Women

So on Friday and Saturday I was able to go on the women's retreat with Campus House. 100 women went to Ross Camp for 18 hours of fellowship, music, and cookies. Oh, and buttons too. And I enjoyed myself, but I also realized things about myself.

First of all, it was really intimidating to be a room full of 100 women, especially when I only knew about half of them. Something about being in a room full of chattering smiley females makes me very introverted. I don't find my element among a group like that. I'm not particularly sure why that is. If I were going to be all psychological, I would say it goes back to elementary school when I was always the odd one out and dealt with a lot of cliques. Or perhaps it's because due to the cattiness of girls, I have just conditioned myself to be more comfortable with guys than girls. Whatever the case, it was a challenge to spend even 18 hours with that crowd. Not to say that I didn't enjoy it, it just wasn't always easy.

However, I did enjoy the retreat very much. Not only was it nice to get off campus because that hasn't happened in a while(read since coming back this semester) but because I feel like my spirit was fed a little. See, usually what happens to people is that they go on a retreat and they get this high and then they have to deal with coming down from it when they get back to the real world. But women's retreat wasn't some big spiritual high thing for me. I didn't cry, I didn't have this huge moment of WOW, there was no big event that happened. It was just solid teaching that I could soak up instead of having to prepare, and some honest conversation where I didn't feel weird sharing real parts of me. I got to listen to great stories and meet some new people. (I only met about 8 new girls, it was about all I could handle) I also learned how important it is to know how to pick locks. I knew there was a reason that was on my bucket list....

Anyway.

The best part of the retreat was when I was able to help Ali make breakfast for everyone. We prepared all the food on Friday night to be able to just pop into the oven the next morning. It felt great to be in a kitchen preparing food for people. Getting my hands covered in brown sugar and eggs and milk was wonderful and made me feel at home. Sometimes in the busyness of life, I forget how much I miss things that I used to get to do all the time.

I have more to say about what we actually talked about at women's retreat...but I'll leave you with this for now so the post isn't obnoxiously long. :) Plus, I really need to go to bed.