Oh, goodness. It has been awhile. Lots has happened.
I left Provo. I needed space from the actual doing of it in order to write about it without having a psychotic break down. I don't think I've done anything as hard as that. Not getting into med school? Cake. Leaving all the people I love and the place that I've grown into a woman? Tenth circle of hell.
My last Sunday in the ward I was sitting in the back row of Relief Society with Marie and Christina. I had done a decent job of holding myself together knowing full well that this was it. This was the last time I would be in a single's ward for who knows how long. This would be the last Sunday full of back rubs and side glances and giggles at the expense of others. This was the end of Jessica and Marie. And then the closing hymn was "Each Life That Touches Ours For Good." Things were going pretty well. And then it mentioned friends and I squeezed Marie's neck. And then the second verse started with "when such a friend as this departs we hold forever in our hearts" and Marie started crying. And I kept it together, albeit teary eyed. I pulled myself together during the closing prayer. And then the RS president came up to us afterwards and asked if we were staying in the ward for the summer. I couldn't look at her. I shook my head no. She responded with, "oh no. Is this your last Sunday in the ward?" and then I legit started bawling. And then I started hugging Marie and she started crying. And there we were in the back row bawling into each other's arms like a bunch of fools. And Alyss slowly backed away apologizing. At some point we realized how ridiculous we were and Marie had the intelligence to realize that we needed to escape through the back door. So we did. And then we started laughing uncontrollably through our tears because of our embarrassment. This is a moment I will never forget. It was the moment when everything came together and I realized that Marie was going to miss me just as much as I was going to miss her. It was worth the embarrassment.
The week flew by too quickly. Wednesday night was my going away party. It was full of food, friends and fun, just as I had hoped it would be. I loved Annette's speech, seeing Blake hold a baby, and watching David and Hilary act as if they had never been apart. These were my people. Every single one of them. From MegN who got there first to Blake who attempted to be last to Sarah Johns who showed up literally as the last person was leaving. It didn't feel final. Neither did spending time with MegN and Rochelle the next night. Leaving my last night of work on Thursday felt pretty good, though.
And then my dad showed up on Friday. I left him to tie up some loose ends at work and to feast at Tucano's. We went to U-Haul and learned that they wouldn't let us rent a car dolly in order to tow my car behind my dad's truck because Frederick Douglass apparently weighed too much. So we realized that I would be driving my car while my dad drove his truck and I kind of wanted to shoot myself in the face. And Blake came over. Oh Blake. If there ever was a man that I could fall in love with, it would be him. I anticipated falling apart over saying goodbye to him. He, he felt final. But I didn't. Instead I gave him a big hug and a Downton Abbey farewell from my lawn.
Friday night was dedicated to the strong bond of friendship that is Jessica and Marie. We went to our favorite place to dine, Red Robin. It was awful. My bun was soggy, Marie got something she didn't think counted as what she ordered and on and on and on. At one point Marie went to the bathroom and I sat there thinking about the whole thing and I wanted to cry because it was perfect. We would have been able to forget a dinner like all the others, but this sorry excuse for food we would always remember. I almost thanked the waiter for the horrible experience. We left and started on the journey to document our time in Provo together. I'm very sentimental and overly emotional, so I told Marie that what I wanted to do was to go to places that were significant and to take a picture there. So we went to every apartment we lived at. We went to the Cannon Center, Seven Peaks, the movie theater I farted in, El Gallo Giro where she fainted, the place I fell while running, the park we flew gliders in and Barnes and Noble. And it turned out to be a ton of fun. And then we printed the pictures out, bought snacks for my drive, rented About Time (wonderful movie that should not be rated R) and went home to put a puzzle together and make a mix tape of our favorite theme songs. And then I got into bed crying. And slept horribly. And woke up wishing the day hadn't yet come.
Somehow I made it to Omaha late that night without falling asleep at the wheel and crashing. I spent the night at my good friend MegP's apartment, and the next morning she took my dad and I around Omaha to see the town home she just bought, where she works at Union Pacific, and to the foot bridge over the Missouri River. When I asked her what she did for fun in Nebraska, she told me that she liked to spit into the Missouri River, so spit we did.
So on Sunday we left Megan at lunch time and drove from Omaha to Kentucky. With a stop in Kansas City, MO for barbecue, of course. I made some videos on that stretch of me talking while driving so that I could share them with my blog, but my camera isn't uploading them to my computer right now. Which is unfortunate, because there was some good stuff on there!
Monday we finished the drive from Kentucky to Johnson City, TN, met my new roommates Alora and her boyfriend Harry (and their shih tzu Luckie), moved all my stuff in and bought/built a bed. I wish I could say that it was easy, but it wasn't. After moving my stuff in and meeting everyone I was pretty emotionally freaked out. My dad seemed really worried about leaving me with Alora and Harry (he seemed nervous about Harry, specifically). But leave me, he did. And as soon as he left Alora and Harry asked if they could take me out to dinner. I hesitated but said yes, and we went to their favorite Mexican restaurant. I had a mushroom quesadilla, which I'm not sure qualifies as Mexican. But they were open, talkative and friendly and tried really hard to make me feel comfortable, which I appreciated a lot.
The next week is a blur. Mostly I unpacked, stayed in my room, slept, read (a lot! I went to the library and got a library card my first full day in JC. I finished "Flight Behavior," started and finished "Faithful Place," and started "Under the Wide and Starry Sky"), watched Hulu and tried to deal with the emotional trauma that was moving away from the place I've called home for six years. It was really hard to wake up and know that Marie wasn't going to be in the next bed over. It was hard to get lost when trying to find a McDonald's. I just wanted to cry and mourn and feel sorry for myself and mixed in with that was trying to be appreciative to Alora and Harry for trying to make me feel at ease. I missed home. I missed the people. It was literally awful and lonely and terrible. Until a miracle happened.
I somehow stumbled my way to church (side story: I felt so lonely at one point during the week that I looked up the church and parked in the parking lot just for a familiar sight and to feel better about life. It worked.). It was weird, but people were friendly. I'm in a family ward and I was worried about being the only young-ish single in the ward. But I'm not. They have a stake YSA group that meets for FHE and institute during the fall and spring. Of course our stake representative is married and pregnant, but probably because we couldn't possibly be unchaperoned for fear of fornication. I actually really liked the representative, Jeriann. She was friendly and invited me to FHE that night. I begrudgingly went and am really glad I did. There were nice people there (if not a little strange) and as I was making small talk with a guy who had also graduated from BYU, he looked me up on Facebook to see our mutual friends (MegP's husband, for one) and one of them was my good friend, Levi James Anderson. They had been roommates. And all of a sudden we had a ton of Levi stories to talk about. And it felt so good. It felt like I wasn't 2,000 miles from Provo and people that I cared about. I mentioned that while they were living together I had been to Levi's St. Patrick's Day party. There exist two pictures of me from that party. One of which Kyle can be seen lurking behind me in the door frame. I loved it.
Things have gotten better since that night at FHE. This week I started my work study job in the billing department at the nursing school, and I also started classes. So far, things seem pretty intense. Pathophysiology is freaking me out. There's tons of reading but so far not a lot of work. We'll see how bad things are when we start having tests and such. But my cohort is roughly 30 people and I've made small talk with a few of them, including another girl who wants to be a midwife. One girl works with me in the billing office and I've gotten to know her decently well for only knowing each other for four days. Everyone is friendly and appear to be hard working. I'm a little disappointed because it turns out that we had a cohort orientation on Monday but because of some mess up months ago (the reason I couldn't register for classes and such) I didn't hear about it and didn't go. I work with a really interesting Southern woman named Nancy who says such funny and ridiculous things. She gets riled up over nothing. It's like me in 35 years.
Tennessee is beautiful. There are trees and greenery everywhere. There are scenic old barns. There are squirrels all over campus and I almost got in a car accident because I saw a groundhog for the first time in my life. For once I have an accent without even trying. Rain storms are lovely. Also, my laptop broke the day before my classes began and I had to unfortunately (only because I don't really have the money right now) had to buy a new one. It's coral. Maybe that'll be her name. I miss Gatey but never realized how old and slow and heavy he was (7 years, my friends). School is expensive. Like I got $10,500 in federal loans and because I have to pay out of state tuition only $400 of that was reimbursed to me. I need another job as 11 hours of work study a week just won't cut it. It worries me. I've applied to several and haven't had any calls. Pray for me? It'd be appreciated.
I'm spending the long weekend in North Carolina with my aunt, Robin.
Also, my bff Marie's birthday is on Tuesday. Hint hint, nudge nudge, make it special!
