Sometimes I Just Want To Say Thank You

I'm the kind of person who worries incessantly over just about everything.

Like, really. At any given point in time, you could rummage around in my head and find something that's gnawing at me. Most recently it's my finances, which are squiffy, to say the least. I'm doing what I can, of course; I have a job and I pay tithing and I try to buy my own groceries and not go to town on the money allotted me by my wonderful father. I live very cheaply, for the most part. Occasionally I go out with friends and we see a movie, or a play on campus, or to a restaurant. But I always pick pretty inexpensive options at the restaurant, or I go to the two-dollar theater, or if I really, really want to see the movie when it comes out, I cinch my belt a little tighter and pay six or eight dollars instead of two. And I just signed a contract for housing over the spring and summer terms, which means I will not be going home to PA for the summer.

The great thing about BYU that most other schools don't have is that because of the number of people who attend it, they need to be using as much time as possible to educate as many people as they can. So at my college and BYUI and probably a few other places, we have a three-track system. There's Fall semester, and then Winter semester (which if you don't go to BYU you probably know as Spring semester) and then there are two summer terms, named Spring and Summer, of about two months apiece. Fall semester goes from late August/early September to mid-December. We have two, occasionally three, weeks of Christmas break. Winter semester goes from early January to mid-April. There's a week of break. Spring term is late April/early May to mid-to-late June and Summer term is late June to mid-August with another week of nothing.

So I have plans to take classes in the summer. A full courseload during Fall or Winter semesters is twelve to sixteen credits, and a full course load during Spring and Summer terms is six to eight credits. So I will probably take six to eight credits in the Spring and keep working at my job, getting trained in more areas so I can sub for people when they need it. I may not take classes at all during Summer term; I might just work. Either way, it will be a few airfare tickets cheaper to stay in Utah over the spring and summer than to go home and end up with a couple of babysitting jobs that pay minimum wage or less and which probably cost more than it does for me to feed myself for four months. And in August, my family will come out on their biannual vacation to visit all the Utah family, and they'll definitely have to come get ice cream with me at least. YAAAAAAAAAAY.

So basically, I'm not going to be coming home until Christmas. Last year, I couldn't have handled that much, because I would have been terribly homesick and just miserable and tired. But I've grown this past semester, both physically and emotionally. I know how my mind works far better than I ever have before. Not only am I learning about myself and what I want in life, but I am self-aware. I understand that sometimes my body wants what my mind does not. I understand that many of my emotions come more from my body than they do my mind. I understand that conversely, my emotions affect my body in ways I didn't know about before. And I have learned very important things about trust, about true friends, about love, about the raw emotion of living and breathing and dying that is nameless. It's not that life is happy, or sad. It just is. And sometimes you act or react to it, and your response is always your choice. You always, always have a choice, even when it seems as though you do not.

I'm not even twenty years old, but I've learned that often the best advice comes from those who have been in your shoes. I've managed to avoid a lot of pain and heartbreak in my life by just following some very good advice. So I just want to say thank you.

To Superwholockmarauder and Smiley and Double M, I especially thank you for the laughter and the occasional tears and not being afraid to tell me when I'm being stupid. To a few friends- L, Fairy-Tale Princess, Channelling Luna Lovegood, Tuba-Viola Girl- you have been true and wonderful friends. You are the ones who know me, who really, truly know me and understand why I am the way I am. Thank you to the Prodigy, for being a bright spark of joy in a mostly mundane existence. Thank you to the Angel, for living life without fear of rejection and showing me how it's done. Thank you to the Beauty for putting up with my (too) many compliments on her face, and for being my roommate when I'm not at college. Thank you to the Beast, for showing me that chivalry is not dead, even if it isn't necessarily expressed by opening doors and holding chairs. Thank you to my mother, for being on my side when I've been afraid I was wrong and for her unconditional and fiercely protective love. And thank you to my father, for providing me with the priesthood in my life and for keeping my sensitive, impressionable heart rational enough to make good decisions. You, my family, are my best and truest friends in this life. I love you all without question and without hesitation. Without you I would be something other, something far worse I imagine, than what I am now. And I thank God every day for just being able to get out of bed in the mornings, because sometimes the very idea scares me, but again: thank You, God, for being there when I've needed to rely on you. Thank You for keeping my legs going and my feet forwards.

And thank you all for reading. Sometimes I look at my blog and I see that you've been reading. I don't know who specifically, but it says so many people have looked at my blog or read this post or whatever. Thanks for being willing to listen to my ruminations, which are not necessarily about either jam or bread. I hope you all have happy and prosperous lives, filled with the blessings of the Lord.