Don't hesitate.

Have you ever gone to an amusement park and you see this roller coaster that looks too scary to get on or too boring for your interest, so you just walk away from it and dismiss it from your mind? You spend the day having a great time riding all these other rides but the one roller coaster just keeps crawling into you thoughts. Once your fun day at the park gets close to coming to an end you finally decide to just try the roller coaster out- and come to find out, it's a BLAST. You just love it so much, but your day is almost over and the opportunities to ride it is few. Your heart drops as you realize you missed out on a whole days worth of fun being able to ride your new favorite ride because you were too scared, or uninterested in it.

Recently I've had similar experiences in my own life, but not with roller coasters. As my time here in PNG is coming so quickly to an end I'm trying to cram in all I can to make those "last memories"...but several times I do something and realize just how great it is. A piece of me is saddened because I realize what I've been missing out on for so long. Why didn't I discover this sooner?

Tonight after the Talent Show I went up to a friends house where a lot of my national girl friends where hanging out. They were frying up some kau-kau (a kind of sweet potato)fries. I've always liked these girls, but don't really get a chance, or make an effort to hang out with them. Tonight I just soaked in how much fun they are to be with. We had a blast teasing each other, doing the cha-cha slide together, eating chips, dancing to music and just enjoying each others company. As I took pictures next to their beautiful faces and sat on the couch watching them laugh, I was hit with a pang that I wish I would have gotten to do more with them this year. I don't have much time left with them. I missed out on a year of special friendships because it was "inconvenient" to be their friend.

Though I love the experience, adventure, people, etc. I almost feel sometimes like it's better to have not discovered this great thing because I wouldn't know what I was missing. (ridiculous thought, eh) "Better to have loved and lost, then to never have loved at all", right? ...MK's have to live by that saying a lot.

So I guess all this to say, don't be scared to jump right in, to get right on that roller coaster or to work hard at that friendship- you won't have forever and their can be a whole world of adventure, fun and love waiting out there for you. Milk it for all it's worth so you don't realize it when it's just about too late.

A picture taken with some of those lovely ladies at youth group the other day. Gonna miss these girls!