I'm really not looking forward to summer for a number of reasons. I'm not all that enthusiastic to be living at home again, for a whole three months. I love my family, but we get along best when we're not all living in the same house. Sometimes I just need a break from them. One month at home for winter break was pretty much all I could handle. I can't imagine how three months is going to turn out.

Michael will be in Louisiana for all of summer doing his internship. Which really worries me. He lives in Winterset, which I'm fairly certain is only a couple hours away from Cedar Rapids. Dealing with commuting back and forth only every so often would have been hard enough. But now I need to attempt to grasp the fact that I'll suddenly go from seeing him every day to not seeing him at all for three months straight. It's going to be hard. Really really hard. Right now, he's directly down the hall from me. In the same building. On the same floor and everything. It takes less than thirty seconds to walk from my room to his. I'm not questioning whether or not to go through with the three months of long distance, because I know it'll absolutely be worth it. There is no doubt in my mind that I want to make what Michael and I have work for a very very long time. Mostly I worry about the potential ways in which I'm likely to fuck this up. I'm not good with long distance. The one long distance relationship I was in, for a short amount of time, went horribly horribly wrong. Being apart for one month would make me go crazy, second guess and question everything.

I've changed a lot since then, though. I realize the mistakes I've made. I feel much more mature. And to be honest, I am madly and ever-so-deeply in love with Michael. I have never felt this for anyone ever before. It's almost as if he's my other half. It's ironic, really, seeing as just a few months ago I'd been typing on this very blog in a fit of frustration, upset and concerned that I would never find someone who I could completely be myself around, never find someone that matched up with me perfectly. And then he just falls into my lap out of no where. The goofy blonde boy with the glasses from down the hall is suddenly sitting across from me at Panda Express, making me laugh and having me hoping for a second date. I love him, I do. When I tell him I love him, it feels as if it's the first time something absolutely positively true is coming out of my mouth. I've never been so certain of something.

Anyway. I will be busy this summer, so hopefully things will keep me distracted. I'll be working almost full time at the bakery. Taking two, maybe three, classes at Kirkwood. I've got Lolla (possibly Bonaroo instead) to look forward to. Hanging out with friends. And I've already thought of some painting/piano/reading projects I'd like to accomplish over the summer. Hopefully that will be enough to keep me sane and get me through three months.

As for what's happening now, I'm really happy. I'm getting much better grades than I was last semester. Fear is my constant motivation. I want to stay at this school. I'm working as hard as possible to ensure that that's possible. It finally feels like I'm forming a solid friend group. Ellen, Danielle, Stephanie, and I have been hanging out. And it feels right. We all get along really well. And I'm so excited to be rooming with Danielle next year.

Spring break is just a couple weeks away. I'm so looking forward to coming home to my dog and my bed and my mom's homemade cookies and my paintbrushes.

Relationships tend to turn me into a person that I really really don't like being.

Even as I type this I want to cringe at my own cliched corny thoughts
but
it really takes one person to make you realize why everyone else was so wrong for you.