written on 8/28/08 in a handmade journal from India with a fish head on it with a smudgy black ink gel pen:

I feel as if, because it's my last semester in college, that I am  holding on to my memories too early and too much. It's as if I am living in a state of premature sentiment.

It's like the excitement of college and the thrill of the unknown future have faded in me. Perhaps faded isn't the word. It's more like... seasoned and aged. It's different. I feel it.

It is as if I can remove myself from where I am in life and be able to say, "your seasons are changing. You are in a transition process. Your chapter is ending and a new one is about to begin. It is the same sort of waterfall feeling I got right before I graduated from highschool.

I am in a small boat about to go over a waterfall. However, the waterfall represents change and going over it isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is big, and unknown, and scary, and it will swallow me up... but it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I'm not sure when I came to the realization that this life of mine is bigger than me. People traipse through life searching for their purpose until they die. I feel as if often times they spend all of their time searching that they forget to actually live.

That's the thing with me, Kate Gazaway. I fully recognize that my life is brief and seemingly insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, but the fact that I am HERE in this time living life the best I know how is all I am supposed to do. I am not searching for my purpose because I find it every day.

I have had people tell me that they want to have my life, but I wonder why. It isn't as if my life is extra-ordinary to anyone else's, but perhaps my approach and perspective are different.

There was a point in my life that was steeped in the frantic search for meaning and purpose, and this was all under the guise of Christianity and spirituality. Not to say I wasn't a Christian at this time, but instead of the peaceful anticipation of an unknown but fulfilling future like I have now, at that time in my life I was a flurry of uncertainty.

"Pray now that God will bring your future spouse to you. Pray now that God will reveal your future job, school, occupation, destination, etc to you. Figure out what you want to do with your life. Figure out how you can best serve God in the future. Future future future."

And thus was my problem. I was so future minded that I didn't fully absorb and appreciate the time of life I was in. It's the age-old story of wanting to be a grown up as a child, an established adult as a teenager, a seasoned career professional as a college student, married when single, a child when old, and then death. '

No way. Not for me. I am happy...right here at this time in my life. I may be going over this waterfall of unknown changes soon, but right now I am sitting in a creaky old rocking chair in the boat, enjoying the view before I go over.

I don't want to ever look back on my life and say, "Oh. What was I don't then? I was very busying with some thing or another. I don't remember. "

I ALWAYS want to remember and I ALWAYS want to make the day, the week, the month, the year count. God always told his people to remember remember remember what happened to them (both good and bad) and what He did for them.

I always want to remember. That is why my life is so amazing. That is why I can smile without faking it, from my heart. That is why life ravishes my senses and thrills me through and through. That is why I can love and that is why I am in love. Why I can be satisfied in any circumstances and why I have peace.

If God sees fit to use me then I am the happiest pawn of them all.

I am Kate Gazaway. I am 22.5 years old. I am single. I am a photographer. I am a friend. I am passionate. And I am damn happy to be here.