AND HHIIIIIEEII WILL AHLWAYS LOVE YYEEWW.

I realize that this blog is mainly so I can talk to myself. Written by me, for me. Maybe no one reads it at all.

And that is just okay.

About a week ago, I was blessed to go on a mission trip to Nicaragua. I fell in love with the country, and the people. Those who are given so little but have such big hearts. We managed to do a lot of good in that little village, and for that I am grateful. I realize I've got one of those "hearts for missions" I kept hearing about. Scary but true.

On another note.
I've realized lately how little is certain in life other than dying and paying taxes.
God will never leave me or forsake me.
...but I don't know much else. Everyone else has the full potential to leave me AND forsake me at any given moment. And I just have to deal with that fact.

I have a friend who dated this guy for a year and a half. They fully intended on getting married in less than five years. And all of a sudden, two weeks ago, he "needs time away" and has a new girl crush.
Boom. Gone. I fully believe that God has a plan for my friend that involved this happening, but that didn't make it any less unpredictable.

 Being in love with anything is a helpless, drowning feeling. And I happen to be in love with several things at the moment that I have no guarantees with. No assurances, no strings to keep the waves from smashing me off of my little island of sanity. It is absolutely terrifying. But it's also a high I've never been to before, this having-so-much-to-lose thing. I used to think anchors in my life would hold me back, but now I think they're just helping me keep my balance until I have a surer standing.

But this new place in my life has a few negatives. The main one is me turning bat crazy.

Like sack-full-of-nine-cats crazy.  I was crazy before. Now I'm just flat out unstable. Is this an early-life crisis that happens to people other than me? I used to be more laid-back about basically everything. But those anchors I talked about? They've got me standing straight up. Is that a bad thing? Surely there was going to be a point in life where I realized I couldn't be apathetic about everything, I just didn't know it would come like this or this soon. God bless you people that keep dealing with me anyway.

It's a weird time for me. Some things are getting farther away and other things are closer than I really want them to be. I know I've said this about 56782 times in some form or another. But it's still on my mind, so I'm still gonna blog about it.
I move into college in 46 days.
Days.

Until this isn't where I actually live anymore. When I think to myself "Gosh I'm tired and ready to go home," "home" isn't going to be where it's been for the past eighteen years. Does that blow anybody else's mind? I have to learn a new address. I have to live with someone that I've never even spent the night with before. My mom isn't right down the stairs and I can't keep squeezing myself into the chair with my daddy at random times.
Instead of an hour and a half, my boyfriend is going to be almost three hours away from me. My friends are going to be about five hours away in several directions. I'm not crying about it, I'm just totally zombie-fied when the subject comes up.

I'm gonna get over it. Honest. But until then I will blog about it, because as I'd mentioned: this is basically me talking to myself anyway.

And on the subject of college, can I just go ahead and discuss that I do not, in fact, give two flying cares in the world about the Ole Miss vs State arguments. Just because I'm going to one of them doesn't mean I care at all about the football team or lack thereof. Just thought I'd mention that.

...

I miss my little missionary friend girl, Amber, and I hope she's having a ball in her homeland.

I miss my daughter, Abby.

I miss my sister because she's always not here.

I miss my graduating class. Some of them, anyway.

I miss my grandaddy more than I even anticipated.

I miss my boyfriend and not being all at his throat all the time.

I miss Sardis Lake Christian Camp.

I miss the Waldrip sisters.

I miss Glee.

I miss my normal sleeping pattern.

...

With that, I'll go. If you've read this far, you're either amazing or just a figment of my imagination.
So thanks.

All my crazy love,
Anna

New Ways To Fall Apart.

Wow, it has really been a while hasn't it? Two months, really.

And what a two months they've been. I've officially graduated high school. No more familiar faces in the classroom, on campus. It's all new territory from here on out.
I'm not as scared now as I was. I woke up the morning after (or the next morning after that, rather) and realized that the world hadn't actually ended like I thought it would. My friends still loved me, my boyfriend wasn't gone. I was the same as I had been the day before, only with a diploma.

I wonder when (or if) I'll be able to look around my life and go "Here. This is it. This is where I was supposed to end up."
Does that moment happen? Is there fulfillment in any of it? At what point do you start looking back instead of stressing over what's in front of you?
How much change can a person go through before the desire to settle in anything, anywhere, is gone completely?

But I have changed. Not in the ways I had expected to, but changed nonetheless. I am not wise, nor do I think I'll ever really be, but I'm wiser than I used to be. It took everything crashing at once for me to realize that I wasn't standing quite as tall as I'd figured.

I miss my granddaddy all the time. The first time I drove out to his house after he'd died I couldn't make myself go in the door. I had to leave. Once I'd made myself go in the house, rounding the corner to the living room made me feel like I was going to faint. I know everyone deals with loss, but he was supposed to be invincible. You know? Bigger than everything else. Now that he's gone, the things that seemed big aren't really anymore.

Like graduation. It seems a little anti-climatic now that it's in the past. I cried during the whole thing, but I didn't cry about it afterward. I'm gonna miss parts about high school, for sure. But I have to put my big girl panties on and deal with the fact that if I'm alive on August 15th, I'm going to be moving into college. I just am.

But as for now? I'm happy. I have beautiful friends. A limitless (sort of, anyway) future. A boyfriend who thinks the world of me, and a Savior that already has all the cards.

So here's to the next two and a half months, and me filling them with as much love of life as I can muster.

Thanks for reading,
Love,

Anna