last day of june

finally the month of june is done.

I was thinking about where I was last year. it was the summer between junior and senior year. it was supposed to be my last summer just relaxing, and this summer was going to be full of hard work trying to get ready for college in the fall. it was. i enjoyed last summer more then i can describe. it was full of adventure and me constantly being busy. but my mind wasn't set on the goals ahead of me. i was thinking about the now, instead of the future. i was with someone for the wrong reasons, and now that i look back on it, i wish i could take it all back. things got so out of control and i wish that i didn't have any of those experiences. but i did, and now i have to come out stronger and better. i have to rise above it all.

but yet all i want to do i hide and curl up under my blankets and stay there.

people ask me whats wrong, or how im doing....and i can't answer them truthfully because there isn't too many people out there that have experienced remotely close to my life. and when i do explain it, all i get is "im sorry" and i dont like people who say that. i don't want your sympathy. you can't really be sorry for me because you don't understand. you can't even begin to imagine what has happened to me. i don't need your pity.

there are days where i want to take a year off from school, and spend my days doing nothing and try to figure out my life. but then i remember that i spent the last 4 years preparing for college. i did everything to my best and succeeded with flying colors. i have been dreaming about college for years now. and i remember that i can't take a year off. i can't afford to not be in a classroom learning. because my sanity depends on it.

only God knows what is going to happen, where I am going to be in a few months. and it drives me up a wall because people are asking me....and i can't answer them.

i don't know anything. its out of my control.

tying up loose ends

college is just a mere two months away from me. almost within touch. i am working really hard to make sure the paper work and all the money is done. so that after july 15th i can enjoy my summer. and not think about anything but enjoying the days i have with my best friends.

but at the same time, im saying goodbye to those i know that i won't see that much over the next few months. i have called or texted people that i normally don't talk to, or that some how we don't talk anymore. i have been talking to people and trying to find closure with them to be able to go to college and have the clearest mind possible....and not think about how i should have apologized or been a better friend or something.

it seems like its a bit out of guilt, and maybe it is. but wouldn't it be better to do it out of guilt and make it right then to not do it at all and have that hanging over my head the next four years?

i think so.

this week im going to be seeing one of my old friends. some how throughout the last year thanks to a break up, she chose their side and not mine. so we lost touch. we haven't talked much since january, and i am ok with that. i know that she will survive and she is a strong young lady. i don't like the fact that her and her family have decided to ignore me because of the actions that took place 6 months ago. but what can i do? so this week i asked her to get together and see her once more.

so i can hug her once more before going off to college and we may never talk again.

so i can tell her that she was a good friend to me and that i hope her senior year is the best year yet.

so i can tell her that i am ok with the fact we may never talk or see each other again because she chose to pick their side.

i have been doing this a lot recently. i talked to someone i haven't talked to in almost 2 years because he wanted to make sure all his apologies were done before moving away. i talked to another friend and said goodbye to them.

this summer is about tying up loose ends, saying goodbye, and being able to start fresh....completely new in the fall.

looking back

i have travelled a road no one else has travelled, not even my family members. we have all had our own road through our lives. experience different things, feel a different way about the same event, loved differently, cried differently, laughed about different things.

my road has been full of bumps and hills and some smooth pavement. it has in no means been easy, but what is? i guess the "easy" button for staples. haha. i have had the people who surround me and love me for support.

i have been writing my "yearbook" signings to my closest friends. it has made me realize how lucky i am to have the friends who surround me. they have all been there in their own special way. they have blessed my life differently. and effected me differently.

today was the hardest day of the year for me. and i have had several friends just send me their love. even if they don't understand what its like, or how i feel. i know that i should be more ok with everything since it has been so long, and i never really knew her. but i am not ok. i still have an aching heart. i still long to have her in my life. and get to know her. and fight with her. and hug her when something exciting happens.

but life can't be perfect all the time...only have perfect moments.

see it feels bad now, but its going to get better.......some day!

Soul Cravings

So I enjoyed writing my quotes down with Dear John so much that I am going to start doing it again with this new book, Soul Cravings by Erwin Raphael McManus. It is a very thought provoking book, and I have so many things I want to write down, but I chose only a few things. I am only a few entries in, but I have so many pages dogeared. I am going to post the quotes by entry number.

Foreword:

"If we're not careful, we might find ourselves with everything this world has to offer and later find we have lost ourselves in the clutter"

"Bitterness is the enemy of love because it makes you unforgiving and unwilling to give love unconditionally. It is the enemy of hope because you keep living in the past and become incapable of seeing a better future."

Section called Intimacy:

Entry 2:

"no matter how many times we fail at love or how many times love fails us, we plow ahead. Even the scars of love rarely stop us from risking at love."

Entry 4:

"Love is not a limited commodity. Love expands as we give it away. Love dies when we do not. Without love there is no life. To love is to be fully human."

Entry 7:

"Love is not about how many people we have used, but about how much we have cherished one person"

Entry 8:

"Home is ultimately not about a place to live but about the people with whom you are mist fully alive. Home is about love, relationship, community, and belonging and we are all searching for home."

Entry 9:

"Sometimes the thing we want the most, we fear the most"

Entry 10:

"If our goal is to get people to conform, you can accomplish that without love, but you can't maintain a civilization without the rule of law."

Entry 11:

"When it comes to love, it has to be face to face. There has to be contact. Love cannot exist where there is only distance. Love can survive distance, but only by the strength of what comes through intimacy."

Entry 13:

"When life isn't what it should be, love gives us the strength to endure whatever may come."

Entry 15:

"While our brains may deny it, our hearts know it: love is proof of God"

Entry 16:

"I am not who I want to be, but I am on the journey there, and thankfully I am not whom I used to be."

"Honesty is the only context in which intimacy can develop."

Entry 17:

"In a healthy context of loving relationships we come to know ourselves. When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others, but we lose ourselves."

Section called Destiny:

Entry 1:

"Bottom line: we cannot live the life of our dreams without an irrational sense of destiny. And all of us have dreams. More than that, all of us need dreams. Some of us sadly are just sleeping through them."

Entry 3:

"'It is only to the individual that a soul is given' Albert Einstein"

"When we stop dreaming, we start dying"

Entry 5:

"That door once passed through changes our lives forever; not because life is now better than it has ever been, but because we know we are on the path we were created to walk."

"Without dreams we have nothing to pull us forward."

"Our dreams are where God paints a picture of a life waiting to be created."

Entry 6:

"Evil never asks for permission"

Entry 7:

"All of us are called to a place we have not been. Our lives were always intended to be journeys into the unknown."

"God calls us out of a life we have known, and calls us to a life we have never imagined"

Entry 12:

"You were not created to run from challenges, to live life in angst or to drown in despair. This is not a good place for your soul. You also can't move forward into your future when you are paralyzed by fear."

Entry 14

"What our souls long to become is not something other than human, but to become beautifully human."

Entry 16:

"Hope is the fuel through which we create the future"

Entry 20:

"To be a follower of Christ is to believe that everyone's life can be different. No one is defined by the status of birth. Our destiny is not limited to our pedigree. Every human being is of equal value to God. No one must remain a prisoner of fate."

Entry 22:

"To come to God is to discover the uniqueness of your being."

Entry 23:

"If Jesus is God, then God is a a God of passion. He is not a force or energy-indifferent to the human condition. He has created us like him-with passion and desire and emotion. God is like a fire that burns within your soul."

Entry 24:

"Our greatest danger is living for whatever we can take and devour now and destroying our future in the process."

Entry 25:

If you were meant to fly not even running really fast is that impressive."

"Somewhere in the walls of prison known as Shawshank, Red warns Andy Dufresne that hope can be dangerous thing, which we soon discover is the whole point of Shawshank Redemption-that fear can hold you prisoner and hope can set you free."

Section called Meaning:

Entry 2:

"We cannot live in healthy, functioning relationships when we choose to lie to each other."

Entry 7:

"Before you can find God in the answers, you have to find him in the questions."

Entry 10:

"The real struggle is not with knowing the world beyond us, but with knowing the world within us."

Entry 13:

"Is it possible that God created us with the power to create the world of our choosing?"

Entry 14:

"We were all wanderers in the same forest trying to find a fresh trail to truth."

"Accuracy is less important to us then authenticity."

"Truth exists because God can be trusted."

Entry 15:

"Truth isn't something you conclude; truth is something you become."

Entry 17:

"The more trustworthy you can determine the source is, the shorter the leap of faith."

Entry 18:

"We use our freedom to get where we want to go and then find ourselves trapped and can't get out without help."

Entry 20:

"You just have to be careful not to come to the tragic conclusion that just because you've experienced something that was false and maybe even toxic, there is nothing that is good."

Entry 21:

"Sometime the only reason we keep going is that we don't want to stay where we are or go back to where we've been."

"When we are drowning in the counterfeit, our souls become sick. When we are immersed in what is true, we begin to experience wholeness and health. Ever when you feel like you're driving blind, full speed ahead in the middle of the night, you have to keep going; you have to continue searching for truth; you have to keep looking for meaning: you have to keep trying to make sense of life. When life doesn't make sense, it becomes all about trust. Sometime you're driving full speed down a very dark road. All you can do is trust the driver and let him take you home."

Section called Seek:

"We can get lost in desires and never find what our souls long for."

"Funny how we can be absolutely uncertain about what we are looking for and yet be absolutely certain we haven't found it."

"One ink blot in particular clearly gave me a choice between a bat and a butterfly. I saw them both, and fully understood the implications. Which would I choose? But frankly what do you do what your soul wants butterflies and the world keeps sending you bats? Maybe you become Batman. You take your worst fear and make it your strength."

"Imogen Heap's song 'Hide and Seek'"

Thats it, I finished the book. It was well worth reading. I couldn't put it down. It made me think more about my life and about my walk of life.

stepping forward

i am stepping forward one foot at a time.

my best friends on either side of me, to enjoy the journey i am taking.

my family behind me, to catch me if i fall.

and my future bright and shining ahead of me to keep me motivated to keep pressing on.

yesterday was graduation. 13 years of school, leading up to one ceremony that was hour and half long, and a day filled spending with friends and family. it almost seems like a wasted 13 years, but i know its not.

i learned so much in the past years, how to make friends, how to do math and how to write papers, how to study or not, how to enjoy life to the fullest and take pride in the work i do. the lessons i learned i am sure i will take with me on to college. and after that.

the last year has seemed like the hardest one yet. so much has happened with in a few short months. the most lessons i learned have been within the last few months. how to be courageous when everyone else stood fearful, how to love the unlovable, how to forgive those who hurt me, and how to stand up when everything else is crumbling around me.

this past year has been the defining year for me. it has forced me to grow up really fast, and to take charge of my life. i have been hurt a lot, but yet i have come out of this year stronger and better because of it. i have experienced pain like very few other people, and yet i have been healed by God.

as this is the end of my high school career, i also remember it is just the beginning of the rest of my life.

it is the beginning of

more growing,

more stretching,

more love,

more laughter,

more hurt,

more healing

crumbling

Everything failed. Everything crumbled beneath me....yet I am still standing on my two feet. I lost everything for summer, and I fell to pieces. Everyone told me to get up and don't worry about it....but they don't get how much I wanted to be there this summer. How much that program meant to me. I worked so hard, but yet they took it away from me. Now I am in the hunt for a job, anywhere doing anything. (within reason) and it just reminds me that it is going to be hard to find a job since I can't find anything close to home. So I am broadening my search, but thats harder to do because I can't just drive there in 20 minutes. So I applied at a few places, and I will go from there. Its just hard since I have no experience, so people won't hire me without it....and thus a vicious circle.

I can't believe I am allowing myself to fall again. I told myself I wasn't going to...but yet this time seems different then the rest. I know that in a few months things are going to change dramatically. It is going to make saying good bye much harder. And this time I have a more understanding of the word itself. It is no fairy tale, its no movie, its reality. There are no butterflies or rainbows or fireworks coming out into the air. Just real feelings of wanting to care for him. To want to be there for him always, even if it means letting him go. I keep telling myself that whatever happens happens, and if things are meant to work, then they will....but that doesn't help my heart from wanting to be with him. from wanting to keep him near me. and from wanting him to not date other people.

sigh. so much on my mind.

feeling something, anything...

well today was the day from hell. im not joking. everything went wrong that could go wrong. i finally received that phone call i was waiting for.

i was right to be worried about it. EOP people decided that my dad makes too much money last year, that i might not qualify anymore for the EOP program. which in turn makes summer program harder for me to get to. i will have to pull $3500 out of a hat to pay for it. i don't NEED to be in EOP, but that extra money and the full ride to summer program was nice. i broke down today, into tears. hysterical, hard, sobbing, choking tears today. i sat on the ground in my room and just fell to pieces.

does God not want me at the summer program? but if He didn't then why did he allow me to become accepted then make all this happen?

i don't know when I will know more about it. wether this week or next but they have to make their decision soon. maybe tomorrow I will hear something. or maybe not.

then this morning i was talking to an old dear friend. i asked to meet up with him against my better judgement, against everyone elses judgment. but i needed to see him once more before going to college, before moving forward with my life and erasing him from mine. we went to the beach, and as i walked towards him, my heart didn't flutter, it didn't stop. it didn't do anything. the first time in 8 years my heart knew that this guy was not the one i am in love with. i kept telling myself over the years he was going to come back to me. and that he was the one "who got away" type boy...but nope. i almost laughed at my thoughts while looking at him. we walked around for a half hour, mostly in silence because we didn't have anything to talk about. and what he wanted to talk about didn't interest me, drugs and partying and sex. as we neared his car he asked about that one night i swore i wasn't going to think about ever again. and i tried to drop it but he wouldn't let it go, so i left some mystery in it, and maybe he believed the way it happened differently then the truth. but im not sure. i do know as we neared his car i wanted him to tell me that he missed talking to me. but then he found his keys, and we hugged. for a long time. then i walked away. i looked back twice to make sure he wasn't following me.

but then i walked to the beach and sat there. staring at the ocean roll in and out.

i sat in my shorts and a jacket, allowing the cool ocean breeze flow over my body, feeling the cold air. i wanted to feel something, anything. even if it was the cold air. it made my skin become bumpy, and made me want to be curled up under a blanket. but i just sat there not thinking, not talking, not moving. just staring into the vast ocean. i drove home, and im not sure how i did it, because i don't remember the drive home. it seemed like a blur. like an automatic version of me. all i could think was, what if i lose the summer program, what if the dreams i had came crashing down around me just like the sand crumbles under the powerful waves.

i just want to feel something, anything at all....

pain,

happiness,

love,

hatred,

cold,

hot,

contentment,

comfort,

discomfort,

discontentment

anything. just one thing.

22 days

i have 22 days left. today is my parents anniversary. they would have been married, as far as i can tell, almost 25 years today. i think its around 23 or 24 ish. im not sure. i used to know. and just 22 days later she is killed. i hate the month of may and june. they are the worst months of the year.

yet there is happiness going around because school is let out, and everyone is free for summer. graduations are happening, and back in may, prom is happening. but this month is bittersweet for me. i have 3 more days till i hear about my summer plans, which will make or break my summer. if i go, then im going to be gone most of summer...if i don't go, im going to be sad that i didn't get in. this month, 4 month anniversary, is his graduation. next month, 5 months, i will be in washington, august, 6 months...if i go to summer program, i will be up there. and then we have to make a decision about whats going to happen. so 6 amazing months, only to end up breaking up. ugh. again, i hate this month.

ready....set.....go.

life is changing faster then a blink of an eye.