Home (and the incredible wisdom of a 4 yr old!)

The last time I was home (in Blono - my real home) was over 2 months ago to see my little brother enlist in the Air National Guard.  My family has always been important to me, but since starting at SLU and moving to St. Louis full time at the beginning of my sophomore year, it has become an even bigger part of my life.  I realize I am only 3 hours away, but away is away.  Plus, with working weekends, I am not able to go see them whenever I would like to.  That's why trips home are so emotional for me.

While home, I was able to see some great friends and catch up on their lives.  I love that I still have friendships from high school that are such a central part of my life.  These are people that I know I can depend on through anything, and I am eternally grateful that I have them.  They help bring me back to reality and just enjoy myself and my life.  Plus, one of my good friends is getting married in October, so it is beyond exciting to hear about the plans and see how happy and in love she is.  It's going to be such a great wedding to experience!

I also saw Dan's sister graduate high school.  I've known Ali for 7 years now, so it's crazy to think that she is grown up enough to graduate.  Plus, she will be leaving for West Point within the next month, so that is emotional, too.  Dan is so proud of her, and so am I.  Next time we go home, it will be so different without the little siblings around.

Which brings me to the main reason this weekend was emotional.  Josh was supposed to leave for basic in October, but they called saying they had an earlier date, and asked if he wanted it.  Without even asking what the date was, he said yes.  He cannot wait to get out of Blono and start his life.  He will be leaving June 7, so we had his going away party this weekend.  Basically, for the next year, Josh will not be home except for potential short breaks between different trainings.  Over the next 8 weeks of basic, the only communication I can have with my baby brother is letter writing.  Then he will go to FL for 19 weeks for TAC-P training, and at some point he will also be going to WA for survival school (or something like that).  He has a lot of training ahead of him, and I am so proud of him, but I am definitely going to miss him.  We have gotten a lot closer as we've gotten older, so not being able to text him about my day is going to be such a hard change to adjust to. I already cannot wait to go see him graduate from basic...

Now for the wisdom of a 4 yr old -

My niece is my favorite person in the world.  She amazes me every time I see her with how smart, friendly, and absolutely caring she is.  Right before I was getting ready to leave, a bird pooped on my leg.  It was this tiny little thing near my ankle, but I semi freaked out, asking my dad frantically to bring me something to whip it off and saying how "gross" and "disgusting" it was.  Aidan asked what happened with genuine concern and came over to look at it, when she saw it, she said "well, it's a small little bit."  Talk about perspective.  She definitely brought me back down to earth.  She didn't say it in a normal bratty 4 year old voice (that she has also perfected - don't get me wrong!).  Instead, she was trying to console me.  She did not deny that a bird pooped on me, but she put it in perspective - it could have been a lot worse.  Just like the rest of life.

I need her influence in my life more often!

a new addition?

So in the past year, I've gone through quite a few changes.  One including moving in with my boyfriend.  Shockingly (kind of...), we did not kill each other, and when he bought a house, I was invited to stay with him, and for it to be "our" house.  Everyone knows it's the woman's responsibility to fill said house.


It is happening a little faster than expected, but I will be adding to our little family.  This weekend!  I bought an adorable chocolate lab puppy named Riley :)   (pets are all I can do - it is no where near time for little children!)


So Miss Riley will be joining the fam (of already a dog and 2 cats) this weekend.  I get to leave in the morning after work to go home and see everyone and pick up my baby!  I am sure Bella is going to be super stoked to play with a puppy...until she realizes said puppy is getting in the car and coming back to her house.  Hopefully they get along...   I know Pika is not going to be even remotely pleased, but Payton may enjoy someone new to play with.


I have had quite a few large dogs throughout my life, and my parents currently have a lab, so I am aware of the trials that we'll face, but I also know that I want a huge dog that thinks she's a lap dog.  Plus, labs have more love than practically any animal I have ever seen.  She's going to fit right in :)

there's no place like home.

I hate St. Louis.  Don't get me wrong...I love SLU, and I know I made the right choice in spending 3.5 years of my life there.  I got a great education and met a FEW people that I know I will be friends with for a long time.  I learned a lot about psychology and life in general, and I have a lot of memories that I am beyond grateful for.


But I HATE St. Louis.  I think I have always kind of felt this way, but now I am starting to feel stuck here.  I had imagined I would be leaving again for school, but now we're getting ready to move into this house, and St. Louis suddenly seems so permanent, and I REALLY don't want it to be.  It sounds bad, but it St. Louis is just so full of uneducated, unmotivated, and self-centered people that it makes doing anything completely annoying.  Driving, being at a grocery store, etc.  Anything public, to be quite honest.


Driving, especially.  I have always not enjoyed driving, but it sucks so much more here than home.  I expect to get tboned pulling into my apt complex.  That is NOT ok.  Why do I expect it?  Well, because there are countless people who think they are too good to sit at the red light, so they try to make 2 quick "right on red"s while I am legally turning left on a green arrow.  At least once I week, I have to slam on my brakes to avoid a collision.  Why do these people think they're too good to wait?  Because if I could talk to them, I would promise them that they are NOT too good to wait like the rest of the world.  Then, today, I was driving home and a person stopped in my lane.  Just stopped.  They then proceeded to get into the suicide lane to turn left, I assume.  As I go to continue in my lane, the come right back into it.  I had to slam on my brakes and swerve into the other lane.  How can people be so self-centered that they don't even think about other people on the road?  It's dangerous.  And an annoying character flaw.


That's how it is down here, though.  In an area where poverty is so common (which I know I should feel bad about...) people are uneducated, ignorant, self-centered, and they expect things to be handed to them.  I want to be somewhere where mostly everyone works hard for what they have and have an appreciation for life.  I don't want to be here.

back to square one?

I have basically been continuously changing my mind over the past few months - I wanted to go to grad school, then I was rejected by UMSL and I had no desire to go anywhere, then I visited Indiana and fell in love with the program, then I was rejected, which made me wonder if I even wanted to go to graduate school for psychology.  I began looking into counseling programs, and it seemed like a great idea - mostly because they wanted my transcript and that's it.  They didn't care what my GRE score was - they were impressed with my GPA (which I feel is a much better indicator of how I will do in graduate school), so I felt wanted.


However, I had a realization yesterday - getting a MA in counseling is the same as just giving up.  It is taking the easy way out and giving up on my dream, so I will be taking a year off.  I will spend this year looking into maybe taking the GRE again, looking at some Ph.D. (in both clinical and counseling psych), some Psy.D., and some MA programs in clinical psych and doing the whole application process again.


If it doesn't work out, then I can do a MA in counseling, but at least I'll know that I put my all into it.


Hopefully it works out...

Change of pace...

So after being sufficiently upset about my PhD failure (at least, I'd like to think I'm over it...), I started thinking about doing a MA program in Counseling.  It's a different career path, that may or may not allow me to do all the things I want to do.  It will definitely earn me less money than a PhD, but it will earn me more than a BA.

The hardest part of all of this, is I feel like I cannot do what I WANT.  When we're kids, don't our parents tell us we can do anything we want, as long as we put our mind to it?  Well, I've put my mind to this.  I want to help people.  I want to get an education that allows me to work with offenders and those with addictions to help them straighten out their lives and better society as a whole.

Some day, I may still be able to get my PhD, but for now, to me, it makes more sense to continue my education along another degree path.  The other option is working crappy jobs for the next year that probably won't help me get into school in the future and won't pay me enough to pay for my school loans.  I think going to school and getting licensed as a professional counselor will allow me to do what I want, or at least get me closer.

There's a school in St. Louis that I can go to starting in August, if I want.  I need to try to figure out the finances, but right now, it's looking like my best option...

the decision has been made.

It is official.  I will not be attending graduate school next year.  Indiana Sate (the only school I was even wait-listed at) sent me and email that all of their open positions have been filled.

Over the past few weeks, I have really gotten my hopes up.  Since I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be a Psychologist.  To me, it doesn't make sense that it is so hard for me to get there.  It's frustrating because I see my friends finding jobs already, and it makes me jealous.  I worked extremely hard all through college for this.  My sophomore year I took 18 credit hours each semester, worked 15 hours a week, and managed to get a 4.0 gpa.  Starting my junior year, you can add doing research to that list.  I barely had time to enjoy my college experience because I did everything that I could to build up my resume for graduate school.  It's a huge slap in the face that none of the schools I applied to recognized that hard work, and I don't feel like anyone really understands how I feel.  I can't just "find a job" because I have no desire to do anything I qualify for.  I don't want to use my degree to basically be a social worker driving around STL to deal with dysfunctional families.  I want to be able to do psychological assessments and psychotherapy.  How does a girl that graduated with a 3.93 gpa not qualify for a higher degree so I can reach that goal?

reflecting...

I sold my Saturn this morning.  It's an incredibly bitter-sweet feeling, which I am starting to think life is just going to continue to be full of as I get older.

On my 16th birthday, I was in my mom's car with her and my dad, and my dad told me he needed to stop by someone's house from work to drop something off.  I remember being kind of irritated.  It was "my day," and we had to go out of "my" way to do something, but I got over it.  When we got to the house, my dad walked up and knocked, but while he was out of the car, my mom handed me my birthday card.  I told her I would wait until dad got back to open it, but she told me to go ahead.  When I opened the card, there was a picture of a car in it - the car we were parked right next to.  It took me a second to figure it out, but when I did, I was the HAPPIEST 16 year old in the world.

I had NO idea I would be getting a car, and I know how lucky I was that they did everything they could to get it for me.

Of course, I have complained about the car over the past 6.5 years, and at one point I even "totaled" it, but it has been the most reliable little car.  Plus, I have some pretty great memories in that car.  Like my first kiss with Dan.  Or getting stuck in Dan's drive way in the snow.  Or getting stuck driving to school in the snow!  Trying to make my flags fit for guard.  Packing it full of friends to drive to school each morning, and packing it full of stuff to come off to college with.

That's why it's so hard to let go.  To me, this seems so symbolic of growing up and moving on with life.  I am learning to love my new(for me) jeep, but I'm not as comfortable with it, yet.  Which is life.  Changes have to happen, and we have to get use to them to prepare for more changes.


Who knew this would be so emotional for me?!