Love is a smile to the lonely Love makes a stranger a friend

(Love is–Little Dogs on the Prairie)

I used to have absolutely no interest in having a boyfriend. I had never been attracted to any boys, and had decided that for the time being it was best for me not to have one. With my social challenges at the time, it didn’t seem like a good idea to have a boyfriend. I knew that I could be easily manipulated and that if someone was willing to do things for me it would 1. be easy for me to be complacent and see no reason to learn to do it myself and 2. be easy to feel trapped in a bad relationship if I didn’t want to lose the help and didn’t want to make him feel bad but knew the relationship wasn’t working…so I knew that even if I were to become attracted to a guy that it would not be good for me to get involved.

Now that I do not have those challenges and trust myself to stand up for myself and not leave myself in a bad relationship, I am ready to have a boyfriend. I am certainly not in a rush to get married–that can wait–but the more I think about it, the more I think I would like to have a boyfriend. I feel really lonely with some of my friends leaving school and most of the rest being taken away from me, and it would be nice to have someone committed to me. That is probably the wrong reason to get into a relationship, and I don’t want people trying to hook me up, but I’ve been kind of thinking about that lately…I don’t go to a very good school for finding boys though…haha yeah, and marriage is going to need to wait a LONG time since my ideal wedding is so far not something I can see a lot of people agreeing with me about…umm yeah, I doubt anyone is going to let me get married in black pants “like the ones I had in middle school that stopped fitting except with better pockets” and a red and white striped t-shirt…

and now back to my regularly scheduled studying

What’s the point in Hope

(I believe in You—Stephanie Pauline)

(Note, this post was written yesterday but the internet at my apartment is still not working so it was written in Word and copied here this morning…)

Oh my…can I just say that living in my life is like living on a rollercoaster…there is definite forward progress, but in between there are huge ups and downs within minutes of each other…

So let’s just start with the past 24 hours…I was volunteering at a different location of the counseling center I volunteer with since the location I started at was super busy in the early evening but had no late evening clients. It was kind of interesting walking in the back entrance and realizing I had no idea how to get to the front to greet people, but I figured it out, and had settled in. I was really enjoying myself talking with the counselors and interacting with the clients. I was also pretty psyched because I was finally making peace with things at school. I kind of missed my former friends and stuff but I had procured some candy via an email and had been able to socialize with a few people and it was starting to feel manageable. I left and was feeling pretty excited to realize that not only have I overcome my social and germ fears, but I am no longer afraid of rapists trying to get me in the dark…and then I tripped over my own feet and almost fell face first into the parking lot pavement because I was distracted inside my head…but anyway, I went to the grocery store on my way home and bought a cantaloupe which I have never even bought before when my mom gave me a list at home to buy, so that was huge for me…I usually just buy apples, frozen peas, chocolate soy milk, and occasionally potatoes…

So I went to bed on a high. I got up and went to school pretty much as usual, but when I got to school I got on facebook and saw that one of my friend’s had posted about someone who had committed suicide last night. That really hurt. I know that people die every day, and my heart should hurt for all of them, but it makes it so much more real when it is people I have a connection to, and especially when it is a suicide, it is so tough, because while I have never been suicidal, I have been to pretty dark places in my life, and I know how hard it can be down there to not take whatever means possible to lighten the situation no matter how painful the solution may be…so yeah, that was rough…

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE: I was just on facebook and the girl who supposedly had committed suicide is actually alive!! Praise God!!

Later I had a meeting with one of my former really good friends. It felt SO good to have someone to talk to. We couldn’t talk about everything in 30 minutes, but even if we had never gotten as far as my schedule and had to meet again to actually get any productive work done, I would have been satisfied, because it was the best feeling ever to have my friend back if only for half an hour. After that I had lunch and then I started the call to get things worked out thing…and got so frustrated that I was pretty much ready to quit. I was beyond upset that no one was answering their phones or ever calling me back, and I was even more upset that I even had to do it…and unfortunately I walked past at just the right time to see a whole bunch of people having a lot of fun together and instead of making my heart happy like it should have, it made me feel resentful that other people still have friends and I didn’t…I started crying…and trying to hide it…but I can’t hang out in my car all day and my friend was at the front desk and would want to talk to me if she noticed that I was crying so eventually I just had to try to do homework at the same time and hide it as best as I could…and somewhere in there I found out I didn’t get into SAA and was really frustrated, because I’ve been in that since first year, and really wanted to stay in it…and also somewhere in there I got a call back from somewhere…not the most convenient set up that I got from the place that called me, but it was going to be a check off the to do list and that felt good…so yeah feeling slightly hopeful again…

And I found out my brother’s storage unit got broken into. All his stuff except what he had flown home with for a few weeks was in it and he hadn’t had a chance to check exactly what was missing, but knew two trombones were stolen and praying his social security card which was in there was not stolen…That put my issues into perspective and I was feeling a lot better…and I was sort of studying while eating dinner but mostly listening to fun music and then animatedly talking on the phone, and life was feeling manageable…the school part I am SO behind on (umm yeah, pretty much not studying the entire first week and struggling to study the second week with all the other issues going on has not been good for my academics) and am not sure how I am going to get anywhere close to done, and at the rate I am going my grades are probably going to take a pretty significant hit, but life itself was going to be okay…

On my way out to my car I met a girl and we talked and I found out a lot about her and I am hoping to get to know her better, because she was super nice, and I really liked talking with her…

I went home and spent an hour cutting a cantaloupe which was very different than I expected it to be, but oddly calming. Then I spent an hour playing with an excessive amount of dish soap…I might not have OCD anymore and use excess dish soap for cleanliness, but I do still have an inner five year old who loves to play with soap bubbles and might have gone a bit overboard with the soap…it was certainly fun though…until I fired up my phone to check my email…and found yet more requirements being thrown at me, and ones that were even more frustrating…and I was seething again for a while…I really want to be able to completely move on and stuff, but when new things like this keep getting added on it is really hard to continue to extend grace and forgiveness and not hold this against the person who initiated it. I know that holding resentment in my heart isn’t going to help anyone, but grace is hard when my instinct is anger.

I am a fighter and I will not give up, but (and I know I am taking this out of context) what’s the point of hope? It kind of feels like hope is just an illusion of safety that as I climb up into just starts to disintegrate below me leaving me to fall further than I would have fallen before. What’s the point in looking at the good when it seems inevitable that more bad is around the corner anyway? I do not want anyone to have the satisfaction of seeing me defeated, but it is hard to continue to trust that God has a plan when all I am seeing are more obstacles being put in my way. I thought my senior year of high school that God was calling me away from my dream school to come to this school, and ever since then I have been running into issues with this school that make me wonder if I was really supposed to be here and why I left my dream school behind…after each trial I have eventually come to accept it and come to terms with it, and maybe this one will be no different, but at the moment I would love to hit rewind, go back to the day I told my dream school never mind after all the visits I have made and all the forms and money I’ve sent you, I am no longer coming, and undo that decision. I know in my heart God has a reason that he didn’t let me go to that school, and I may never know the reason, but I desire so greatly to be anywhere but here right now.

You’re my Savior

(Trampoline–Francesca Battistelli)

Oh my, God has used church the past two weeks to speak directly to my heart and give me what I needed to hear. In the words of Xerox the Scribe (From the Estherday Musical) “Did I just say God did all that? Well for all that to happen there has to be a God, and he has to work the night shift!”

Last week was about Esther, and while this was sort of a point in the sermon, some of my favorite phrases from the Estherday musical (which like you might expect tells the story of Esther) are “For such a time as this” and “I will go, and if I die, I die” There are so many good lines in that musical though…but anyway, I’ll just leave it at the sermon was amazing, and pulling in on a musical to comfort me during the day was also great…

This week was Jonah (cue song Big Fish–FFH). I don’t even know how to sum up how perfect this sermon was for me, but one thing that I do is sum up ideas that resonate with me in one or two words…so here on the quick summaries I can find on my bulletin: LISTEN, GRACE, SOVEREIGN, greatful (I know I spell it wrong intentionally sometimes), ASK!, reach out, perspective, SERVE.

I am not going to preach at you–feel free to check out the sermon tomorrow morning at The Journey or online at http://thejourney.org/ when it gets posted, but here are a few of my longer phrase notes…my bulletin is covered because that’s what happens when I am engaged…

• Running says I know better than you, but some of us are subtle runners
• God sent the fish. He was pursuing Jonah and never gave up on him. He could have used anyone but is full of grace and love and never gives up on his people.
• Momentary pain vs. eternal joy (which will we choose)
• God is not indifferent; God is fully in control
• Serve: even if you are afraid that person will destroy you!! even if you aren’t sure you want them saved because they hate you!!
• God doesn’t need legs to chase you–He’s already there–you can run from God but you can’t outrun God.
• Some people in our city grieve while others are so indifferent they can’t even be sympathetic. How can we, as Christians, respond in love?
• Loving Jesus includes loving people. There is no either/or because God cares about people.

And back to the idea of knowing God must be involved…I am so thankful that I had quizzes to grade today…grading is an activity that I find very calming and is something I am good at, and it pretty much is “me time” which although in some ways I feel like ALL I’ve had in the past week was pretty much “me time,” it was definitely a very needed break from the chaos around me…and I also am super thankful to be part of the Cru@STLCOP team. Being able to serve first years through that feels really good…although I really wish my “how to talk to first years” document got me a little further than name, where from, how’s school, because while I am certainly learning how to appropriately fill in the conversational gaps and ask the right questions and listen and respond to people, when it has been less than a year since Selective Mutism was present on your differential list (didn’t know this until recently…but I certainly understand why it showed up) you haven’t necessarily had enough conversational experience to fill in every blank space, and unless you want to have no unique identity and just be a copycat person you can’t just take what you’ve observed and mimic it word for word, intonation for intonation, into your own vocabulary, so it takes time to pick up and personalize enough material to fill in the gaps.

Also, between the fact that the internet at my apartment has stopped working (and I am considering just cancelling it as I learn to work around not having internet access) and that after a week of not very productive studying, I am really hoping to get some truly focused studying in and get myself feeling caught up in school–which is going to mean that hopefully my blog will be lovingly neglected for more important ventures…but God is in control, so perhaps things won’t happen that way and I’ll continue to just roll with what I am given. Haha, yeah, so I might disappear from my online world for a while or I might be writing all the time…life seems to keep me on my toes, and I can’t control what happens, but I can control to some extent how I react to it.

I might be down but I’m not dead

(Hope in front of me–Danny Gokey)

How do I have time to blog? Well I have been realizing that I can either spend half an hour writing or I can spend three hours composing and editing inside my head and have nothing to show for it but wasted time…so it makes more sense to just write it and then go back to focusing.

I always used to think that the compulsions with OCD were the problem…I didn’t think it really mattered what I was thinking as long as I could follow the rules and not waste time washing or researching…I didn’t really see a world without rules as even a possibility…It is SO freeing now to be able to not only not do compulsions, but not even have the thoughts that make me want to do it. It feels so good to be able to just live life without the extra thoughts to go along with it.

Occasionally I think it would be great to have just a little bit of OCD. I know if I had it again I would probably disagree with that statement and wish I didn’t have it, but like yesterday I apparently was so absent minded that not only did I forget to lock my car door when I put my backpack and lunchbox inside but I forgot to close it…just a tiny bit of checking OCD might be nice…and when I am eating food off the floor it would be nice to have just a tiny bit of my contamination OCD back…

Last night with Cru we had a pizza party like we always do the first week of school. It seemed very personally successful for me…especially since last year while I was there physically, mentally I was in crisis and essentially missed the entire thing because I was off in the corner with someone crying…I claimed it was because school was hard, but in reality it was because I had fallen way too far into the sea of emotion I had been drowning in my sophomore year of high school when I had to change churches…and that night when the event was over three people walked me to my car to make sure that I got there okay…so I really don’t even know what was going on that night at the event except what I could see from the pictures that were posted to facebook…so compared to that even if it hadn’t been a success it would have been a wild success…but yeah, I was fully present, involved in decision making, doing fine. I welcomed and made conversation with the person I had met the night before at our ice cream party. I hung out with a few other people. I played soccer with some people. I was really there and it was great. I left a little early, because sleep is a good thing, but it was awesome to be able to not just exist there on the sidelines, but be able to really participate…for some reason I could NOT sleep last night and was exhausted but awake all night and my alarm clock is old and didn’t go off this morning so I got up kind of annoyed this morning that I was “late” to get out the door by quite a bit and was exhausted, but I am doing fine, because I am still running on the adrenaline of excitement of how great it is to finally have overcome the anxiety that has held me back for so long.

At school I am really lonely though. I am used to having familiar faces surrounding me all day, and to be isolated is really hard. It does make it feel that much better when I do see a friendly face, but it is really hard to be spending most of my time so alone, and it has been great to have parking at school so when I just can’t handle the isolation anymore I have a safe private place to run to to cry it out before I go back to studying…obviously can’t do it during class, but at least in class I have a better distraction so I am less likely to need it…although that certainly does not mean I haven’t cried in class…haha yeah, so the girl who avoids crying at all cost has now cried in front of pretty much everyone…it doesn’t feel good, but it really isn’t as big of a deal as it could have been–I’m guessing people have probably noticed, but no one has ever asked me about it…which is good because as much as I know that stuffing it isn’t going to help me in the long run, it is what feels best right now, and I really just need to work on getting through the week.

I will get you through the night

(angel by your side–Francesca Battistelli)

Little joys: eating fudge is like playing with play doh that is totally okay to lick 🙂

Little joys: I finished all the purple vitamins in the bottle and started the orange ones, and the orange ones taste even better 🙂

Little joys: eating in the cafeteria for the first time in over a year and finding that the problem with eating there was social and while it is a lousy study location it is fine for eating…and there are so many friends there!

Learning: be careful in finding the reading you are supposed to be doing so that you don’t get eight hours in and realize you are reading the completely wrong thing…

Thoughts: Sucking on a water bottle is more socially appropriate than your thumb, but it also makes it difficult to pay attention in class…

Thoughts: When you are so tired that you have to brace yourself to stand without falling over that is when you realize it might not be such a good idea to participate in more late night activities.

Advice: Please don’t lick the ground when you drop food…that is icky even though it sounds like a good idea inside your head…(umm yeah, when it happens outside that is probably a sign that I need to feed myself more…)

and just ’cause they all do doesn’t mean we have to act like we’re in high school

(High School–Superchick)

So this doesn’t have much to do with that lyric except that today is the first day of school…and oh my has it been a long day already…like I posted on twitter, a good time to question me would certainly not be when I am sleep deprived and have not yet had breakfast…just sayin’…so yeah after being awake most of the night crying and finally calmed down thank you for starting my school day off with more tears, I really appreciate it…(sarcasm)…

It is SO amazing to be in school without the OCD and social anxiety I have dealt with for so long…I really never realized how much I had been missing out on. It was awesome when I realized that it didn’t matter if my computer was charged because I could charge it in class, and it was also awesome that although I was distracted for other reasons that I wasn’t distracted by the anxiety of being surrounded by people again…

Class number one. Overwhelming but completed. Class number two. Similar…somewhat freaked out when derivatives and integrals started being mentioned and I realized that after being out of calculus for eight years that I recognize those words and have absolutely no idea what they mean…luckily I discovered that they didn’t play much of a role in the rest of the lecture so hopefully I can get away with not re-learning that material…

and then I found out that apparently some people were concerned about me that I might be suicidal or something from reading my blog…okay, so this was huge news to me…for one thing, I had no idea that people who actually knew me were reading my blog, and I’m not so sure how I feel about that. I don’t have anything to hide, but I kind of expected that if people were reading my blog they would discuss it with me…for the other thing, I was under the impression that the correct action to take if you were concerned about someone would be to ask them about it…I know that I have said in the past to please not ask me about it because I had a really bad experience in high school with someone accusing me of being suicidal and causing a huge scene when they knew that I was not, but okay guys, really? That many people were concerned enough about it that word got to me from someone who didn’t think that, but no one actually asked me about it to find out one way or the other?? Seriously?? Guess what, I have a comment box and I try to moderate comments at least once a day. I don’t remember what I put as my prompt for the comment box right now, but seriously the comment box is there for you to ask me questions and interact with me and I made it really easy–I allow anonymous comments so you can give or not give me whatever information you want…I do have safe commenting enabled so the filter will automatically eat comments that it thinks are spam or dangerous and I have played with the idea of auto-deleting comments with bad words in them, but for the most part I will see whatever comment you write…and if you want to talk to me about anything you see here and don’t want to post it online I have texting, phone, email, facebook, twitter, mail service, and you know face to face communication to ask me questions…

I had one other thing I wanted to write, but I should probably study instead, and I am not so sure that it is something appropriate to share with “the world”

embarrassing

I was taking a nap in a dark hallway in Jones when Kim showed up and commented that it was dark so I offered to turn on the lights. She simply said that it was so weird that the lights were off (umm no it’s not–they always leave the lights off on the weekends). No that would be great. No thank you. That made me kind of upset–not that I need someone to thank me for every good thing that I do, but mostly just because I was struggling with the school situation so it wasn’t going to take much to upset me. I calmed back down and found a different spot to sit because I wanted to be alone. Then I checked my email and had an email mad at me for doing something that apparently wasn’t allowed when there was no way I could have known in advance it was not allowed. How the h**k am I supposed to follow rules that NO ONE EVEN TELLS ME ABOUT?!?!? Pardon my language, but I was now really upset…and then a teacher who I really like saw me crying in the hallway. SO embarrassing. She was super nice and offered to make excuses for me if I couldn’t make it to the tutor meeting this afternoon, but it was frustrating. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up ever again. Life is too frustrating. I don’t understand why God brought me here.

It’s the Hardest Part

(No fight left–JJ Heller)

The first and last few weeks of school are the very hardest for me, but this year has had a special added challenge…I am so past overwhelmed at this point…

Oh my, the past few days I have felt like a battery powered toy running around like a chicken with its head cut off but the battery is almost dead…yeah, I know strange analogy but it is what fits the closest with what is going on.

So Thursday I finished my rotation and went to Bible study. In between that I was finishing packing and doing laundry and packing the car and going out to eat with my family at Qdoba. I was up late getting things to the car, and as tends to happen when you are somewhat rushed, I have now realized some of the things I forgot: the little valve that is supposed to make my water bottle less leaky, the plastic guitar that plugs into my computer for gaming…

I had already packed my clock which I usually listen to music on to fall asleep, so between that and the checklists going through my head, I never actually fell asleep, but I did get some rest before getting up at 4:10 to get the rest of my stuff to the car and getting myself to the car (I slept in my clothes and original plan had been to shower Thursday night but I lost track of time but I definitely wasn’t wasting time on that in the morning). I was on the road by about 4:20 or so. I had some adventures on the road–like an exit that was marked that it had a gas station but didn’t and had nowhere to turn around for another 7 miles…and another stop because I was getting pretty desperate for a gas station and used Carmen (my daddy’s gps) to find a gas station which she told me was one mile away from the exit but her directions actually took me about 10 miles…and since chugging milk in the car is not much smarter than chugging it in the morning or the night before especially when most of the night was spent drinking water to occupy myself/try to fall asleep, since 5:30 I’d really needed to go to the bathroom…and I finally stopped at about 12 to do so, and there was a sign proudly displayed of the daily bathroom cleaning checklist: and awkward, it either hadn’t been cleaned or hadn’t been checked off in a long time…and this gas station had a restaurant inside…yeah…so I eventually got to St. Louis, and got sort of lost when the road I intended to turn on was closed, but eventually made it to Schnucks to grab apples and milk, to the gas station for obvious reasons, and to my apartment where I as quickly and efficiently as possible emptied my car into my apartment…and it was a good thing that I ran out of time to buy mini-donut ice cream to share with Rebecca, because I found out that my magic lunch box was not quite so magical and it may have been slightly melty by the time I got it to school…

Once everything was inside I looked at the time and realized I needed to hurry up and get myself back out the door, and so I threw stuff for the overnight and what I needed for school into a bag and biked to school…and when I got to school I ran to the experiential office literally a minute before they closed to get my rotation forms turned in on time (by one minute…yeah, probably should have faxed them over so I wasn’t racing the clock, but I got them in…). Then I stopped by the business office on my way out to pick up my parking permit, and went to IT to pick up my computer that was supposed to have been picked up the day before but I had gotten permission to pick it up late since I couldn’t get there in time…and after that I finally had lunch (and dinner since it was dinner time and I forgot to pack dinner anyway)…and if there were any doubt that I was pretty much done with OCD, this would have disproved it since I had no problem touching thing, then touching my food, and I may have put things like my headphones and my parking permit in my mouth to hold them a few times and drank from a Caribou cup with a straw that had been travelling around with me for a long time…after that I should have gone into either setting up my computer or getting ready for school mode, but instead since I was so overwhelmed and exhausted both mentally and physically, I went into kind of sort of try to sleep on the table and do absolutely nothing mode…I saw Kateryna outside and I really wanted to say hi to her but I didn’t want to scream across the quad, and then she disappeared into the crowd…also, I saw Josie who is a cute little girl and I really wished I could just watch her for a while, but among other issues with that, I needed to leave to go to the Cru leaders overnight…

So yeah, the overnight…I was up pretty late for that, and I obviously again didn’t have my music and a room where everyone is kind of partying as they see each other again after the summer is not exactly conducive to sleep so combine those things with the fact that I was definitely not in my own bed and I never fell asleep…I finally got back to my apartment around 5ish and got started unpacking and making food and stuff…

That essentially brings me to today. I slept in and then headed to school–for what I am not exactly sure since I didn’t exactly ask anyone if they needed a ride to church so I went in and started typing this blog post…and then I managed to be late to church because I totally thought I could get to church in 20 minutes…which is technically true, but I forgot that I would also need to be able to park, and I am a lot better at that than I used to be, but I still am not the greatest at it…

I really miss holding babies all morning on Sunday, but being in church was good. It was pretty awesome that unlike how going back to church at home or going back to church at school usually is and how going to church at school completely alone usually is, I was totally fine there socially. That is so different than the girl I was a few months ago. I mean, I was a little embarrassed when I was thinking about the situation at school while praying and started crying, but it wasn’t a huge deal. It wasn’t mortifying embarrassing and I really realized that it was fine to cry at church and would have been able to speak to someone if anyone had asked me about it.

Now I am at school and realizing that I didn’t think about where I was going to heat up my food…not sure if the cafeteria is open right now…but I am trying to sell some textbooks and stuff via facebook since the book swap was cancelled, and I have at least found people to take my orgo model kit and my weight sets off my hands (yeah, I somehow accidentally bought two weight sets and it was easier to just keep both and have an extra in case a friend forgot one then try to return one)…

A lot of really stressful stuff is going on with the school situation, but at least I got the official okay to come back to school on probation. I am really really frustrated with things, and realized on Friday that with all the energy I poured into just being able to come back to school that I had most definitely not put much if any energy into actually preparing for school and didn’t even know if I had any notebooks at school or anything, and still have not gotten that ready…but I guess I will be working on that situation and trying to mentally prepare for school (and take the safety training that I need to have done by Monday but haven’t been able to access) after the tutoring meeting today that ends at 7…and I really hope there is food at that meeting, because with all the things I am trying to work through right now packing lunch happened, but dinner did not, so I might be a bit of a crabby pants by the end of the meeting if there isn’t food…oopsy daisy…although I suppose since I have been a bit of a crabby pants all summer with all the sleep deprivation and stress I have been under maybe I just need to consider crabby pants as part of my personality…broken and beautiful, right?

Well, I had some other things to say, but my stomach is telling me to find out if the cafeteria is open and if so, to heat up my food…

I will be okay. God is working through this even when I feel abandoned.

I once was lost but now I’m found, Ooh, Thank You

(Thank you–JJ Heller)

Life doesn’t always go as planned, but I have so much to be thankful for.

Yesterday my preceptor got off the phone and said that it was my school checking to make sure I was still alive…yep, I still have a pulse and am still breathing…I suppose it is good that they are checking that I am doing okay.

Also, yesterday I learned to put the phone on hold…I recently started answering the phone at Walgreens instead of just listening to it ring because I figured if no one was going to teach me how to use the phone I’d just have to teach myself…so it went like this: “Thank you for calling Walgreens, how can I help you?” and then the person started talking and I had no idea what she was talking about…”one moment please”…and then I described the conversation to the pharmacist standing next to me and she told me to put them on hold and ask someone else and I was like I don’t know how so she put them on hold and I tried to watch what buttons she was pressing and then I asked one of the other techs who looked at me like I was dumb but eventually took care of the call…and when people called later I experimented and figured out how to put someone on and off hold. As much as the situation at school has been horrible, it has also pushed me from capable of using the phone when absolutely necessary to being pretty functional on the phone…I still am certainly not a fan of using the phone but a few months ago I would have never decided to train myself on using the phone instead being completely content not knowing that…I train myself on a lot of things, but the phone is one that I’ve never seen as worth learning before…

I am also thankful that even though things at school are bad that I have one person whom I trust to advocate for me. I understand that she can’t force people to do things, but at least there is someone willing to look at the facts on my side.

I am thankful for the amazing friends that I have here in Minnesota. They have shown me that they really do care about me and believe in me. I am SO grateful for them, especially because I have been a mess this summer…My friends and even people I barely knew have seen me break down and cry and it wasn’t fun, but they kept being my friends and supporting me.

I am thankful that I am learning to avoid unnecessary situations that could make me feel uncomfortable when appropriate…like yesterday someone was getting a talking to in the pharmacy, and hearing people get in trouble isn’t something I really like so I skipped the prescription next in line to be filled since I’d need to stand right next to the people talking to get the drug I needed for it and moved on to the next one until they were done…problem solving 🙂

I am also thankful that even though it isn’t official that I am going back to school that I have been able to hold out hope most of the time and talk as if I am going back. I’m frustrated about a lot of things in this situation, but eventually I have to trust that something will work out and God’s hand will be in it even in the resolutions that don’t work out the way I was hoping they would.

I have been greatly blessed, and while God doesn’t give me all of my wants, he gives me all of my needs.

Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way

(Even If–ZoeGirl)

When I make up my mind to do something, I don’t give up easily. So shopping is not something I am a fan of…it often feels like people are watching me and I hate that feeling…which means that it is something I am going to force myself to do…well, but my family has five people and three cars and I don’t have a car today…and I decided I was going to Walgreens to buy freezies…but I can’t do it at the easiest to get to Walgreens because that is the one I am doing my rotation at and I wanted to pay with my phone, and I am not allowed to have my phone on at my rotation site at any time NO EXCEPTIONS. So I planned to go to the other Walgreens that is close by…except next challenge: I know my bike helmet is somewhere in the pile of stuff to make sure to bring back to school with me, but where in that pile I wasn’t sure…and being me, I decided instead of looking for it to go to the computer to look up if it was legal to ride a bike without a helmet…as it turns out, it is, so I decided to try to be safe and just go…and I got there and realized there is not a bike rack anywhere in the general vicinity of that Walgreens…and the light poles are surrounded by landscaping…so I locked my bike to a light pole, but the lock wouldn’t reach to lock the wheel so I just had to hope I could be quick enough not to have a problem…but I went in, bought the freezies with a kind of awkward encounter with the cashier, and got home successfully…kind of itchy because the outside makes me feel itchy sometimes, but there’s a success that could have been added to the list if I hadn’t forgotten about it early in July when life started crumbling more rapidly…