New...

For the first time in more than 8 months I finally feel normal. Not because of a drug, alcohol, a boy, or anything tangible... I just feel like myself again. Laughing comes easily once more, and energy is not something I merely remember having a lot of.

My schedule is about to explode again (which I love), all my best friends are back to work (they are all teachers), and several of them are either taking college classes or teaching college classes, and then there is my wonderful roomie who works at night... My classes start on the 2nd, and then of course there's all the normal trying to fit time in for people, which I feel like will be doing a lot of inviting people over to hang out or to join me somewhere with wifi...

My roomie has finally returned to me for good, no more galavanting around the country... After this last stint I told her she is never allowed to leave me for that long again (almost a month!). I love having her home... even if we just sit on opposite ends of the awesome couch she bought with our dog between us and watch a movie on a lazy Sunday afternoon... I love it... We laugh a lot, and have more inside jokes then I can count.. we recite one liners from movies constantly, and we purposefully seek to do things for one another all the time. She has no idea how much living with her makes me feel like I belong, like I have a place that is my home, and that my mood at home does not effect how much she loves me and will try to take care of me.. She's wonderful, and I am not really looking forward to her disappearance in the evenings due to work... so we have decided on a plan of dinners at her work, and probably more than my fair share of sitting at her games (probably doing homework) just so I can be around and see her more than Sunday mornings haha

Even though the start of a new school year means THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of college students who do not know how to drive once again are taking up space on the roads and parking lots.. I really do look forward to the new school year each fall, because for whatever reason I seem to work off a fiscal year better than a calendar year haha! I am looking forward to the bonfires, dinners, sweatshirts, and the mass amounts of laughter from the ridiculousness that is my wonderful friends and their antics and one liners :)

I love that from this point in my life I can look both backwards and forwards and see God moving, I can see His hand in every aspect of my life, holding me when I was too broken to keep going, cheering when I made the right choice, I can feel His arms around me as I was hurt and cried more times then I can ever remember crying before, and I can feel His encouragement when I was so frustrated at Him that I had to choose things I knew were right instead of what I wanted. I can see how patient my Lord was when I was angry and let Him know exactly how I was feeling. But, more than any of it... I can see His faithfulness.. Even through all the suck that was this year, I can see how much stronger I am, how much more I have written Him into the fibers of my heart, and I can see all the people He placed around me to care for me... the moments when I did not even know I needed something suddenly I had exactly what I needed to keep going. Even when I was being a brat and really did not deserve it my sweet Savior was there taking care of me unconditionally. I have been through a lot this year, but never once have I felt like God left me hanging to dry, I felt Him with me every step, even when I was so angry at Him and this plan that seemed to contain nothing but one crappy thing after another... He was still there.. ever faithful.

I would do every bit of it again knowing the painful outcome, and the work it would take to come out hopefully being found faithful on the other side.... Only to know that the hard times will come again at some point.

Tonight was the first night in a really long time that I just felt normal.. like laughing just came naturally, that I was surrounded by people who love me, and that I will be ok, and in fact things will be awesome because I am not controlling my future!