Brave Girls Club - Final Thoughts

(I don't know who these belonged to, but aren't they fabulous?!)

A few final experiences and thoughts I wanted to share with you.  On Friday night, as BGC alumni we were asked to help spread the light. We participated in a video that Melody and Kathy wanted to do for the current online Soul Restoration attendees.  I can't really explain it, but the most basic description of what we did is to say we lit a candle for each of the Soul Restoration participants, but it was more than that.  Hopefully, they will post the video on youtube and we'll all be able to see it.  Anyway, it was just one more amazing experience.  Here are a few pictures.

Then, we had cake!  It was a PERFECT day! 

Gorgeous cake - almost too pretty to eat - almost.

After the BIG show and the cake, what do you do when you don't want the fun to end??  Go back to The. Art. Room! 

Here's my group of C.R.A.Z.Y. Brave Girls who never slept.  We stayed up late every night, and the last night, we did not go to bed at all. 

Rachel-Rachel 1, me, Kirsten, Daphne, Rachel-Rachel 2, and Lori

7:00 AM and breakfast rolled around WAY too early, but that was it.  We ate, packed up, said our final goodbyes to the wonderful women who'd taken care of us all week, and we boarded the shuttle back to the airport.  We were tired, we were weary, but we weren't worn out. ;) 

Saw some cool snow sculptures on the way back.  It had been too dark to see them on the trip up.  I was able to chat part of the way back, but the sleep won out in the end.  I think I slept the lat 30 - 40 minutes of the ride.  Bittersweet goodbyes all around, then began the long trip home. 

I made myself do it - I turned the BB back on.  386 emails - OMG!  I wanted to turn it back off. 

There was a voicemail and a couple of texts from Chicken Little, apparently the sky had fallen.  We chatted while I waited for the plane, and returned the sky to it's proper place, which I confirmed once my flight took off.

Extremely thoughtful trip home.  My mind was going a gabillion miles an hour, and I needed sleep, but wasn't really sleepy.  Finally, I pulled out the art journal they gave us at BGC and started to doodle.  I can't draw, but I had so many ideas going through my head that I had to write them down or else they wouldn't leave me alone! 

Processing, processing, processing the week.  Probably one of the biggest lessons I learned is that I need to make time to do something creative.  I love it, and it's healing, and I can do it just for me.  I normally make things for a purpose - usually to give them away.  I realized that I can make something for me - just because I want to - and it doesn't have to be pretty or perfect. 

At one point, I made myself a promise that I would do SOMETHING creative at least once a week.  I had been drawing and writing, and I just happened to look out the window when I made that promise to myself.

No retouching or editing here - the entire sky was really this glorious color. That has to be a sign, right?! 

I have been so incredibly blessed and am so, so, so grateful to have had this experience.  I wish everyone of you could go to Brave Girl Camp.  It was a fabulous week.  Check out the whole Brave Girl scene here.   The next thing for me is the online Soul Restoration course.  It's a six week workshop, and the next one starts in April.  I'm signing up, and cannot wait!

One more BGC post tomorrow - I just want to share some of the stuff I made.  Then, maybe I can get back to regular life - not that I want, but I guess I must at some point.  :-)