In a Nutshell

I'm finally writing again. I haven't had the time {or the heart} to write in forever, far too long. Okay, it's only been like a week and a half, but I consider that too long. So much has been happening, so much has been on my mind these days.  

I'll start with something happy: a Thomas update. Thomas is on his last transfer! He's with a greenie (a fresh new missionary, just starting his mission) so he's loving being able to train his new companion and "show him the ropes." He's super excited for this last transfer too, because he gets to "shotgun" the area. That means, both him and his companion are new to the area, so it's a fresh start which means they both have to work extra hard to do the work. Well, Tom would say he "gets to" work extra hard...that boy, I tell ya. He is loving being a missionary. I think he's going to have a hard time adjusting to the real world when he comes home, but I'll guess we'll see in 46 days! He's in Declo, ID now for the last 6 weeks.

The hall, my Prucha Ladies. *sigh* Things are kinda starting to get back to normal in Prucha. I have to take Kersten's memorial down tomorrow. I don't know how to do that. It's been up two weeks, but it feels like just yesterday. Taking it down is going to break my heart. I'm doing okay. Kinda. I've been "lectured" by my supervisor and my counselor that I need to change the way I've been handling things. I've been told I'm giving too much of myself to my staff and the residents, that I need to start taking care of myself. I was given the "homework" assignment of one hour away from the building to take time from myself. This was meant to accomplish two things:

1) Show me that the staff and the residents could survive without me for an hour.
2) That it's not selfish, but necessary,for me to take time for myself so that I'm not constantly "putting on a face"

I didn't do it. I wanted to, kinda, but I ended up spending that night in my apartment with various staff members throughout the night. Which I like too. There's only three weeks left of the school year. Three. Weeks. Oh my goodness, that breaks my heart. I can't imagine this is the end of my career in Residence Life. I love this job so much. I adore my girls. I am so not even close to ready for this year being over. It has been the most wonderful experience of my life. I'm not going to ramble about it now, because it makes me sad and I'm sure I'll be writing much about the end of the year in the coming weeks...

It was mine and Tom's five year anniversary on the 14th. It was just like any other day. Nothing exciting happened. No extra feelings of love or of being loved. It was just your average Thursday. The Monday after though, I got a package from him. And it was lovely. Just wonderful. He made a sort of scripture scavenger hunt thing. The box was filled with about 20 plastic eggs, and in each plastic egg were two little slips of paper. On each paper was a scripture, followed by a word number. For example: "John 3:16 word 2" The slips of paper were numbered, so that I looked up all the words in a particular order, and then once I found all 40-some words, they spelled out a wonderful message to me: "Katie Jo I miss you so. Seems like its been forever that I have been gone. You are my world. I love you with every particle of my being. Happy fifth year anniversary. I cannot wait to be with you for eternity." He also sent me this book in which he had cut out a square in the middle of the pages and put in it some pearls and red jewels along with some scriptures about how a virtuous woman is more precious than pearls and rubies...I forgot the exact scripture and I don't have it anywhere near me at the moment since I'm back at home and it's back at school. And he sent me his disk for his camera, full of pictures and videos! It was wonderful.

I'm struggling these days trying to figure out what exactly it is that I want in life. I'm questioning virtually everything it seems in my life. I think part of the reason I'm all of sudden doing this is because of Kersten's death and partly because Tom is so close to coming home. I'm looking at my life and trying to figure out if there's things I wanna change about who I am or how I am living. I am looking really hard at my life trying to make sure Thomas is the one for me. I know, for those of you who know Thomas and I, this seems incredibly dumb. Anyone who knows us together has always always always talked about us getting married. And I sit and fantasize about our our future: him coming home, our wedding, our life together. And it's all prefectly wonderful and exciting...but then there's this nagging feeling at the back of all my thoughts: What if he's changed? What if I've changed? What if we've changed? And that scares me sooo much. We had...have...the most amazing relationship I could have ever hoped for. Every day with him is the best day of my life. But that was before the mission. I have no idea what it's going to be like after the mission. As the day of his return gets closer, I find myself getting less and less excited, and more and more nervous. It doesn't help that everyone is always talking about how much of an adjustment it's going to be for us too. Everyong talks about how we're going to have to start all over, get to know each other again, and that things will be different.

And then, on top of Thomas, I think about myself. Sometimes feel like there's so much in life that I'm missing out on. I feel like I'm being held back, that I haven't really lived or done anything exciting. I'm a boring person. Okay, I'm not boring, I'm pretty crazy and obnoxious, but I never do anything crazy. I just feel boring.

I guess I better stop because this post is getting long...far too long. So this is my chaotic crazy rambling brain at the moment...in a nutshell.