I have been out of school and living away from all my friends and practically everything familiar for about two months now. Currently, I have one friend my age and she's my sister-in-law. The only other people I hang out with are my parents and a bunch of kids who are all about 5-10 years old. I once again live in a place where I don't really know my way around. It all seems kind of pathetic... at first glance.

I've always grown up hearing, "God has a plan for your life whether you can see it or not." This was one plan I really did not understand. I was happy to be leaving school, but why God was having move away from my friends (for the second time *cough*NewHampshire*cough*) and my church to a place where I knew no one and didn't really care about the church I attended, was beyond me. A lot of stuff just didn't make sense to me. However, God is really cool and some stuff is starting to make sense. He's teaching me lessons that I know I never would have learned if I had stayed in Nashville, and they're big lessons, too. Two, in particular, that I'm really starting to figure out.

The first is about settling. I have lived most of my life settling for what is okay and good instead of great and what I really want. It's really easy for me to skim over negative aspects of things that have good qualities, too, just because it's easier and seemingly more comforting than pushing through and finding what I really want. It's been a hard lesson to learn, trust me, but I'm realizing that settling isn't good enough for me anymore. I want more. Better yet, I deserve more. There have been so many dreams and desires that I've given up on because I was afraid of failing so I just settled on accepting that it probably won't work out so I won't even bother trying. Well, I'm through with that. I already have a list of things that I've always wanted to do, but never did, that I'm going to start pursuing.

It doesn't apply to just activities, though. It applies to what I want to study, where I want to live, where I go to church, and even what I want in friends and what I want in a husband. I'm tired of not doing what I want to because someone thinks it's a bad idea or because I'm afraid of what might happen. I'm tired of having friends who make me feel like I'm less of a person, whether intentional or not. I'm done with it. It's not worth it to me to have relationships with people who make me feel bad about myself. People who do that to other people don't make true friends. And I know that when I'm involved in that kind of friendship I have the tendency to treat that person the same way. It's not healthy for either person and I truly apologize to anyone I've ever made feel like that. It's not right. All it does is bring you down and make you miserable and that is so mentally and emotionally wearing. So like I said, I'm done with it. Partially because I hate the way I feel in those relationships and partially because I don't want to be responsible for bringing someone else down. Everyone deserves to have friends that lift them up, not tear them down, plain and simple. I've also been realizing qualities that are very important to me for my future husband to possess. I'm not about to publish them to the world for various reasons, just know that they're there and they aren't necessarily easy. I am, however, in the next couple of days, planning on posting a list of things I'd like to do in my lifetime. If there's anything on that list that anyone would like to join me in doing, let me know! It would probably make a lot of the stuff more fun to have a friend to do it with!

The other thing that God has really been teaching me lately is about trust. Specifically, trusting Him, because it's something I don't do nearly enough. But, that's a post for another day. For now just know that God is really cool and has really been working in my life and I'm pretty excited about it. He's given me an incredible church here in Georgia that I'm going to with my sister-in-law. The church also has an amazing group on Sunday nights for college-aged people and the people there are truly great and I'm really looking forward to hanging out with them and getting to know them. So while life here may seem pretty pathetic at first glance, it's actually pretty good and I'm liking it a lot.

I have officially lost track of who I've told this information to and who I haven't(especially since people I didn't tell have heard), so the time has come to post it on Xanga.

I will not be returning to Belmont for the spring 2008 semester. I'm finally taking some time off from school. Because I'm not going to be in school and I can't currently afford to stay here in Nashville, I will be moving back to Georgia to live with my parents. My goal is to have enough saved up by the beginning of the summer to move back here. I currently don't plan on returning to school for next fall either, but I've decided that I would like to at least live in Nashville where a lot of my friends are. I'm taking this whole thing semester by semester, so we'll see, maybe I will be back in school by fall, but where I'm at now, I don't plan on it. I do plan on finishing school and getting my degree in Accounting eventually, I'm just not sure when. For now, I'm moving back to Georgia next week and I'll be coming up to Nashville to visit as often as I can, especially once baseball season starts up. :o) And of course, people are more than welcome to come visit me in Georgia!

There's a whole going into this decision. There are a lot of pros as well as a lot of cons, but all in all this break has been a long time coming and it's very very much needed. It'll be good for me, but I'm going to miss everyone here in Nashville so so much. I really wish I could stay here. It's been killing me knowing how much I'm going to miss next semester. Between basketball season, baseball season, some of my friends graduating, and life in general... that a lot to miss, but like I said, I'll be up a lot... hopefully.

In other, happier news. Krista and I are planning on taking a road trip together this coming summer. I'm super excited for it! As of now, we're going all over the place. Here is the most recent list of stops (some have a reason, some are just because we want to):

Nashville, Tennessee -- The starting point
Akron, Ohio -- Eileen said we have to and I know better than to mess with that :o)
Fort Wayne, Indiana -- I have family there that I haven't seen in years
Somewhere in Michigan -- Krista's friend
Minneapolis, Minnesota -- Mall of America... and Minneapolis in general
Denver, Colorado -- Because it's Denver and I've always wanted to go to Colorado
Salt Lake City, Utah -- It's a good stopping point between Denver and the next stop, and hey, why not?
San Francisco, California -- It's San Francisco, I don't think it needs to be explained more
Los Angeles, California -- We'll probably just stop for a day on our way to San Diego, but LA sounds fun
San Diego, California -- This is our main destination. I'm so so freaking excited to get there!!
Las Vegas, Nevada -- Who doesn't want to go to Vegas at least once in their life??
Phoenix, Arizona -- Just because... plus I know people that live there... at least I'm pretty sure they're in Phoenix
Albuquerque, New Mexico -- I have no idea what's in Albuquerque, but it's good enough for my
Dallas, Texas -- Why not?
St. Louis, Missouri -- I hear there's tons of fun stuff to do in St. Louis
Nashville, Tennessee -- And we're back!

Basically, with the exception of flying to Austin, Texas for a couple days for Ryan and Heather's wedding, the farthest west I've been is Memphis. I've always wanted to go to the west coast and I've always wanted to go on a road trip now I have a chance to combine the two dreams. Krista has always wanted to go a road trip to California and she hasn't been many places outside of Tennessee, so we're going on a road trip together and we're going all over the place. It's going to be so fun. Expensive, because of gas, but fun. I'm looking forward to it. In fact, I think I may go do a bit more planning now...


P.S. Once I get a job and get settled next semester, I'm get a puppy! I can't wait!!

After being in NH last week I came upon some very hard realizations. Specifically two, and one is only hard because of the other. I learned that I absolutely love NH with all my heart, far more than I have been thinking over the past year or so. It is my home and as I far as I'm concerned right now, it will always be my home. It sounds lame, but NH will always have my heart. This is a very hard thing for me to deal with because of the next realization. I also learned while I was there that I'll never be able to move back there to live for the rest of my life, or even the majority of it. This hit me while I was sitting in church Sunday morning listening to the worship looking around at all the people who go there. I love those people very much. I've gone to church with many of them most of my life, of have at least known a lot of them for most of my life. Pastor Jim had always been my pastor until the parents moved to Georgia. I sat on my chair thinking about how much I had missed all those people and how great it was to see them and how it was crazy that the kids have all gotten so big and how I wished that some people who weren't there could've made it. It was during that thought process that I realized the only reason I was there was for the people, not to actually be at church. My whole reason in going to my church on Sunday was to see the people, not to get anything out of the worship or maybe learn something new from the sermon. In fact, when I found out that there wasn't going to be a sermon I kinda gave a sigh of relief. No offense to Jim, but his sermons bore me and they always have. I realized that that church isn't good enough for me anymore. No church that I've ever been to in NH is good enough for me anymore, not after Crosspoint. This only strengthens my desire to move Crosspoint to NH so that I can have both my church and my home.... all that's left is a guy! haha... ooh, anyway... Crosspoint is so amazing to me. It never ceases to amaze how perfect that church is for me. I love it and currently it is the main thing keeping me Nashville after graduation. There are two things right now that are keeping me in Nashville. One is Crosspoint and one could very well change by the time I'm done with school, making Crosspoint the main thing. I never used to think that staying in a place I dislike as strongly as Nashville was a good idea if the only reason for me to stay was church, but now I'm starting to think that it might be good enough, at least for a while. I know that I don't want to live in Nashville for the rest of my life. I don't like it here. I also know that I don't really care about Georgia. I want to move back to NH, but it doesn't seem very realistic at this point in time. For now, I guess I'll stay with my church.

It bothers me, not knowing what the future holds for me. I don't like not knowing where I'm going to be living after graduation. I don't like not knowing what I'm going to be doing in a couple years or what my relationships are going to be like. I think it mostly scares me. I've always been relatively near my family. Until I went to college I lived with them all the time, now that I'm in college I live with them when I'm on break from school. This past summer started a new thing for me. I didn't go home for the summer. I stayed here. I only saw my parents for a couple of weeks for the entire summer. Now, I love my parents very much, but it was kind of nice experiencing that freedom. What scares me, I think, is the knowledge that someday I will have a job that won't enable me to have the ability to go see them whenever I want, or I will live somewhere that is too far away and I won't be able to really plan visits to them. I know that it will be fine and wherever I wind and whatever I do I'll be happy with it, but the idea of total separation from the two people that have always been there scares me. This, I realize, is one of the problems I face with moving to NH. If I do that I'll be with my friends, but I'll hardly ever get to see my parents or brother and sister-in-law. That's just a strange thing to me. It gets harder, though, cause I know I don't want to live in Georgia or Tennessee or anywhere in the south that would be close to them. I like the north. I want to move back north somewhere, the preferred place being New Hampshire. I often think that all the concerns/worries/fear will go away whenever I get married(or at least engaged) and have someone besides my family and myself to depend on. Granted, one of my reasons for this thought is because I figure I can just make him decide where we're going to live.

Maybe, just maybe, the NH thing will work out. Maybe someday I'll get married and my husband will (at the very least) be okay with moving to NH and we'll go there and somehow find an amazing church and we'll be very happy. That, right now, would be my "happily ever after." I like the sound of that plan.

There were a lot of other thoughts running through my head when I started, but they're gone now. Thinking about NH tends to do that to me. So I'll end with this:

I love NH and had a fantastic time when I was up last week. I love all my friends there and wish I could see you all more often, but it was wonderful seeing you for the time that I had. I miss you all far more than you probably realize, and likewise, I love you all more than you probably realize. You all are such blessings to me and I don't know where I'd be without you. Hopefully it won't be another year and almost three months before I get to see you all again!

Happy Halloween. For the first time in my life I'm actually going to dress up later. I'm going to be Darth Vader. I just to need to make a cape of some sort and so I'm going to Walmart later to buy a black sheet or something. I'll put up pictures on facebook or myspace or something.

P.S. If Jim Sturgess were to ask me to marry him, I would say yes in a heartbeat.