Something happened today...

I actually got a chance to see some of the people that messaged me and were like "oh we should hang out sometime" and so I was in a room with people that I know, but at the same time it's like I don't know them anymore. They're who I associate with high school and Hillsboro. Which isn't me anymore.

Yet another reason why Ashland is my home now.

Strange. It's like having a past life.

Not what, but when?

I feel very privliged to know what I want to do with my life. I know I want to be an actress and a drama teacher, but I don't know when other parts of my life are supposed to develop. My mother has pounded into my head stuff like "no sex till marriage" and "don't get married till you're out of college" but those are big steps and there's never been any guide to anything else. I don't know at what age I'm supposed to move in with someone, get engaged, buy a dog together, or what.

Basically, I've gathered that I know that I've developed not only in a much different way than my siblings, but much sooner, and so I shouldn't base my life on them. I might move in with Mike next year, and *knock on wood* I might even finally recieve a ring from him in two years. Even while the whole "what if we're not together" thing runs through my head a lot, so does the "what if we're still happily together" thing. Every girl loves to be loved in one way or another, and it just doesn't help that while I jump for joy thinking about living with him, I'm still worried about what my parents will think. I have people saying "you're 18, almost 19. They can't tell you what to do!" but I wasn't raised that way. I try to respect my parents opinion even if I don't agree or if it causes a fight, but I prefer to get it out there rather than to bottle it up.

Yet another way that I'm learning that things are much more complicated out here. I'm just glad that I have time to work this one out.

Thank goodness

I love listening to music while writing.

It's not like what I anticipated.

But what did I anticipate? The college life seen in movies where they never carry around books and go to class every once in a while? I don't think I expected anything. Maybe that's why I'm so muddled about my life in Ashland. I'm not hating it or liking it, I'm learning from it and soaking it in. How do I like it? I don't know, I've been there for two months, I still can't remember that one girls name across the hall, how can I know if I think I can spend the next 5 years there? I wrote my USem final about the opportunities you have in class because that's what I've gotten so far. I know people that I see on campus from class and I now have a favorite professor as well as one that scares the crap out of me, it's what makes memories and memories makes up your life.

Right now, I can see myself there for 5 years learning, but what I hate to think about is not academically. I don't want to sound stuck up, but I've never worried about my academic future. Sure I worry about how I did on that final I BSed this morning, but I have classes that I want to take planned out loosely for the next year. What I want to know is who will I be friends with? What kind of people will I hang out with? What will I do for fun (specifically in about 2 years)? And, well, what I think about the most, will I still be with him then? All throughout the term in theatre, so many people that we interviewed talked about how they travled around the country to get jobs before they finally made it up there where they could stay in one spot for more than six months. I don't want that life! I want to live in a house and get married and make it my home. I would love to travel and probably move into a new house a couple times, but living between places and working so you can eat terrifies me! I don't think I could do that so why should I have any right to put anyone else through that? Mike's down here because he followed my down here. He was going to go to college, but he came here because he wanted to be with me so badly. That makes me so happy to be just alive right now, but will that stay? Will he stay with me or with the job he has? The future, what we anticipate, always looks great, even when your down; like an oreo. But you never know if when you pull the cookie apart, where the white stuff is going to go. I'm terrified about the future, but as long as I see that it all happens for a reason and it's always for the better, no matter how crappy it gets, I can pull through, especially when it's not what I anticipated.

Cause getting your dreams as strange as it seems is a bit, well, complicated. There's a kind of a sort of cost. A couple of things get lost. There are bridges you cross you didn't know you crossed untill you cross. And if that joy that thrills doens't thrill like you think it will, well, with this perfect finale with the cheers and the ballywoo who wouldn't be happier, so I couldn't be happier, no, I couldn't be happier because happiness is what happens when all your dreams come true. Well, isn't it? Happy is what happens when you dreams come true...

I did not evaporate.

I forgot about this! Whoops.
So to catch up... I officially have 17 college credits under my belt. Grades are still unknown, but I probably wouldn't put that in here anyways now that I think about what I wrote about in my history final this morning. What was I thinking? Note: Cramming is for staying up all night, not for 5 minutes before the test, it will just confuse you more.

So Ashland... I've been living there a mere two months and I realized last week that this is now my home. I call it that and it feels like that. To be "at my parents house" now is an odd feeling. Like how when you see a shirt in a store that you have. It's not yours, but it's familiar and you know what it looks like and feels like, but it's not yours.

Something that's happened already is a LOT of self reflection. That's all Ashland is about it seems. In USem that was intensely focused on finding purpose in your life and establishing soul-worthy goals. Theatre was all about if you think you belong in the department, I did math homework based on what I felt I needed to help myself with, and I've already shut history out of my memory.

I'm just happy that I can say to myself that I've done it. I've been though one stage, bring on the next!