I have to be honest; I have spent days trying to write this post publicly, but have found that the best way to communicate my thoughts in this time is up in my bedroom, quietly writing in my notebook. I have had a lot swishing around in my head; questions, worries, and excitement, but it takes a lot of work to lay them out and explain them to people who don’t live in my head with me! 🙂

Some highlights: At least this round I am much more prepared, emotionally, intellectually, and physically.

Just minutes ago Jared gave me a blessing. I get so anxious and uptight and I make myself sick by letting me get all tied up in knots. But in this blessing, he mentioned that the challenges would be there, but not as many as last year. And that I would be able to use my previous experiences to help get through challenges. At the same time, the new challenges won’t be as many as last year, so he said. I pray that is correct. I don’t want to be labeled as completely MAD when I am only 23.

Fascinatingly enough, the blessing mentioned how positive I have been with interacting with my family and that it has going really well, especially to my brothers. I’ll be honest, most of the time I don’t even know if they care about me calling them. I feel like they equate my call to Mom and Dad calling in to check on them. Mainly I just want to hear about their lives. I am not there to check up on them when they know how to behave and work on their own. I just want to know about what’s going on for every in the family, how they are feeling, stressors that they are facing, etc.

Ironically, whenever anybody asks me how I am doing, I say “fine.” Almost all the time when I say “I am fine, thank you.” It is a signal “I am not feeling great; there’s something going on, but I am not comfortable enough to tell you about it.” Ouch.  Lots of reasons for that response though.

My biggest goal this year is to maintain the fun in learning while still actually learning.

I am SO anxious for tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what I have to work with this year. 🙂

More updates later, I guess…