Lepisosteidae

Possibly this is a little too serious for a first blog entry, but J. made a post today which resonated in a lot of ways, about coming up for air after going through hard things and realizing your life really is okay. I had a period of four or five years where everything in my life conspired to drag me under. I dealt with both physical and mental abuse at the hands of people I called friends, I dealt with depression, and I think maybe worst, I dealt with loneliness. There were days I couldn’t bring myself to go to school because I couldn’t name a single person there who cared about me. I was so tremendously unhappy.

But the thing is? Things turned around. The past six months have been full of stress and difficulty and awful situations, but they’ve also been full of an untold amount of joy. I’ve always had a hard time putting into words how grateful I am for friends, but my life is finally, overwhelmingly full of really good people. I may not have a lot of friends where I’m living, but the two I care about most are some of the most amazing individuals I’ve ever met. Probably more importantly in terms of mental landmarks, I have finally reached a point where I trust that both of them love me back as much as I love them, even though one of them is male and therefore entirely without the gene that enables him to discuss affection. (I’m pretty sure he knows I love him; I’m also pretty sure he prefers that I show this affection by giving him half of my food at every meal.) I have my usual group of crazy, delightful people across the globe, in every avenue, and I love them, as well.

But more than that – I’m happy with my life. I’m happy with who I am, and where I’m going, and I am so unbelievably excited for next year. For a wide variety of reasons, I was really concerned that the concept of leaving home was going to be traumatic. I watched a lot of people fall apart over it, and basically I was told by a lot of people (on a lot of fronts) that I needed to be understanding because inevitably I would hit the same wall. But I haven’t. I’m going to miss people, and I’m reasonably certain that I’m going to end up in someone’s room crying over missing my dad, because I haven’t been away from him for more than a month since I was two, and we are peas in a pod, but –

I am deeply, passionately in love with where I’m going, in a way that I can’t manage to put into words, and I am happy with life, happy with myself, and happy with what I’ve chosen. More than that, I basically wake up every morning and go, “LESS THAN TWO MONTHS” because the people I’ve met so far, with a few small exceptions, are the most amazing women I’ve ever known, and the idea of living in the same square mile with all these people who are new and awesome, plus one of the best friends I’ve ever had, not to mention ACTUAL FOOD and a real biology department -

I am so far beyond happy with life I’ve actually inched over into loving it, which is a strange and uncertain new territory, but one that’s pretty damn welcome.