Marching through the month of May

I visited my home in North Carolina this past weekend and had a wonderful time. I got to spend time with my family, see my best friend's wedding dress, play around with the animals, went to the doctor to set up surgery.... That's right guys, SURGERY! As of right now, my surgery date is May 28th. I am finally going to have my knee fixed, and nothing could excite me more right now. I have a choice between a piece of my patellar tendon and bone plugs, or and all-inside which uses the Achilles tendon from a cadaver (I think). Over the next few weeks, I'll be waiting on calls from my insurance company and the doctor to set up my pre-op and all that jazz. It's really happening guys! Plus, that's only one of the many exciting things going on in this great month of May. My roommate Candace celebrated her birthday on the 2nd, my great-grandmother's birthday is the 12th, my best friend's bachelorette party and wedding shower fall on the weekend of the 15th through the 18th, her wedding rehearsal and wedding day (man, how old am I now?!) fall on the 23rd and the 24th, then surgery the 28th. Busy, right?! This is how most of my months go, so I'm pretty used to it by now. My only problem is the five hour drive to get home, then the returning five hour drive to my apartment. Driving ten hours in a span of three days, with work on the days I leave and come back, plus work in between trips, is no joke. If anyone would like to donate to my caffeine/nicotine/keepmeawakeotine jar, just let me know. Your donation will not go unnoticed. But seriously....

Besides all that craziness, while I was home I thought about a lot of things that are going on in my life. I realized something that I barely thought of before, and it makes me wonder how different life would be if I had stayed on that path. What if I had never stopped taking riding lessons? What if I had continued on, learning more and more about training and stable business instead of going to school? These thoughts came on after I finished reading an AMAZING book (I finished three in two days guys. I have a problem.) called Flying Changes, written by Sara Gruen. I have always loved horses. I started riding at the age of six, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it ever since. I rode at one stable up until I turned eleven, then the barn was sold off. A year or two after that, my mom found another stable for me to keep taking lessons and learning. My sisters joined me then, and it was going well. I started learning how to train and work with young horses, and almost began barrel racing lessons. Unfortunately, we had to stop attending that barn, and went to riding our horses at home in our fields. I wish I could have learned more, and I wish I could have continued down that path in my life. But, I guess God had better plans, which is why I'll be finishing up college next year with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. Maybe after this I can go back to horse life and doing more with it. I sure hope so anyway. I did ride for a very short amount of time while I was home recently, but I'm not really supposed to. So, I am just waiting to see what comes next. After this month ends.

Spring Semester has ended!

Guys, classes are over. Finals start today. I am so extremely happy, you have no idea just how relieved I am. Over the past four months, I have found out more about myself than I could have ever dreamed. I have also change paths in my life, which means my college major has changed and my life is changing for the better. That's a lot of changing y'all. No, I will not switch that sentence up that says the 'c' word multiple times. It's a huge step for me, especially since I have struggled for the last year and a half due to multiple reasons. Those reasons include family matters, physical hurt, emotional hurt, becoming an independent adult and figuring out what I wanted for myself. I have grown up, that's mainly all there is to it. Maybe some other day I'll take the time to explain everything to you, but today is not that today. Also, with summer starting, I have a plan to blog once a week (Yes, I know I promised this before, but seriously, I'm 22 years old. Life happens.) so you will have more to read.

I have decided that instead of pursuing English and becoming a teacher, I want to study Psychology. This is a broad major, I could do almost anything in this field and have a wonderful job. To be honest, as long as I have a job that makes me happy and pays my bills, I am perfectly okay with whatever comes my way. I will take whatever God puts in my path. I just had to decide between the thing that was stressing me out and making me miserable and something that could give me joy and purpose. I needed this. I was a wreck guys. I cried, I drowned my sorrows, I worried my friends and roommates to no end. Without the support system that I have right now, I probably would have just sank and quit. Fortunately, I have roommates, teammates, neighbors, and many other important people that encouraged me to find something that I was happy with. I owe them everything, and I thank them almost everyday for being there.

I am getting my knee fixed in a month! Finally, I will be on my way to recovery and being able to play the sport I have fallen in love with. I have been camera girl/film girl all last season, and while I did enjoy supporting my ladies, I felt utterly useless. I am so pumped that I could possibly play with my team again. I'm just more excited to not be in pain 24/7. I am looking forward to getting out of bed and not having my bones pinch and rub, and not having to take pain meds multiple times a day. It's a light at the end of my pitch dark tunnel.
This is it for now, especially since I still haven't packed for my trip home. I'm actually leaving at 5:00 PM today, after I work, so I am super behind.
Night y'all.

Pain hurts. No really, it does

  It's raining cats and dogs right now, at 2:10 in the morning, and I am awake on the bean bag chair downstairs. This is the best sleeping weather! Why can't I go to sleep? Well, it's probably because my right leg is KILLING me. It's been hurting for a while now, and by that I mean a few months (I don't particularly like doctors, nor do my parents). It has steadily gotten worse, and today it has been so tight that it hurts to walk. It's my hamstrings/Achilles/whatever it is that is on the back of my ankle, so yea... I'm so over pain guys. It sucks. If it was my left leg I would have no problem. That side of me is screwed all to heck anyway, it wouldn't matter to add on just a little more pain. But no, it HAS to be my UNHURT leg, the one I rely on. UGH. Alright, sorry about that. My rant is over now. 

   

   Great news!! My team had our first spring rugby game yesterday against Life University, and won 46-27. How awesome is that?! I am so proud of my team, and I am excited to see how this season will go. I wish I was back on the field with them, and I'm praying that will happen before it gets too late. School is okay, it still makes me want to run and hide most of the time but I think it will be better this semester. Oh, fun fact I learned with all the snow and cold weather we got this week: binders freeze. When you open them after they have been in a freezing car, they burst. No joke. Work is a pain, but hey it pays my bills. That's mainly it I believe. I just thought about posting to get my mind off of the annoying things my body keeps doing to me. Okay, well I guess I'm going to finish up some homework and catch up on my shows until the sun comes back up. Enjoy your sleep my friends, and I hope you enjoy this post. Nighty-night. 

Life keeps catching me

I realized I wanted to try and keep up with this, every week, and life just keeps getting in the way. There's barely any time to do anything, and it is only my 6th day of classes. So, to try and keep up with my blog, my homework, my job, and my SANITY, I had decided to start writing poetry again. I'm an English major, and literature is written on my heart. I enjoy journaling, reading, and writing, but I have always adored poetry. No, not many people know this, so I'm kind of baring my soul here. I am going to post (try to, at least) one poem a week, maybe more. I will also keep writing posts along with the poems. Now my posts will most likely be done late at night, since that's my only (well, sort of only) free time I have right now. So, without further ado, here is one I wrote during class yesterday.

Home
Home is where your heart is
That's what I have heard said
But how do you go home
When you've slept in different beds?

Three, or more, in North Carolina
One, only one, in Tennessee
Family in one, friends at the other
How can I decide where I want to be?

I ache for simple and small at college
Once I'm there, I pine for more
Oh heart, be still! Choose only one!
This aching has turned me sore

I tend to run and hide myself
I dare not trust a soul
My roommates are concerned, I guess
But my silence takes a toll

We each have our own struggles
Of that I know too well
But how do we help each other
When each is is in their own personal hell?

Well, I need to finish up some reading and a synopsis for my English courses tomorrow. Luckily, my coworker took my shift for me, so I will finally get some chores and other things done. I will write again soon. Sleep well, my friends.

New Year, New Life

I know, I know, the whole New Year's Resolution list is a little overrated. But, I do have a couple things that I definitely want to accomplish this year, and I would like to share them to the world.
In 2014, I would like to:
1. Be me. Not hiding anything, just putting myself out there as myself, with no mask.
2. Get back into shape, like I was when I started 2013. So what if my knee royally screwed up? I'll just work around it. Somehow....
3. Fix my priorities.
4. Do Not Get Overwhelmed. That happens too often. Breathe.
5. Focus on getting out of school. I'm sick of it, and I really need to get out. With a degree.
6. Keep up with this blog, once a week. Every week.
Right now, that's really all I can think of. I'll come up with more after I post this, because my brain always lets me know later that I actually do have great ideas. Right now, my brain is kind of dead, because I didn't have to work and I have been cleaning and cooking for most of the day, besides when I turned on Netflix and drowned out life for a while.
Now I need to go clean up my cooking mess. I made Lasagna Rolls for dinner (they were super delicious) and I should probably do the dishes before my roommates have to yell at me. I should also finish cleaning my room so I can sleep in my own bed instead of crashing on the couch, which I am ashamed to say I do, a lot.

Alaska, Days 1-3

At the university I attend, we are required to take a cross-cultural trip before we can graduate. They offer trips that are in your major, since we have to take classes while on these trips. I am an Education/English major, so the only one I could find at the time was Alaska. I signed up, paid my hefty deposit, and started classes for the trip. Little did I know how stressful and crazy this would end up being. 

We left at 5:00 am on a bus headed for Atlanta, since that is the main hub to fly anywhere. On our way, we ran into traffic that had been stalled for over an hour. Our leader jumped out of the van and asked a driver next to us. A tractor trailer had overturned and they were trying to clean it up, so our driver decided to go the other way. He found a drive between the north and south-bound lanes, and he turned. We heard something grind and bump, but figured it was just the tire. A little way down the road, the engine started to run hot. We pulled into a service station and he filled it with water. The driver got us back onto the highway and continued down the road. Within 5 minutes, the engine had overheated again. This time, it was starting to burn the hood. We pulled into another station, and when they lifted the hood, the underside was black. The radiator was steaming, and when they tried to put water in it just shot back out. They put as much as they could in, and we continued to the highway. By this time, all of us on the bus were pitching a fit. Why in the world would they continue to drive a bus that could blow at any time? We were scared, and wanted off ASAP. Our driver made it onto the highway, but within a mile of getting on our bus died and we had to pull on the shoulder. They called for backup, and we had to sit there for 2 hours and wait. We had many people come by and offer to take us to the airport, which was only 30 minutes away, but our driver and leader refused. Crazy right?? There was even a guy who owned/worked at a Cadillac dealership that wanted to send a fleet of Escalades to take us. He did bring one, and took us to McDonald's to eat, but brought us back to the bus. Finally, our back up arrived. It was one of the best buses our university had, and it was awesome. We made it to the airport, but we had missed our flight. This meant that the airline canceled every flight we had scheduled, which we have quite a few. We sat in the airport lobby for at least 2 hours trying to figure out everything. Finally, our leader found a flight that left at 5 pm, but could only take around 15 passengers. Nine of us had to stay behind and leave the next day on another 9 am flight. 

My comrades and I were then bussed back to the University to start all over the next day. Luckily, I was able to stay at a friend's house again and got a little bit of rest. The next day, we were on planes for around 12 hours total, with short connection times in between. Our group finally made it to the town we were supposed to stay in, and we've been here since. We leave out of here on Thursday to fly back to Anchorage, where we will stay one night and then fly to another town. 

Yesterday we walked around town to eat and sightsee, which was fun. Unfortunately, there are inches of snow and ice everywhere, which means I really should not be walking around. Clumsy me managed to slip and fall on the ice on the sidewalk and had to be helped up. We had to walk at least 2 miles through town, and my knee is absolutely throbbing today. I knew better than to come up here like this, but I already paid my money to come. I was left behind today while everyone else went out to look around. I hate being injured, I feel so weak and helpless. At least now I can get caught up on homework and my blog. 

I believe my train has crashed....

Today, to be honest, I feel like curling up in a ball in a corner somewhere and hiding for a while. I swear, I don't think I will make it out of college alive, and I'm on my (hopefully) last year. I just want to go home to the fields of green grass, round bales everywhere, my horses and dog, my family and old friends, and just RELAX. All this stress has taken way too much of a toll on my body. I need my small hometown life back, along with my accent which seems to have been diluted since leaving home.  There are a lot of things I wish I could take back, things I should have done differently or acted differently, but I cannot. There are now things I have to do over and things I need to start and finish by this weekend. Can I do it? Honestly, I have no idea. Today, in order to survive, I am throwing whatever is holding me back aside and crawling forward. Think positive, happy thoughts and smile while I enjoy my Chamomile Calm Tazo Tea in the back secluded corner of Starbucks. I must take my own advice. Oh, How much easier it is to help people get through their problems than it is to figure out my own! I must bite my own bullet. Ok, I'm done with all this self-talk. 

I met a new professor today that lectured in my 8-hr class who immediately knew what I was going to school for. He asked the class who all was going to teach K-6 grades, and I excitedly shook my head no while whispering to my neighbor, "No way, not me." He saw me, and said "No? Let me guess, you want to teach twelfth grade, maybe college English right?" I just stared at him, with my mouth gaped open, and nodded a yes. Wow, this guy is good. Then, he asked if anyone was thinking of coaching later on during their career. Of course my friend and I raised our hands. He looked at me and was like," Ok. Softball right?" Did I mention how awesome this prof was?! I mean, I really would like to get rugby started up back home, but I also love softball. He just read me like an open book. It was later that I realized I wore my glasses instead of contacts to class, and I've always been told I look like a teacher/librarian when I wear them, so that was probably what gave me away. Typical, natural blonde me. 

That's all for today! I'm pretty sure I am forgetting to say something, but it can wait.