Chapters

The end of a chapter and the beginning of another...

And so I was hooded, I graduated with honors [which is a funny story actually] and I received my diploma. It doesn't get much more official than that. I did it. I finished. That's that. And now it is over, the year is winding down and as I happily said goodbye to 2009 [good riddance] I will send off 2010 with blown kisses of gratitude and admiration. But I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm not talking about the year of 2010, I am talking about the 'tornado-of-a-master-student/intern's-school-year.' It blew in and left pieces scattered: things I've learned in class, things I've learned in my practicum, things I've learned from life experiences and friends...what a year. Yes, what a year, what a stupendous fantastic year. It went by so quickly and it feels as if I only just moved down there. Crazy how fast a year can fly. There really is no wonder how Christmas is already here again and I'm preparing to begin yet another chapter in this life of mine.

There is a certain sense of calm that washed over me a few days after I lost control of my tear ducts and had a melt down. It was a delay from my prayers to heaven, or maybe I just needed a few days to digest everything that was changing.

And so, although I don't feel all that well prepared to set foot in the real world I know that I have the tools to get me there and people that I love backing me up...just as I did upon my move to Oklahoma, just as I always have.

My cup overflow with the gifts I have been given, they just wait to displayed.

I came home a different person than the one that left to move down there. Subtle, but nonetheless changed. And I put part of it to the growing, learning, and developing I did both within and outside of the internship experience. When I look back at the year I see how each day I was there was living. That was life and living it to all the potential it was capable of being. It was the lazy days by the pool basking in the sunlight and absorbing the simplest of pleasures. It was the stops for frozen yogurt or ice cream with the breeze through my hair. It was the time spent with friends doing nothing, doing everything but most importantly doing whatever it was together. It was in the friendships I formed, we met as strangers in January and managed to end up as a tight group of young women ready to conquer the world...or at least play boardgames and dance our troubles away.

Thank you to my fellow interns, for being the wonderful people you are that helped enhance the experience and the memories that I will associate with Oklahoma.

Home

I must admit to you on this cold afternoon in my cold apartment [yes, I still haven't turned on my heat] that I am unsure about how I feel with the impending changes.

I guess I have avoided thinking about it, in fact, I've put thinking about the actuality of it at the very back of my mind. I'm not counting down the days and yet they seem to get closer and closer and closer. It makes me feel good to know people are excited for my return home...Home, what an interesting word. Isn't the apartment I'm sitting in home? Wasn't my dorm room at school home? My childhood houses too, the ones that have since been filled by other families too...they're all home. I suppose wherever Mom and Dad are is home, they are home to me because I am always their child. I am still that girl sitting staring out the window as the rain pours down through the trees in the backyard wondering where my life will take me.

So being that things are soon going to change, boxes will be filled and we'll have another long drive, possibly through another snow storm. A year in Oklahoma, it flew so fast. And I sit here without a doubt in my mind that I will return and see it just as it was, home. Home for a girl who learned she had to be a pseudo adult at some point in time.

This week was a roller coast of emotions. I've gone from being studious to panic stricken to relieved and finally calm. I swear there's a sort of aftershock where things take time to settle out, where my prayers for some sense of clarity and peace make their way from the heavens. And it's at that point I send up a prayer in thanks for sending down the calm I've been aching for.

And so, in my remaining weeks here I've been making Christmas cookies [in hopes of getting rid of food Mom doesn't want me to bring back], staring wide eyed at all the lights, enjoying the weather, enjoying my friends, and finishing up the tasks of being a grad student and intern. I've come to terms with the fact that I also must apply for jobs, yes, I applied for two so far. Still more searching to do to decide where in this fine country I'll be for the next few years.

See you. Love you. Bye

This Is Not Rhetorical

What would happen if I stayed in Oklahoma? If I got a job and got experience?

There is nothing permanent in life, there is nothing set in stone. I can stay for a little while, if I don't like it I can leave. I can move home and leave home. I can move to any state in the country. It's not like I'm held down by anything.

I just have no clue what to do with my life at this very moment.

What would you do?