It is What it Is...

Quite simply put, some nights just aren't meant for sleeping, and it would seem that tonight is one of those nights... Which is quite remarkable, actually, considering how exhausted I've been all week. I took a nap right after work around 6:30 p.m., and ended up sleeping til around 9:30 p.m., which would explain why I'm wide awake right now.

Today was actually a very good day. I took a couple of students shopping with me to help get ready for Family Day on Sunday, and it was really rewarding. One of the students I took has been having sort of a difficult time this summer. He's struggling with a recent diagnosis doctors have given him, and he's pretty quiet most of the time. He has these big, sad eyes that just break your heart when you know he's upset.

But today wasn't like that at all. He was excited, happy and eager. He asked questions about me, laughed, joked, sang along with the radio in the car... It was so wonderful to see him happy and smiling, and just really warmed my heart. Today alone has made this summer and all the hectic stuff worth it.

On top of all that, I booked my flight tickets today. So now I know I really am going to St. Louis at the end of the summer to visit Jon. I think it's going to make this next month a lot more bearable. There are so many plans I want to make, and so many things I hope happen while I'm there, but for now, I'm just trying not to get ahead of myself.

So for now, I'm going to watch a little more Bones, then go to bed.

Running in So Many Different Directions

Figured I'd take half a minute to myself and update this thing... Upward Bound is officially done with week one, and I don't think I've ever had a harder week in my life. Up at 7:00 a.m., breakfast by 8:00, and then nonstop work until the students go to bed at 11:00 p.m., at which point we sit down to get that day's paperwork done. We're working sixteen hour days, then falling into bed to get up and do it all over again.

And somewhere in there, I'm trying to make time to talk to Jon. It's been really difficult. I know he's working hard too, and that there's a time difference (only an hour) but it seems like I'm trying harder. I stay up til 1:30-2:00 in the morning just to talk to him, and then it's only for a few minutes because he says he's tired. And that hurts, a lot. And I've been trying to make him understand this, but it's just not getting through. He hasn't been feeling well the last couple days, and that just makes him prone to snap at me. Which doesn't help when my nerves are already fried.

So far, I've taken two students to the emergency room, and a third met me there by ambulance. I have been managing medication for a handful of students, chasing them down at each meal. I have dealt with more attitude from singular people than I thought I would deal with from the whole group. My staff has been all over the place, falling out here and there, and it's incredibly frustrating not to be able to rely on them all the time.

But more than anything, when one of the students calls me, "Miss Amanda," it's all okay again. I love these students to death, and I worry about all of them. I'm Momma Bear, and they're all my cubs whether they want to be or not.

Finally, Laura's wedding was yesterday, and it was absolutely fantastic. She had a Disney theme that she managed to pull off without being at all cheesy. The bridesmaid dresses were amazing, Josh looked incredibly handsome, and Laura was more beautiful than I ever thought possible. I'm so glad I was there, and I had a lot of fun sitting with the other people from work.

Now it's time to go, because there are a million more things to do before the students get back at 6:00.

Lots of News, and None of it Good

There are a zillion things I could be blogging about right now... It could be the fact that I am now without a car. There's a long story involving a blown engine, mechanics, tow truck drivers (plural), Michigan State Police, and all that jazz. There's also a speeding ticket in there somewhere.

I could talk about the fact that I barely know anything about my summer job. Still no room assignment, don't know when I have to move all my things (alone, no less). Don't know what my job really entails, and what I do know, I definitely wouldn't have chosen.

No, but what I want to talk about is Jon. Jon has been gone for a little over a week now. His graduation is Saturday, and I'm paying almost $200 to rent a car for the weekend, just to see him graduate, and to spend time with him and his family.

I love his family, don't get me wrong, but I just want to spend time with him. I know that's what they want too, and that I'm being selfish. But I won't see him again until October. His parents are at least taking the time to drive down and see him. That's something I won't get to do. So I'm upset about that.

Also, Jon just called to tell me he received another job offer. This one is from Norweigan Cruise Lines. I tried so hard to be supportive. I told him I was proud of him, and I am. But really? I'm so upset and angry at the world right now. It's not enough to have him in St. Louis, 574 miles and 10 hours away... Now I have to contend with a whole goddamn ocean?

I understand life isn't supposed to be fair. Really, I get that. I just wish that for once, I could feel like I had at least a little bit of a say in my own life. If I can't keep him in this state, or even in this time zone, can't I at least have him on the same landmass?

St. Louis was supposed to be over at the end of October. He talked about going to Florida after that, possibly in December. As much as that still sucks, there's a month or so of time in there. There are days for him to lie beside me and act like he never had to leave me. And at least Florida offered some hint of a possibility of permanence. I told him that the second there was somewhere permanent, I would be there. A cruise line is not permanent. Maybe semi-permanent for him. But not for us.

Is it wrong for me to feel like this? I've never felt like this about someone before. I didn't ever really believe in soul mates or one right person, but I have known from the first day I met him that I am supposed to be with him. How do you tell someone, "Oh, a cruise line in December? Gosh, I figured we'd be engaged in December..."

How do I stand there with a smile on my face and congratulate him on this big success, when I know it means I might not see him for years?

Bucket List: Almost a Year Later

Accomplished 4 in the last 10 months:

-Visit another country. Any other country, just leave America.

-Went to Mexico just this month.

-Start a teacup collection. My aunt had one in a really nice glass cabinet that I always liked…

-It's not an extensive collection yet, but it's a start!

-Have a gorgeous wedding ceremony and an even more perfect marriage to someone I love.

-Be a truly involved and loving parent. We’re talking PTA Mom of the year style.

-Write a book. It might not even be a good book, but I at least want to finish one story that I’ve started.

-Plant a garden and eat what comes out of it. Maybe I’ll even learn how to can things.That’d be nifty.

-Learn more dances! Become really great at waltzing.

-Legitimately go camping. Not in some dinky little park… Somewhere without other people where I have to hike all day, then stop, wake up in the morning and hike home.

-Ride the spinning teacups at Disney World. Preferably whilst wearing a mouse ear hat with my name on it.

-Learn to play piano well

-Go horseback riding somewhere pretty.

-Go ice skating outside somewhere, instead of an indoor rink.

-Grow my hair out long enough that I can donate it to Locks of Love.

-Rescue an animal from a pet shelter and give him/her a loving forever home.

-Visit a psychic.

-Go back to Christmas World in Michigan and actually buy things that I want to buy… Use this as my one chance to splurge on completely unnecessary items and get lovely gifts for everyone.

-Learn how to golf. Not even well, just learn how to do it.

-Go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

-Milk a cow while sitting on one of the little wooden stools like you always see in the movies. It would be even cooler if the cow’s name was “Bessie.”

-Have a library in my house.

-Get all dressed up and go see The Nutcracker.

-Jon and I went to see it this Christmas!

-Get kissed under the mistletoe.

-Go on a real date.

-We went to the Tall Ships Festival in Pennsylvania!

More Terribly Screwed Up Dreams

Woke up at 6:50 a.m. on April Fool's Day, sobbing. Here is the delightful dream that caused it. I'll be telling it in first person, because I'm going to have to do dream work with it anyway in one of my classes, and our professor makes us tell our dreams like they're happening:

Jon and I are waiting outside, near some train tracks. It is winter. There's no snow falling, but the ground is completely covered, and I can see my breath in the air. We are waiting for a bus of some kind.

There are six people with us: two white couples, and a black couple. We are all discussing an article in the paper, about how Mekhi Phifer was arrested for killing four people. I tell everyone how much I liked him in "ER."

We are all waiting for some weird bus. This trip is supposed to be some sort of big experience. (When I wake up, I will think about it like the acid trip buses in the 1960s. Then I will be reminded of the movie Inception, the idea of waiting for a train, and that while you don't know where the train will take you, it's okay, because you're together)

When the bus finally arrives, it's absolutely packed. The whole back of the bus lowers like a drawbridge, and it looks like a bar inside. The floors are wooden, and there are wooden stools next to the bar. It's dim inside, except for lights over the bar and televisions glaring.

The other couples we are waiting with get on the bus. One of the white women got on, but the man she was with, her boyfriend, isn't able to get on the bus. The woman starts screaming, and the bus stops to let him cram in too.

Jon and I watch this, after having walked into and then back out of the bus. We look at each other and share an unspoken thought: "We don't need this."

We walk away, with everyone asking about it. Everyone new to the bus stop wants to know what it was like. Jon and I just smile, and I tell them that we didn't go. As we walk away from them, I turn back to smile and say, "I hope you find what you're looking for." The people at the bus stop smile back at us, and everything is perfect.

As Jon and I walk away, we feel so completely alive, and untouchable. But the further we get from the bus stop, the more we start to feel like something is wrong. It is still dark out, and we are trying to make it through town, back home. It starts to dawn.

Suddenly, we are back by the train tracks again. It is dark, and we are dodging trains. Suddenly, the tracks are all full with trains in both directions, and I know what is going to happen. I know something is very wrong.

As we dodge, I see a small gap in the trains for us to squeeze through. I get where I need to go, but Jon dodges the wrong way. I scream, "JON!" But it is too late. Jon dodges left instead of right.

The train hits him, tearing him completely in half. It's seamless. The top of his body is there, and then it isn't. The train stops as soon as it hits him. The driver gets out and sees what has happened. He throws up, and then begins to look for something

Jon's blood is such a strange color. Sort of purple-ish and metallic. I think of Harry Potter, and how I always imagined unicorn blood would look. (When I wake up, Jon will say, "Like motor oil?" and I will be surprised how well he pictures what I mean) The color is so strange against the white of the snow.

The driver is saying, "We have to find the other half of his head." I have been screaming, but suddenly, I calmly point beneath the side of the train, and say "It's right here." I am dialing a number on my Blackberry. I thought I dialed 911, but Jon answers the phone.

I am looking at the train, confused. I am sobbing, and I hear Jon's voice on the phone. "Hey, Baby!"

"Bunny?" I reply. (That's what I call him)

"Yeah." Jon answers. "What's wrong? You sound upset."

I am crying, and smiling an odd smile, trying to keep it together on the phone. "Oh, nothing, Bunny. It's just... Something real serious just happened here, and I needed to hear your voice, okay?"

"Okay, babe. I love you."

As I am saying, "I love you too," I am crying harder. I know that when I hang up the phone with you, everything is over.

And this is where I wake up crying.

In my dreams, I almost never hear the dialog. I just know what it is that has happened or was said, or everyone speaks in my voice. Never before have I so clearly heard someone else's voice in a dream. I woke up crying and couldn't go back to sleep. I scared Jon to death because I gasped so loud when I woke up.

Oddly enough, he said he'd woken up a few seconds before I did. When he stays over, he always likes to be touching me, even if it's just a hand on my shoulder. He said that as soon as he touched me, I woke up crying. Even stranger, as I was describing the dream, he could see a lot of what I was saying. (The way he described the blood color really freaked me out.)

So that's my latest, very odd dream.

Wait... What?

This evening my mother called to tell me that she's going to start packing stuff up. I thought that was pretty vague. I asked why she was packing, and she told me that they're probably going to have to leave the house pretty soon.

I knew things were bad, but I never knew it was that bad. They're going to take our house, and my parents are going to be homeless. I'm not going to have anywhere to go back to. The house I grew up in, that has so many memories, and has always been a part of my life is just gone.

But what did she tell me? Not to worry.

How do I not worry about the fact that I have no home anymore?

Dream from Ages Ago

I had this really weird dream January 9, and I wrote it all down so I could type it out here and figure out what it means, but I ran out of time, and then there was a whole other slew of weird-ass dreams to contend with, so I'm just now getting it out.

Jon and I were out in the woods on some kind of day trip. There were other people with us, but I don't remember who they were right now. I know there was a sheriff or park ranger of some kind, but that's about it. Anyway, we were out in the woods, and there was this big, evil, demonic deer.

The deer was very tall, but really skinny... Kind of like the skinny "got milk" vow. He had long skinny arms and legs too. His head was really, REALLY big though. His snout was long and sort of wideish, but it was open on top, and there were about fifty or so spikes sticking out of it. He had antlers, but I don't remember specifics. What I remember most were his eyes, which were small and white, and very evil.

I don't know what all was happening, but the basic gist of it was that he was after Jon, myself and the rest of our group. It got to a point where it was just me, Jon and the sheriff person in the woods, because everyone else had been killed. The sheriff had something to do with it... he'd unleashed this deer's power somehow.

Jon and I went to this little tipi village to find out what had happened. It turned out that a man (I think the sheriff) had played some kind of dice game with this little Indian girl, and he'd lost, so this deer was roaming around killing people. So, Jon and I decided to play against this little girl to see if we could win and stop it.

Jon rolled the dice, and lost, but I rolled against her and won first try. This old Indian woman, who I assume was her grandmother, told me mysteriously, "You've always been lucky, haven't you?" Basically from this point, the idea became that because I was so lucky, I was invincible, and thus could be fearless.

The dream sort of fast-forwarded, and I was scaring the deer into the woods, growling at him and making clawing motions at it. The deer just looked at me with hatred and vengeance, and took off running after Jon, because he couldn't kill me. I ran off after them, just in time to see Jon kneeling on the ground facing me, with a spear impaled through him from his lower back out through the middle of his chest.

I got angry because the deer had killed Jon, and I jumped up into the air with a stick of my own, sort of like a big log. It was like slow motion, and I jumped unnaturally high and came down unnaturally slow. I missed the deer, but I knew I had to bounce on a log.

I don't know if I actually killed the deer or not. The next thing I remember is coming to a cliff, and diving off the side. This 20-sided die appeared as I was falling into oblivion. Knowing that I was lucky, I took the dice and rolled a twenty. This hexagon-shaped object (which kind of reminded me of a children's toy) appeared, and I could spin it backwards as far as I wanted.

It was like a time machine, and I turned it back further and further until Jon and I were unpacking at a beach. To avoid the deer and everything else, I'd apparently just changed our plans. Then all of a sudden, it was me watching this beach scene on TV at Celia's apartment. My godson tottered down the hall, and I took out the beach DVD so he could watch cartoons.

And THAT is my crazy ass dream.