Sweet Southern Pearl

  Tomorrow, me and my sister will both start high school - one of us as a student and one as a teacher. We are both embarking on a scary but exciting new chapter in our lives. I can't describe how weird and surreal and emotional this feels. I remember Ashley starting kindergarten on August 25, 2005 when I started my junior year of high school, and it seems like it wasn't very long ago at all. I remember her in her huge white hair bow and her smocked octopus dress and me in my mini denim skirt and "day one junior girls" shirt. I remember walking her in SW Elementary and her being scared and not knowing what to do and then I drove to the high school and started one of the most memorable years of my grade school career. As I sat in art class and walked the halls, it didn't occur to me how quickly time would fly and how in the blink of an eye, that little girl in the octopus dress would soon be walking those same high school halls. It also didn't occur to me ...

I'm gonna start with last year; the entry for this year is last. August 19, 2013 I think one of the reasons I like to keep up with dates is because I like to see how far I've come from year to year. What things are different and what things are the same. Both are cool; I've always preferred constants though. Changes scare me. Terrify me, even. But I'm getting better with handling change, and that's good because right now I'm sitting in a hotel room in Boone (because our apartment isn't finished) anticipating my last semester of graduate school. Hard to believe I'm almost done. I really just started a year ago.  And my brother is here, starting his journey as an Appalachian student. I'll be living in Boone for most of the next school year, and most people know what a change this will be for me, considering I never lived on campus when I went to HPU. With that being said, I wouldn't change anything. Anyway, I noticed today was ...

Tonight is my last night in my room in my apartment. I've been dreading this night for a very long time. I get attached to things easily. I don't like change. I don't like goodbyes. I don't like disassembling things that are perfectly perfect. ...I'm probably the worst person in the world with all of the above. Once I get used to something and learn to love it, I want it forever and ever and I never want to let it go. I've known for over a year that this would be very, very hard for me, but there's really nothing you can do to prepare yourself for this, when you're like me.     Last night in my journal, I wrote this:   "Boone this past year has been the best thing that could've possibly happened to me. I feel like I've been missing out on it my whole life, but also like it's always been a part of me. It's like home now... Boone has been like an escape for me - from the pressures of the world...

This past year in Boone through Instagram photos, continued!     With it being my last week in Boone, I just feel like there's a storm in me that won't calm down - I knew it would be really hard to leave, so I've been mentally preparing myself. But after living the college life for so long and then living this past year in Boone, going back and forth between Boone and HP, it's so hard to imagine life any other way now. It seems like it should just be this way forever. And who knows? It might in the future when I get my mountain home! But for now, leaving Boone as my more permanent setting is just heartwrenching!   I'm so happy for the memories I've made in this "safe haven," as I now refer to it as. :)                More to come...             ...