I'm ready.

It's a Monday.
    Also, gurls, I got a haircut.

 and I feel bald. The grand total was 12 inches but I'm still getting used to not having to pull my hair through the neck holes of all my shirts. I still have enough for a teeny tiny ponytail, and I kind of love it.

OKAY. THE 100TH POST WAS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. It was just like one of our telephone calls, where we all talk over each other and say completely unrelated, borderline creepy things. Definitely an anniversary post I would not have had any other way. I cannot wait for our one year-aversary post on September 23rd (I had to go back to our first post to remember the date and of course I read it through and became very nostalgic and proud of how differently we all write six months later).

    Mercy, your post was wonderful and full of Psych. Reading it made me miss the show, even before it ended (best. Finale. Ever. Agh).
    Rose- thank you immensely for our special tour of your Mind Palace on Wednesday. Never have I been more impressed or creeped out by you. And you know that says something.

   

So, I honestly had no idea what to post about today. Usually I have a pretty good idea when I wake up on Monday morning what I'll be writing about, but today I woke up before my alarm and it was snowing softly and Pippin (my kitty) was cat-spooning with me and everything felt too perfect to put into words. 

    And then my hormones kicked in and I went on Facebook and became insecure and school was boring and I didn't even finish because I was 500% done with how boring all of it was. And it slowly crept up on me like spring sunshine, dawned like those inklings I get that can only come from God because I'm so indecisive.

     I believe, although I am not totally sure yet, that I'm ready. Ready to leave.

    I think what I'm experiencing is something everyone must go through at the end of their senior year. I feel as if I have outgrown my life, and I am not even sad about being too old for it all, unashamedly counting down the four or so months until I head to college.

    I'm not mad, or upset, or depressed. I'm just tired of all of everything, and I know I'm being told it's time for me to move on into the next phase of my life. I love my family, but it's time for me to have my wide open space- to start a little world they can never be a part of in the same way that they have been for my entire life. I love my friends- I have lots of very...nice friends. People I hang out with outside of youth group sometimes, who aren't bad people, I just can't really open up and be my real self around most of them. I know we'll all go our separate ways, branching out and making new friends and meeting first loves and, realistically, forgetting about each other. And that's okay. I am beyond grateful for my nice, normal friends, the ones who I never really leaned on but whiled away Friday nights with, creating teenage memories bathed in a funny golden light.

    I'm accepting these things are going to change. I'm okay with no longer feeling left out and inadequate in a high schooler way. I'm okay with leaving behind childhood friends, and family drama, and meeting people who don't still see me as the chubby 10-year-old with a homeschooler haircut and an inhaler.

     There are, of course, the things I love and never ever want to leave behind. There are my long-term friends- The Foursome, my neighbor-friend (and spooning buddy;) and Rachel the Opera Singer and Miss Megan and maybe the boy I danced in a thunderstorm with once, and a few more recent kindred spirits who have yet to heap memories upon me. And there's family dinners and my brother's overprotective nerd friends and all the places I made these memories at- my childhood bedroom, my church, Starbucks, Cape Cod, the wall down at the street corner. I'm sad to leave all of this but I know I have to, and I know when I come back and visit everything will be different, because for the first time I will have lived my life away from these people and places.

    So, what am I to do for the next four months? Start saying goodbye. This past weekend was my last quiz team meet, and I got a little teary-eyed in my last ever quiz, and I got a bookmark when they honored the seniors and made us stand up and give sage advice, and my team made me hold our third place trophy when we posed for awkward pictures. Thank God I feel outgrown now, so I can start letting go- chopping off most of my hair and forgiving myself and learning not to be ashamed of my past. 

    I know, y'all are probably tired of hearing me harp on about 12th grade and Senioritis and SHU. But, you know what else I have realized? I'm not ashamed to be an inconvenience. I've spent most of my life being afraid to make people deal with me, not letting them invest time in me, because why would they really want to? But now I am done burning with shame, forsaking the grace God has given me since the day I first drew breath. So, I'm going to be posting a lot about letting go, and saying goodbye, and crying over all this change, and y'all are just going to have to deal with all of me. I am an imperfect, self-absorbed person who occasionally has to impose on other people- just like everyone else.

    You know what this post makes me think of?

    Gurls, I love this blog and I love how different we all are and I cannot wait to read what y'all have to say, this week and the next and maybe even forever :)

JarPad says goodbye too. #weeklydose

also last week's dose because I forgot

--Laura :)