Musics and College and Stuffs

Well, Casting Crowns’ new album, Thrive, came out today.

I need it.

Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration. I don’t actually need it. I just really want it.

Or else I just really want someone else who has it to hurry up and put the music on grooveshark so I can listen to it…*grins* <3

 

 

And in other news, I am officially going to be living with my current Roomie Nicole and her friend Katie next year. But also with Becca. (*party of we’re-so-never-going-to-get-homework-done-if-we-live-together-ness* It’s going to be wonderful). We need one more person still though, to fill an apartment, because Nicole will be gone first semester and Becca will be gone second semester (studying abroad) so put together they only count as one person. Yep.

I’m sad, though. Like a lot. I was and am planning to graduate a semester early. But…but…butbutbut. I really want to graduate as soon as possible and get out of here. But…I also reallyreally don’t want to. If next year works out nicely, I would love to live with Becca again. But if I graduate a semester early, that would mean I’d only get to hang out with her for two more semesters after this one, since she’ll be gone half of next year studying abroad, and I’d be gone after the first semester of the following year. And that’s sad. When I graduate, it is highly likely that I shall never see her again. She’s planning to head off to eight or ten years of grad school (probably in like, Britain), and I’m planning to…I have no idea.

You know, I thought graduating TPS would be an end to the whole terrible long-distance-relationships thing. But really it wasn’t at all. I suppose that is inevitable. I just would really really like to have real, good, close friends who live near me all the time. You know? I literally have no friends in Vermont who are near my age, except for the kids of our pastor’s family. But I wouldn’t consider any of them to be real close friends. More like…really good acquaintances. Fun to hang out with and be around and do things with, but…I don’t really know much about them and they don’t really know much about me, and we don’t see them often enough to change that. So really, I don’t have any good friends in Vermont.

All my real friends live in Wisconsin.

…actually…almost literally all of them do. XD Ha. Wisconsin is populated with awesome people, I guess. Is it possible for something to be almost literal? …eh. Is now. anyway.

The people who I consider real, good, close friends all live very far away from where I do. Or most of them do. There are a couple people here at Hope who are becoming close friends, despite my best efforts to remain a recluse. Becca’s one of them, and some of the Sacred Dance girls are others. It’s very strange to me to have people close by, who I can see on a daily basis, who I am close friends with. And frankly, I want it to last as long as it can. Because when I graduate, I’m not going to have that situation anymore. And then the people who I know and love here will suddenly become long-distance relationships like my few other friends. And the more time passes, the more fed-up I get with long-distance friendship. It stinks. A lot. It’s hard to love people, but never get to see them. It’s hard to care about people, and not be able to be there to celebrate their highs or encourage them through their lows. It stinks when the best you can do for someone is to mail them chocolate and hope it gets there by the end of the week. It really, really hurts to know a friend is struggling and there’s nothing you can do to help, not even give them a hug. It hurts to love people without being able to be near them. And I’m tired of it. I don’t want to add more friendships to that list.

It’s like living your life long-distance, in two (or three, or more) different timezones at once. When I love people, I want to invest in them. And that puts a piece of myself always with them. It’s not fun to live with pieces of yourself spread out all over the country. Or the world. I suppose it’s a fact of life that there will always be people who we love but who we can’t often see. But…that just makes it all the more important to me that I make the most of the time I have when I CAN be with these people.

And if I graduate early, I’ll be missing some of that time. And I don’t want to miss any of it. Not one second. Because like I said, it’s so strange and new to me to be able to live so close to friends. and I want it to stay that way as long as it can.

But Hope costs money that I don’t have. I’ve already got my three-and-a-half year plan written out. I need to graduate early. the less debt, the better. I miss home. I know it’s not practical to think I’ll always live there, but at least I can move back to Vermont for a while. Vermont is home. …but so is Hope College, now. I hate not being in Vermont. So much. But I also have a home here now. Near people that I love, doing things that I love. The old phrase, “home is where the heart is”? What happens when your heart is spread between two different places? Or three, or four, or six? What happens when your heart has lodged itself in two different states, three different time zones, many different people from even more different states? What’s home?

It’s a bit confusing, sometimes.

I can always go back home to Vermont. But once I graduate, even if I did come back to Hope’s campus, the people who make this place home won’t be here. Once I graduate, I can’t come back to this place, where I am now.

I want to put that off as long as I can.

…sooo, now I don’t know what to do because I really need to, and should, graduate early, but I really don’t want to at all.

Ah, life. So complicatedly, painfully, evilly beautiful.

I mean, hey, look on the bright side. At least I have friends here. That’s more than I, for one, ever expected. ;)