moving on to the next chapter.

So, Mary, what are you going to do now that you've just ended the most (mentally) challenging semester of your life?

...I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD. no, really.

I've actually been dreaming about saying that for weeks, and now that it comes time to, thoughts are hard to form. I have literally been waiting for this moment to come. This has, really, been the most challenging semester of my life. I've reached my low points many times a

nd contemplated giving up, but I am now done...and so ready to move ahead.

Now, I know I have been kind of down all semester, and I hate to be a negative person, but somehow I just got into this funk..and I couldn't figure out how to get out. I know that I am a very fortunate person, that I have great opportun

ities and am SO HAPPY to be where I am in my life, but something just wasn't right. It was killing me that I was so unhappy when I really should be so happy, that there are people out there who have so much less than me and weren't feeling the way I was. I was crying every night, and while there are a number of reasons that could be challenging, everything came back to the living situation I was in (being a Resident Assistant), and how miserable it made me. While I've been an RA for the past year and a half, something just wasn't clicking anymore, and it was taking over my personal life in an unhealthy way. I could say so many negative things about the situation, but I am just going to chalk it up and move ahead. And that's exactly how I see it. Moving ahead.

It was so hard for me to end my time as an RA because I really do enjoy some of the fundamental aspects of it. But where I was, I couldn't enjoy it. Yes, I do need the money; yes, I do enjoy helping others and creating a community, but what was brought along with it was bringing me down big time, and it wasn't worth my happiness. College is supposed to be a time where you work for bettering yourself in all areas, and I was working nonstop for about a number other people and it became unhealthy. While I'm sure I'll reflect more later, for now, the simple happiness of moving on to the next chapter is enough for me; why overanalyze it?

I want to continue to help people, but how can I do that without being the healthiest person I can be first? At least that's how someone great explained it to me.

Now, I am about to signify the end of this rough semester, and move on to the next chapter. Today, I removed myself from the environment I believed was toxic to me. Starting with tomorrow, one of my best friends and I will be defeating holiday travelers to fly to one of my most favorite places, Disney World, to visit another best friend who is doing a semester there. But that's not all. As the song goes, I'll be home for Christmas to spend time with my amazing family..the ones who, when they found out just how hard I was having, helped me out, and supported my choices. I know that they would do anything for me, including move me out of a tough spot without any complaints. After Christmas, my amazing boyfriend has gotten me a flight to go visit him in Maryland for New Years Eve. While, as stated in previous posts, this scares the pants off me, I'm just so happy to be spending time with such amazing people. So, 6 flights here I come. I am ready to see where they take me, signifying an end to this challenging time, and a start to a next chapter. I am so fortunate. At a particularly low point this semester, as I was deciding whether or not to continue being an RA next semester, had contemplated booking my flight to Florida for financial reasons, when a mentor of mine said to me, "I just have this picture of you, on a plane, the day after you remove yourself from what seems to be the root of this semester's problems; ready." And after all these decisions were made, the waiting game started. And now I'm done!

So there. Life is amazing; and there was something really huge standing in my way from helping me enjoy it the last few months. While I've struggled so much

with knowing this fact, yet feeling helpless to feel anything but helpless, I'm ready to get back into the world, better myself, and figure out what my next moves are. To anyone who has supported me the last few months, I thank you and I am so grateful for you and everything you do. After a while of doing everything for everyone else, I'm going to start doing me, and figuring out exactly what that means, and how I can apply that to the rest of the world.

*Update: I got a 4.0 this semester, so while I feel that I was so mentally taxed, my academics were a rock (among many), and I am grateful and proud.

"Around here, we don't look backwards for very long... We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things because we're curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths..." - Walt Disney

wondering:

working hard.

mottos.

being only human.

What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person - John Green.

W&W on a rainy Saturday night

welcoming October with 40 degree weather and rain...

I want to drink these little guys this October, but I could do without this crappy weather. October, please step up your game for the next 30 days. You are my favorite month and I'd like to keep loving you, not just from my bed under all of the covers.

wanting: a child to dress up.

shouting out to all my baby friends...

just for a night.

mixing these two

only wanting to

challenging yourself.

magic.

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

being back in the saddle.

"At some point you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That's how we're made. So, you can waste your life drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them."

- Grey's Anatomy.

admitting I'm a bit lost right now.

So, a couple of months ago I received a love letter. Not the creepy kind of love letter, even though it felt that way at first, as he explained from the get go, but a letter of someone sincerely saying they were thinking about me and what had happened to me in my life. It was from a person I knew through grade school, up until graduation when we all parted ways, and came in the form of Facebook messages (take that Nicholas Sparks, get in my digital age). It started out with saying that I deserve to hear what he thought about me in the most honest way, because someone should tell me. This really...confused me, my mind jumping to I must have wronged him in some way back in school, and he wanted to get itoff his chest. So now, after years of being out of high school, this person decided to contact me:

Excuse my lack of explaining the situation, I was trying to avoid putting you in an awkward position. Basically, since I've met you, I felt a connection to you, and I always liked you more than a friend. The whole point of why I originally sent you a message then deleted it (although somehow an upside down question mark got sent) was because I felt motivated to tell you how I've always felt about you. Then I decided that I should delete that message that explained in detail why you were someone I adored and thought was absolutely amazing.

So, me, naturally being completely lost when it comes to anything like this, asked what he meant, since that was basically all I got, an upside-down question mark and some vagueness. The next part is where it really gets me...I then received the longest message I have ever received, in full detail, of many redeeming qualities this friend thinks I possess. That's it. Plain and simple. Not asking for anything in return, he just wanted me to know how he has felt about me, from the time in third grade in religious education classes at church, through the time I had my first boyfriend who was not treating me so kindly, up through high school when I loved to paint, and so on...in detail. For some reason, I laughed it off at the time, read it with my best friends, thinking of it as nice, but I. never. responded. I received a couple more messages, mostly with apologies for making things awkward, but I really didn't even pay attention to them. Life was moving too fast for me. For some reason, today I decided to get back to him, and I saw this final message:

Hey I'm sorry again this was stupidly embarrassing, and I realize it is weird to have explained all of this (I should have not tried to justify why I accidentally sent you something, and so let's just forget it). As I'm looking over this whole fiasco, it is so stupid I never honestly wanted it to go this way if I was going to tell you how I felt in the past haha... all

because of a stupid question mark that I can't explain either. It's pretty laughable how stupid it is. Sometimes it is what it is, you know? But basically I just wanted to tell you how amazing you are and I hope you realize it. Don't ever under value yourself (not that I'm saying you have or are), just remember that. And if you EVER need someone to vent to, need advice on something, or even anything at all, don't hesitate to ask. Good luck Mary, I hope all is well.

And now I'm thinking WHAT THE HELL, MARY? For someone who values kindness over matter, over anything else, why didn't I respond to such a heartfelt thing that someone has taken the time for? It's not like I had to drop everything and marry him, but why didn't I at least acknowledge how nice this was? What the hell was I doing that was so important for months that I couldn't at least respond?

And that's what puts me here, when I have to be up in a couple hours for a l

ong day of work, trying to type up some sort of response to make up for my lack of response. And why today, of all days, is this getting to me so badly?

caring.

"normal".

"And now we're supposed to go back to our normal lives. That's what people do. They have amazing experiences with another person and then they just go home and clean the bathroom or whatever."

- Susane Colasanti, When it Happens.

I totally get this right now, and am amazed by how this happens in life. I travel to East Africa and come back and can sit on my couch, watching crappy tv and eating junk food; come home from having an amazing experience with someone I love and have a completely normal day afterward. What do you do after these amazing experiences that honor what you've done? In the end, I guess it's day by day, in the little things you do that they show. They change you little by little, but I just don't know.

Children.

“

"Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it." - Maurice Sendak

trying.

"'When people tell me that I'm good, my response is, 'I'm trying.' But there's some people that know me from back when- anytime I make a trip to New York- and when they hear I'm a pastor of a church, all of a sudden, it's like "'I know you gettin' paid, boy. I know you gettin' paid. I know you.'" He paused. His voice lowered. "No, I say. You knew me. You knew that person, but you don't know the person that I'm trying to become.'"

- Have a Little Faith: A True Story, by Mitch Albom

Memories that change you.

the truth.

The loving are the daring.

- Bayard Taylor

Buddha's wisdom

This past school year I did a hands-on project for Champlain on Shambhala Buddhism (a specific type), took a meditation introduction from an all-knowing man named Dan on a clarity-filled Saturday morning, wrote a 12 page ethnographic paper, and have been reading a novel on the history of it all. What really gets me is this man's brilliance. I promise myself to learn more about him, even if just his wisdom through quotes.

quotes.

fear, traveling, and love.

So after traveling halfway around the world to Africa to gain perspectives, make friends and help out in any way, to Canada on a runaway whim to drink beer and brainstorm about love andgrowing up with my sister, and down the coast to visit someone I love in a different way I hadn't experienced before, not to mention home to find my heart and mind searching in between; I'm a whirlwind of thinking right now. It's the end of June and this summer has been a complete game changer for me.

I have done things this summer so far that have scared the shit out of me, and may have even stopped me before in my life. In all of the months leading up to Tanz, I doubted myself out of fear. Many times I thought of backing out, thought I couldn't do it, that being out of my comfort zone for three weeks was too much to handle. I applied for the trip when I didn't know what would be going on in the future for me; I was thinking about my love for teaching at the time and was amazed at being accepted for the opportunity. Months before the trip I would leave a meeting, flop down on my boyfriends couch and say I couldn't do it, that it was just too much, and we'd resolve not to think about it because it was far away. Before I knew it, the time came to leave and I faced my fears of going, got on a plane, and traveled half way around the world with 11 other people. I can't really sum up the trip in one post of words, but I have a journal I kept that keeps me going back to that time. I could spend hours talking about the transformation, but I'm sure it'll just change as I do. I learned life stories, struggled to share my emotions (cried..a lot), and made some life long connections that have changed me

for the better. Bagamoyo, the town in Tanzania that we stayed in, means "lay down your heart", and that is exactly what I did. And importantly, I have found that doing what I was scared of has allowed me to do so.

Coming back from Tanz has continued to change me. After holing up in my bed with what felt like an African hangover for days, I was unsure of what else I could do in my life that would give me the same experience I had just had. I missed so many people, including my boyfriend that stood by my side during my roller-coaster of emotions leading up to the trip, and resolved to show the appreciation of relationships I observed in Bagamoyo in my everyday life. Saying proved to be a lot harder than doing right away, however. Reverse culture shock..well...shocked me. I wanted to do more things to challenge myself, to push boundaries, make my relationships better, and contribute to others in anyway that I can...but I didn't know where to start.

So, after my sister came home one day with relationship troubles and a rut she just couldn't get out, we resolved to run away. My sister and I have been a duo my whole life, and in a matter of an hours time and decisions between North or South, we were on our way to Montreal (Beer Fest..really!!!) for a night to get away from it all. And it helped.

And onto the next part.. I have just returned from visiting said boyfriend. It was the first time seeing him after a trip that has caused me to think about him and my relationship skills (or handicaps, b

asically) and a first of many things: of traveling far away to visit a boyfriend, of spending time living together straight, meeting his family, seeing where he comes from, etc. The feelings from before Africa flooded back to me before going, fear of laying down my heart, of being pushed out of my comfort zone. I have been criticized in so many relationships for "being at an arm's length", and relying on that length to keep me safe. But, I crossed that length by leaps and bounds for Bagamoyo and wasn't going to let it stop me again. And I'm glad I didn't.

This weekend has reinforced the fact that Tanzania has changed me, in a good way. As scared as I was to

push myself, and THEN to lose the rewarding feeling afterwards, I have found that you don't have to travel halfway across the world to lay down your heart, and the resolutions I have made can make a difference in living the life I want here. While I so wish to travel back to Tanzania as soon as I can, I am realizing how much it has helped me to experience my life here. I hope to keep this going in my life by creating new paths, keeping those experiences I have had alive by carrying them in my heart, and not being scared to lay it down when I need to.

this guy.

“We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” Dr. Suess

reflection, Burlington waterfront, and websites

So this Tuesday afternoon was beautiful, which made my mentor teacher (the teacher I work under at YMCA preschool in Burlington) decide to take the kids for a walk down to Perkin's Pier. After the long walk and setting the rugrats free, I absentmindedly spent most of the time, between a few bumps and bruises, regulating turns on the slide, and having a squat for a child who couldn't hold it, staring at the beautiful waterfront I completely don't have enough time to appreciate in my day. I mean, our school pretty much frames it from most of our classroom windows, and still I feel like I never have enough time to do whatever you're supposed to do when you truly appreciate nature. It truly got me thinking about...welll...what makes me think.

It took visiting the playground to realize that I would truly like to be at the waterfront more often and that I need to make time for it. Usually I am too busy running from one place to the next, especially on 12 hour Tuesdays, to "stop and smell the roses". I realize that occurrences like this happen every day, allowing me to tweak myself to do what I want, evolving me into who I am.

Makes me think is a website that shares encounters that make people stop and think throughout the day. Anyone is allowed to post their experience for others to share with the tag MMT (makes me think). Some are happy, some are silly, and some have the power to bring tears with few words. Here's what the creator says...

“Sometimes the most random everyday encounters force us to stop and rethink the truths and perceptions we have ingrained in our minds. These encounters are educationally priceless. They spawn moments of deep thought and self-reflection that challenge the status quo and help us evolve as sensible individuals… 

Here at MakesMeThink.com, we call these thought-provoking life experiences 'MMTs.'”

I find myself gravitating towards this website a lot, and, I admit, reacting a little emotionally. In fact, I was caught getting a little teary by one once, to which a friend replied "Why do you put yourself through that! Those are just so sad!"But really, it's what makes it all the more personal for me, and sparks a change within myself. And on whatever path I may be on to self betterment or whatever, I think this is another thing that helps keep me going. So, thanks, Makesmethink.com, for truly helping me realize, well, what makes me think.

Today, while I was sitting in the outpatient waiting room preparing myself for my first round of chemotherapy and feeling extremely sorry for myself, a little boy with a bald head, no older than 5, snuck up behind me, handed me a Hershey’s Kiss, gave my leg a big hug and said, “My mom says we have to keep smiling.” MMT

Today, on my 30th birthday my mom handed me a sealed letter that I had to write for a school project when I was 14. The teacher had us write a short letter to our 30-year-old self that was supposed to act as a reminder to stay young at heart. I can’t believe my mom saved my letter. The last line read, “I look forward to meeting you someday.” MMT

♥

Springtime.

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time." - Edith Warton.