Just Take the Time to Stop, Think.

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Today was one of those thinking days.

This is going to be the first of many "everyone is leaving!" blogs, so brace yourself.

Today started out with a decision to make unleavened bread for Easter/my mom's birthday. So it actually wasn't very unleavened. It was just banana...Reese's Peanut Butter Cup...bread. And I actually haven't tried it yet, but I hope it is as delicious as it sounds.

Then I cleaned my house...and my room. My room was a complete disaster. So I started out by picking up my shoes. After that...my room was pretty much clean. I have a lot of shoes.

In my now clean room, I tried to practice breakdancing. I am pretty sure that resulted in two pulled muscles, because I am in severe amounts of pain. 8 hours later.

Then I took a nap. I dreamed that I was lying in bed awake. It was surreal.

Then I tried to work on homework, but let's be honest, I can only take working on my porn research paper in half an hour increments before I go absolutely insane.

And then I went to the international cinema with Yon Soo to watch "My Name Is Khan." I'll admit I went in pretty skeptical, because some foreign movies I've watched have either been really good (Town Called Panic, Hadippa!) or completely weird (Russian Ark...still haunts me).

This is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It made me tear up more than any movie I've ever watched, and I rarely get choked up during movies.

It was the story of a Muslim man with Asperger's syndrome and how his life was changed after 9/11 and his journey to tell the president, "My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist."

A short plot summary doesn't explain what the movie was really about though. It was a very, very powerful story about love. Not a love story, a story about love. Love bringing people together. Love helping people overcome pain and anger. Love being the real solution.

It was amazing. And it got me in a really somber mood, which is why today was a thinking day.

I came to several realizations about life.

First, God is smart. For the past...ever...I've been praying for two things that, unknown to me, were contradicting each other. The first one was getting into Heritage Halls. Stupid, I know. And I'll admit, I was so angry with Him for not giving me that. Didn't He know how much I wanted it?

Yeah, He did. But He also knew how much I wanted this other thing. That ultimately, I wanted that more than anything else in the world. And, the other thing would be a lot better blessing than living in Heritage Halls.

I know that didn't make any sense. But the point is, my prayers were answered, just not in the way I expected, but still in a better way I ever could have hoped for.

Second, I've been really selfish. I've literally been sitting around only thinking about myself. "I'm going to be so miserable." "Nothing ever goes right in my life."

Yeah, a lot of things are going to happen soon that are going to make me pretty darn sad. Will I cry at graduation? You bet I will. Will I burst into tears during the AP Stats test? I'd say there's a pretty good chance, especially if there is a free response about Type II errors.

I've been pretty worried about May. The people I've grown closest to this year are going to be leaving for a new part of their own lives, and I've been sitting around thinking about how miserable that's going to make me.

And then I realized a couple things. I'm not the only one who is going to go through that. I'm not saying it won't be hard, but I've really been sitting here thinking that I'm the only one who is going to go through that. Which is just plain selfish. This is freaking graduation. Everybody is going to be going through that.

The other thing I realized is that I've been dwelling too much on people leaving instead of enjoying what time we have left. I've been unhappy basically all of the time because I've had exactly the wrong mindset through all of this.

And one more thing: people that I love are going to leave. But, people that I will come to love will be coming into my life, too! I'm going to meet so many people, especially living in Helaman Halls! I can't even express how excited I am for that. It is going to be such a blast.

This is life. Life is full of changes. Some are a lot bigger than others, but learning how to cope with them is just another part of the experience. College, moving out, really will be a new chapter in my life. And I'm going to make it a fantastic one.

Love,
Kaela