Summer Stroud

Just a girl going on an adventure called life.

[stroudsummer]

No is perfect, that's why pencils have erasers.

[motosfrance]

18 Happy Sea Otter

[mejoresbrokersonline]

PsBattle: A Baby Otter via /r/photoshopbattles http://ift.tt/1PTcUbN

[sasaq]

(by Twitter / プレ @p150215)

[huggableotter-deactivated202010]

Otter tub 😊

[bl-letters-i-never-sent-deactiv]

For some reason I pushed you closer even when I knew you didn’t love me and it ruined me, But now when someone genuinely cares I push them away. It doesn’t make sense to me but then again nothing about us ever made sense.

B.L letters I never sent (via im-sad-lets-have-sex)

[yoursummerdreamz]

[arataxia]

[stroudsummer]

The closing of another summer. See you later, Monteagle and friends.

[stroudsummer]

Looking Back

Hello everyone, I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to read my inner most thoughts and ideas. Currently, I am typing on my semi-working computer while binge watching Friends. It has been a little over twenty-four hours since I left the mountain. The place that I have called home for more than eight weeks every summer of my life. As I move from living at a place where I only have to leave my room to find companionship to my other home where I have to call up friends to make plans if I want to see anyone who is not my family, I realize that the mountain has given me more than I could ask for. So, I want to thank Monteagle for some things and look back in fond remembrance of this summer. Some of these might feel repetitive, but they mean different things to me.

Happiness: As an extravert, I am someone who gets quite a bit of my energy from the people that make me most happy. Unfortunately, I can lose energy if around the wrong people. Being in Monteagle, I tend to be around a lot of people that care about me and want to be around me. For me, people that desire to spend time with me make me feel special and valued.  

Companionship: Finding friends in the assembly is not hard at all. There are always plans to hang out with one another and if you want to make plans, people are always ready and willing to. You can go to the pool or snack shop and instantly find people you know all over the place. And if that is not enough or you desire many more people, then jump in the pool with many young children and they will instantly climb all over the chance to swim with you.

Someone to talk to: The joy of friendship is found most in the time when you feel lonely and broken. When you feel like the fire has gone out and things are not going the way you saw them going, a trip to Waffle house is always a good idea. I am thankful because Monteagle has always provided many good friends to talk to and people who have been through similar experiences as I have. The best part is that they understand and know me.

These are just a few of the things that I am thankful to the Monteagle Assembly for. I have been coming to the MSSA for the past twenty-one years of my life, and this summer has been definitely one for the books. It will always be remembered by me. It is the year that I got to be closer to some of my best friends that kept me laughing and knew how to make me laugh. They also could tell when I was not feeling myself or my mood was down and cared about how to cheer me up even if it means making me dance like a goofy clown (cheerleader). Thank you Monteagle for the valuable memories of this year (2015) and I will treasure them always. Until next time, my friends. I cannot wait till we meet again.

[sostokestoday]

Lost in My Mother’s House

Why is it in the night you can be who you want to be? It’s like there are 6 magical hours from 11 PM to 5 AM, where you can do whatever you want. I just beat a retreat up to my room after taking a tour of the kitchen in the dark, stunned by the silence, for once not covering up my tattoo, which may be the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever acquired–the thing I want to show off, the tattoo of the state that saved my life. Why is it in the night you can be unabashedly raw, brutally (drunkenly) honest, and beautifully fragile?

I’m here. I made it. Everyone’s back and unpacked (kind of) and you’d think everything would be great, because now we’re all together and family-like. But we’re not. My mother is asleep, after coming up to tell me that her yardman is coming early in the morning. My brother sits at his computer, talking to himself–at least so it appears–or really, he’s talking to some other kid, in some other house, who doesn’t want to spend time with his family either. I’m hiding in my room.

But now in the cover of the night, even hidden in my room, I feel it. I feel the emptiness of space without bear hugs, foosball, and pop ices. I’m still trying to figure out this Tumblr thing, and I want to call upstairs and ask how it works. Now I miss being called “Mom.” Now I miss hysterical laughter and playing dodgeball in the living room. I miss my true friends. I just wish I’d held them longer, that I hadn’t shut off the feelings of sorrow surrounding the moment we let each other go, and the thought of never being able to recapture the sheer magnificence of this summer gives me a lump in my throat, piercing my numbed heart.

In reality, I sit on my bed, typing this and realizing I’m deliriously tired, but in my mind, I’m lost. I’m lost without my friends across the hall from me. I’m lost without hearing children laughing in the intoxicating summer night. I’m lost without the fruit flies in the kitchenette, without the thumping of music through the floorboards in the ceiling, without the possibility of running to Waffle House at three in the morning, without the love that ran rampant through the very walls of what became my first home.

[stroudsummer]

So heartfelt and true. It spoke to the very depths of my soul.

[stroudsummer]

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling; He will hide me in the shelter of His sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.” (Psalm 27:4,5 NIV)