping.