This is it

I thought I would feel so full of emotion and excited and this is one of the most amazing days of my life...but I just feel frozen. I feel like I am standing still and this is all just something that is happening to me instead of it being something that I did for myself. I do have a lot of emotion at times and I know I will, for a long time, feel proud and miss the life I built here but for right now I just feel like I can't even move. I can't even fathom what this all really means....

Really....?!?!

Fuck you Joe!!! You have no idea what it means to be a parent!

Changing

I'm standing tall.

I'm a better me.

I'm a stronger me.

I love harder.

I care more.

Wider focus.

People make life worth living.

Adult perspectives.

Holding onto what is real.

Yet still dreaming...

Bright future.

Appreciate today.

Appreciate life!

I really am going to be OK.

I am going to be great!

I guess I will just smile

So I'm not getting in trouble for getting caught with Boo! I'm pretty ecstatic about that. I have a lot to be happy about and a lot of appreciate right now...but the strange thing is I feel like crying. I can't tell if its sad tears, happy tears or just plan overwhelmed with emotion tears that want to come out. Generally, I know that I feel happy and loved so I think for now I will just smile. The worst of everything is over. I do have a few more assignments to do but nothing of real importance; I'm done. I'm really done. This is actually happening. I beat the odds on so many levels. I'm proving that a working class girl from a divorced family can go to college and graduate in the four years. And I've done just as well as everybody else. I've stepped over another stone that symbolizes that my story is not a sad one but a beautiful one. My future options are endless and the world is calling out to me now.

Just a few more items to check off my list of things I need to do and then that is that. So for now I will just smile because I know the tears will be coming soon enough.

What Now...?

So Boo is gone. I did what I was told to do, but what now? This son of a bitch has continued to ignore my email and has not contacted me in any other way. WTF. Am I going to court? Will I be fined? Is this over or is it just barely beginning? This is going to be my final days at Miami...really? I hate this. I realize I fucked up and fine I will pay the price for my mistake but let me do it now. This waiting and waiting is killing me. And now she is gone and leaving here is more real than ever. I don't like it here without her. I keep feeling like I forgot to feed her and she should be in my face reminding me right now. I know this is silly because I will see her shortly but I will never see her here again and that is what is making me feel strange. I feel sad and I want to but this is such a stupid thing to cry about.

What if they hold my diploma? What if I can't mail my final transcript to Case? What if my future is about to get fucked up because I had a cat in my apartment? My stomach hurts so much I can barely eat...

And to top it all off I got a not so great evaluation from my supervisor....fuck me!

Words

Words words words

Why must people speak to each other with such harsh words? Does it make them feel better? Does pain make them feel better? I am sorry if I sound ignorant but I do not understand how hurting someone else makes a person feel better. Whenever I have hurt someone I usually feel worse...but maybe I'm the one that has it wrong. I thought giving back to people and doing compassionate and consider things made one feel better; but maybe I'm the stupid one.

When they look down on me an speak to me like I'm just the stupid one I begin to feel like they are right; THEY ARE WRONG! Good luck getting through life making people feel small...that only lasts so long before people will not want to be around them anymore.

I don't let anyone else get away with talking to me like that; why do I let them? After years and years of verbal abuse from my father I left. I left and I never went back; estranged. Granted the physical abuse is what pushed me enough to open the door and walk out...yet those wounds have healed but the verbal and emotional abuse still lingers within me. Words, words, words....they alter who we are and who we become. I have overcome and I will not take those words anymore! I am stronger...I am a survivor of abuse! I will not be a victim anymore! Two weeks and then I go to the place where no one can get away with speaking to me as if I am inferior to them! I have stayed quiet for too long and now I'm done!

Words change everything...someday I hope they learn that before they push everyone away.

Love and Honor

Love and Honor may be used to Miami the institution but in reality we have love and honor for the memories and for those that became family. This is it...we are getting closer and closer to the day and we cannot ignore or escape it anymore. Everything we are that college made us is about to place us out in the world. Our bubble is about to burst and make room for those that will come to fill our places. Those that will make what we made here. I realize college isn't for everyone but it has made me who I am today and a part of me wishes everyone could do what I did here.

I am better than I was before I came here and my friendship are better than they were when I left. Even those that are a part of who I was in the past that have grown with me through the distance, we appreciate who we have become and are closer than ever before. I am hitting a point in my life where I value who I am and the decisions I have made and my regrets are minimal...and I think even I deserve this. I love better than I ever could before. I communicate in a manner that is more mature than it was four years ago. I am different; I am better.

I love what we did here. We grew up here and what we had here will never be comparable to anything else for the rest of our lives...

I know deep inside I am ready to move on from Miami but moving on from the life I made for myself here, my home, is another story. I will miss this; I will miss you.

I will look back and remember the best moments: jumping in the water fountain, climbing a tree on campus, meditating with a Buddhist monk, getting yelled at for bowling in the hall way, saving Boo, student manager pub crawls, sitting on the steps of Withrow Court with Gina and talking for hours, playing in the snow the day class was canceled, Roxy, Barn and Bunk, VIP Video, donating my hair, Relay for Life, FSWSO, bowling with Matt and Greg at Oxford Lanes and kicking their butts, the old Goggin, all the free gourmet food at work, the hours upon hours we have watched Friends in this apartment, the random conversations Icaria and I had when we lived together, the dining halls, the pretzels, the ice cream adventures, hide and seek in academic quad, the Princess, After Dark, Kings Island, Spamalot, Spring Break (ie New York City and Florida), cornstarch, Halloween...this list could go on and on and on so I will just end with the thought of the blackout and all the fun we had that night...

This place will always be a piece of who I am and I will never forget.