Just Janna: Breath of Fresh Air

Let your brain have a rest, let it wander into creativity...let's let ourselves get lost in something simple and it can become the most extraordinary, refreshing, restoring surprise.

Here's my experience.....

I bike to campus every day (well...almost every day haha) for class and typically I just go about my route, pedaling and thinking about how sore my shoulders feel from carrying my 19 lb. (yes, I just ran downstairs to the clinic to weigh my backpack on the dog scale) on my back. I think about how cold I am, or how a driver should have let me cross the street first. I worry about the grade I'll get on my next physiology assessment or how I'm going to pay for my next bill this month.

Today was different.

As I was biking home from class I began to notice how stunningly beautiful the trees and leaves are, the way the striking colors are so captivating, the leaves sprinkled everywhere like bright confetti. I noticed the water of the Red Cedar River subtly flowing through campus between trees of reds, greens, yellows, and pinks and with the colors reflecting off the water. I noticed how the trees fill in the sides of the river yet let their leaves drift off into the cool air, and how the ducks glide across the surface of the small ripples. Just in taking the time to observe this had such a restoring and refreshing effect upon me. It just took my breath away and made me stand in awe at God's beauty. When I stopped my bike in the middle of the bridge to look over the river and take a picture, a girl walked by, we made eye contact, and I smiled at her. She continued crossing the bridge but stopped a few feet in front of me and turned to take a picture of the same panoramic view I was looking at. It made my heart smile to see that someone else saw me stopping to take it all in and decided to do the same.

Without even realizing it, I was taking my brain on a vacation without actually physically going to to a new place. Just like how your brain doesn't know the difference between emotional stress and physical stress, maybe it also doesn't know the difference between a physical vacation and an emotional vacation. As I continued on my way, I took more and more pictures and thought to myself, I need to take the time to do this more often! It was almost like I was from out of state and had never seen Fall in Michigan before!

I've learned my lesson that each time I move to a new city, I will miss the previous one. I miss Kalamazoo. I miss it's train style town, the railroad tracks downtown, the old historic houses, the unique coffee shops that actually stay open late, the variety of low-key bars to visit with friends, the trail that was right by my apartment, and the fact that every where I went was right nearby and not all the way across town. I could literally roller-blade, bike, run, or walk anywhere. But in saying this, I remember when I first moved to Kalamazoo and I didn't see what was so great about it. At that time, I started to miss Grand Rapids (which I do still miss my hometown and wish I would've take more opportunities there). But as time went on, I began to see the uniqueness of Kalamazoo and what made it special. And of course, I'm sure you've heard the saying "You don't know what you've got until it's gone." This is true,

Today as I biked home, taking in all the colorful trees and happenings around me, I realized I can find what makes Lansing, East Lansing, and Michigan State University so special because one day I will miss this. I will miss biking to class every other day in all sorts of weather, the beautiful landscapes, the mere fact of passing the same buildings and businesses and traffic lights each day, getting rained on occasionally, that time I rode to campus in my poncho, and the times I almost had collisions with other bikers and walkers. One day I will miss going to these vet tech classes day after day working hard and getting to know my classmates more and more each day and having that same passion for animals. I'm sure I will also miss my jobs, cleaning this vet clinic, being able to say hi to at least one person downstairs every day, and something as simple as being able to ask the vet techs questions about what I'm learning.

I know I'm sounding like I'm almost done with this chapter in my life, but really it's just the beginning! I've just been thinking about how I don't want the time to pass me by before I get the chance to take everything in and enjoy the moment. Despite how stressed I am with school and work, my goals are to allow time to enjoy the simple things, let my brain get distracted by the beauty of campus, engage in conversations with new friends, or take the long way on my bike ride home just to check out a new path :)

I encourage you to do the same, take a vacation emotionally and get lost in the simple things in the stage you are in life, whatever it may be. Try and find what makes your life at this moment in time unique. I can't tell you what it is, you have to find it. :) Take time to do something out of the ordinary. Sometimes I think in order to appreciate something you have to take a step back and pretend it's all new to you. Realize that life is continually changing just like the seasons.Take a moment to get lost in something extraordinary.

I hope you enjoy these pictures I took on my bike ride that day: Michigan Autumn 2014