Goodbye Opportunities

I was all bummed last week when I knew that I was headed to my last Girl Scout meeting because I was not looking forward to saying goodbye to all my girls. Unfortunately, only four of 12 showed up. That was even more depressing to me than having to say goodbye to them. It is like they have fogotten about the troop or just given up on it or something. Perhaps I take that a little too personally, but it really is tough for me to think that I've given so much of my time and energy - and ultimately my heart - and they don't even show up for the last meeting.

I didn't even get to say goodbye to all the girls on my dance team. We ran into problems with our "overseer" so we took a week off and I was planning to fight for my girls and give them one last performance, something that was denied to them by middle aged women blind to current pop culture, but when I went to practice the following week, no one showed up and no one has called or emailed me, either. It's like everyone just decided that they were done at the same time, but no one told me.

I went to my last Visions meeting last week, however, and there were more girls there than there has been in a long time because they knew it was our last meeting and they wanted to say goodbye and thank me for what I had done. For the Visions troop I go to the elementary school during lunch and meet with a group of fifth grade girls. They all hugged me at least three times and begged me to come to their fifth grade graduation next week. It just felt really good to have that.

Here is a picture from graduation two weeks ago today. I'm on your left (notice the pretty flowers from Kelly atop my graduation book where the paper stating the name of my degree will eventually go and my signature red purse) and the graduate on the right is Tiffany, a fellow English student. Between us is one of the most amazing professors of my undergraduate career, Marcy, who's blog bears a link on my page. 

Experiment

I'm being coached through making what is called a hyperlink by my computer genius cousin. I'm going to attempt to link to Patri's blog. If it works, click here.

Love

I think people worry too much about defining love. Myself included. I've decided that I just need to stop trying. I don't know what it is, but I know I enjoy it. I enjoy feeling it for other people and I enjoy the feeling of other people expressing it to me.

If you are reading this and you love me, I want to tell you thank you. You have given me a gift that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

I have a home!!!

I received a phone call yesterday from a lady in the housing office at W&M. She was offering me a place to live in the graduate housing complex. Of course I accepted. Now I know that I won't have to live in my car!! This is super good news! If you care to see where I'll be, there's a link to the floor plan for my apartment on my side bar. I'll be in 312B.

I am so very excited about this transition in my life. I have been wanting this and looking forward to this for the last four years. I know that in leaving I'll be leaving a lot of people I love and making a lot of people (including myself) very sad, but I also know that this is something I need to do. This will be very good for me.

This whole sadness at moving thing is really getting to me. Yeah, I'm sad too, but I'm still thrilled to be going. Every time people express how much they don't want me to go because they'll miss me it makes it so much harder for me. Not harder to leave, but harder to tell them that I'm going anyway. I almost feel selfish with this decision sometimes because of that. I just have to keep reminding myself and others that this is a great school and a great opportunity for me and put the sadness somewhere else external where it can't touch me. Because if I let it touch me too much I'm afraid it could keep me from going.

And then, rather than being a decision that could improve the rest of my life, it would be a decision that I would regret my entire life.

Family

I've been feeling lately like I haven't been spending enough time with my family. I know I've only been school-less and job-less for a week now and I have plenty more time throughout the summer to hang out with them, but that doesn't seem to help my guity cause at all.

Particularly guilt-causing is my five-year-old sister. She doesn't do it to me on purpose, she's just five and that means that her cuteness makes me go "Awww..." by default. We've been telling her that after I graduate I'll be moving to Virginia. We failed to mention the three month waiting period in there.

She recognizes that I've graduated and now she's expecting that I'll be leaving soon. Every once in a while she'll give me something so that I won't forget her when I leave or she'll ask me questions about what is going to happen after I leave. Or she'll ask me why I have to leave. That makes me sad. That makes me very sad. It is difficult to explain to such a small person that I won't be forgetting her because I love her so much and that because I love her I will call and write and come home to visit.

It is hard to explain love. It is difficult to explain it to myself, to a little girl or to a grown man...

Graduate School Update

I have been trying to register for classes next year at W&M but have encountered mass difficulties. As in the pre-registration deadline is over and only three days after I received the information in the first place and on the same week that I was still trying to graduate from BSU. Plus some of their links were down, including the one that told me how to register and what password to use. Then I tried calling the college to ask them about this problem. I was trying to call the registrar's number. I received this phone number in an email and on the W&M website. When I called the number I spoke with a very unpleasant, very unhelpful man who informed me that this was not the registrar's number, but a personal line. Finding the number on the W&M website (the real number) was another ordeal but I finally secured something. Today when I called them, they had to transfer me to the right number even still - but at least I got through to someone on the campus. The woman I talked to today was extremely helpful. She was able to register me for three of the four classes I need next semester. The fourth one is full but she told me how to get into that one and gave me her personal line so that I could call her if I had any more problems, questions or concerns. Sigh of relief.

Now all I need is a place to live in Virginia...

Phone Call

I heard from Kelly last night. It really seems as though I haven't heard from him in a very long time, but the reality of the situation is that he only left the morning before. I know that he's really only been gone for two days, but these two days have provided many instances for me to realize exactly how integrated into my life he has become. I can only imagine how the next twelve days will go.

I worry that he doesn't know how strongly I feel the connection between us. Here are some true things about me that I could understand would prompt these fears:

* I typically have no problem detaching myself from a person or situation when it becomes unpleasant.
* Relationships with men for me in the past have been more like flings...Fun for a short time but considerably lacking any sort of emotion or attachment.
* I am accustomed to moving frequently, leaving my friends and people I grew to care about.

It is also true that I have been scared of some aspects of our relationship. Partially because of the afore mentioned reasons but also because of something else - something that I didn't realize until recently. I immediately recognized something in Kelly that I had been looking for and hoping that I would eventually discover in another human being for a very long time. I was scared that perhaps I was just making it up...Like perhaps I wanted it so bad that I was imposing it wherever possible. I was scared that maybe that wasn't the case and that I had actually found it this time but that I would do something to screw it up. In which case, I didn't really want to feel too deeply about him because then I would have to recover after I screwed it up.

I don't think that these are irrational fears if you ask me. However, they somehow don't really bother me any more. Maybe a tiny bit, but nothing paralyzing like before. I have since recognized insances where I could very easily have screwed everything up. And since he is still here (rather than far away like anyone else I've ever dated) I realize that this is real; that it isn't yet another dumb thing that will last a few weeks before fizzling out. I know that I've tried to impose meaning on relationships in the past where meaning didn't belong just because I wanted it to be there. I also know that when those relationships ended it was not entirely my fault. But when I combine those two pieces of knowledge subtracting hindsight bias, experience and personal reflection, it makes it seem to me that I ruin everything.

So even in the two days since he left, yes, I have realized a lot that I'm doing alone again - things that I have begun doing exclusively with him. I told him about this last night. He sounded worried about it. Worried about me realizing the independence I lost in including him in my life, the independence that is such an important part of who I am. The truth of the matter is this...I didn't lose any of that. I am still perfectly able to do what I want on my own. With him around, I have simply chosen to include him on what I do. It has taken me some time to realize this as well because at first I wasn't seeing it as sharing or complimenting. I was trying to see it as giving and taking. That's not what it is. Giving and taking really isn't a part of our relationship at all. We share and include evenly. It is the type of relationship I always hoped I would have.

Even though previous relationships didn't go very well, I am thankful for each of them because they not only made me the person I am, but they made me able to fully appreciate what I now have.

First Goodbye

I have volunteered for the last two years as a Girl Scout leader for a troop of middle school girls.

Like any true endeavor, I've had my complaints. They involve the following: disseminating information to twelve teenagers, attending boring leaders' meetings, filling out paperwork and turning said paperwork in on time. That's really about it.

Here are the things I have loved and will miss: talking with the girls, learning about them, laughing with them, introducing them to new things and watching them grow. Basically, all my time with them has been super.

Through them and through everything I have done with them, I have grown into the person I am. They have shaped me in a way which they will probably never know. I love them all and will miss them immensely. When I realized earlier today that this would be our last actual meeting, I cried and I cried a lot. In leaving my Girl Scouts through this move to Virginia, I am leaving more than a volunteer orgainization. I am leaving a huge portion of my life. I am leaving a group of young friends, some of whom have come to be more like family members.

To any of my girls who read this: thank you and please, please stay in touch.

Thanks a Million!

I spent some time working on this here blog with my very good pal, Ms. Patri (to check out her equally awesome blog, click on the link in the column to your left). I had a fabulous time and as a result I also have this fun and pretty page all for myself. And so, for her aid and friendship I say thank you and send her mass hugs and kisses.

Graduate School Frustration

During spring break this year I was accepted to William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Good news, right? Yes, very good news. Now I am at the point of trying to register and obtain a secured position in the graduate housing complex and ready myself to leave Boise. I just want to let it be known that this whole process is becoming increasingly difficult. It isn't so much the packing and saying good bye to the people I love, however. That will come later. Right now, it is simply problems from the school itself. It is like they are making it as difficult as possible for me. I realize that the whole conspiracy theory is a fallacy (at least in this case) but honestly! If I wasn't as stubborn as I am, I would have completely given up by now. Instead, I'm becoming more determined to defeat all their road blocks and show up in three months ready to learn. Who cares if I can't actually register for classes or I go there without having a place to live? This is what I want, therefore this is what I will have. And it will be wonderful.

Number One

This is the first post for me on this blog. I've noticed a trend among my friends to have blogs and I thought it would be fun. No, I'm not copy-catting, I just want to be cool, too. =)