lonely

the last day of classes is in 8 days. and everybody leaves in about 11. but not me. no, i'm stuck here during christmas, and new year's, and until everyone else comes back. why? because i have to work. it may sound like i'm complaining, but i'm trying not to. brent is coming to see me a couple days after christmas, but i will truly be friendless and alone until then. rexburg will be a ghost town, and i will probably end up talking to myself, discovering an imaginary friend, or sleeping the days away. only time will tell...

jkfldjskajfkfjkdal;

some days i just want to crawl into a corner and cry until i don't even remember why i was crying in the first place

some days i just want to lay in bed until it's time for sleep again

some days i just want to mope and pout and be sad and wish i was someone else

some days i just want to hear that i'm still great and deserving and that nobody is even worth my tears

some days i hate the world and everyone in it

some days i need to escape

today is one of those days

but i have a to-do list a mile long and not enough time to feel sorry for myself and get it done

so i'm really hoping lunch with chelsie makes all the badness disappear

"your eyes must do some rainin' if you're ever gonna grow"

a last day

so i'm sitting here, all cuddled up in blankets on brent's bed, realizing that this summer (and my life in kansas) is finally coming to an end. today is my last day of work, for the next month at least, and i'm kind of sad about it. i've really gotten into a routine and enjoyed the way things have been going for the last few weeks. as excited as i am about finally getting a break after a long 5 months of nothing but work, seeing my best friends and my grandma, and heading back to school, part of me isn't ready to leave.

i've always been one to welcome change and a new adventure, but sometimes the unfamiliarity of new experiences frightens me. and with this change is coming goodbyes. this week i have to (and have already had to) say goodbye to the people i've gone to church with for the last 5 years, the precious 7 yearolds i've taught this summer, the three great families i've babysat for and come to know and love, all of my kansas friends, and brent and his family. i hate goodbyes. hate hate hate hate them. 

however, i'm going to try to remember what i'm excited about. today is my last day with kate and sam. these two are not justin bieber fans. quite the opposite, actually. a couple times i've tried to sneak in a "that should be me" or "one less lonely girl" while we're driving in the car, and they proceed to cover their ears and yell at me to turn it off. so when i suggested we watch "never say never" together, they turned their noses up at that idea. but, it being my last day and all, they promised me we could watch it today! kate, out of the kindness of her heart. sam, with my promise to bring him cider doughnuts from the louisburg cider mill. but hooray! i have finally won. paige - 1. kate and sam - 0. hallelujah.

i'm also getting my car back today, thanks to steve at olathe toyota. i have antibiotics for my eye infection, so that's making me feel better. last night i did the paperwork to get my passport renewed. tomorrow, brent and i are meeting maggie (my pilates trainer) for lunch, going to pick chris up at the airport, and then spending the afternoon on the plaza with our friend sophie from high school. friday night is the royal's game and saturday morning at 6am we're heading west with jessie. this has been the most ridiculous week.

yes i'm sad about leaving. yes i'm nervous about what's going to happen to my relationships with some people. yes i feel like there might be one or two tears. but yes i can't wait for this next month. yes i'm thrilled to be reunited with my best friend after eight long months. yes i'm excited to stick my toes in the pacific ocean. and yes i'm eager to get back to school after taking a semester off. here's to change. and here's to summer 2011.

the little things

there is a cute older couple that lives a couple blocks away from my house. i drive by them every night on my way home from work. rain or shine, they are sitting outside, waving to the several passersby. and when i say “rain or shine,” i mean rain. or. shine. last week during a light summer rainstorm they were sitting on their porch, with an umbrella in hand, enjoying each other’s company. today, in the excessive heat and humidity, where were they? nowhere other than sitting in a couple lawn chairs under the shadow of the huge oak tree that shades their front yard. sometimes i get excited to turn the corner down their street, eagerly waiting their friendly waves and smiles. it’s something i’m going to miss about this place.

over time i’ve come to love a lot of things about this little community. the kindness of the people, the feel of a small town and finally being somewhere where i belong. the overwhelming sense of tradition and pride that has made the burg what it is. i consider this the place where i really grew up. where i started to figure out who i am and where i want to go in life. it was also where i experienced a lot of firsts; my first job, my first kiss (and my first boyfriend), my first car (and my first ticket), my first school musical, my first experiences in the real world as i got older and grew up a little bit.

i love louisburg. and tonight, as i sit in an empty room, i realize this is the last night i’m going to spend here. in this bed, in this room, in this house. for the first time since i found out we’re moving, i’m actually sad about leaving.

exboyfriends

i have four. one i still talk to (and i'm moving in with his parents in two weeks), one i haven't seen/heard from/thought about in a good two or three years, one is married with a baby, and one... i'm still working on getting over. 

e: im strugglin, i know you probably dont care, but i miss you. and i hope youre doing well.

me: tell me whats up

e: i tried to start talking to a girl. well, actually we were together technically. but i just got dumped over facebook. and to be honest… im not over you in the least bit

me: i’ve tried to move on too. but i can’t, because he’s no you

e: screw distance

me: i miss you. you were my best friend. and still sometimes i’ll get excited about something or have big news to share and you’re the first person i want to tell, but i feel like i can’t and i hate that.

e: there’s something that i’ve needed to tell you for awhile now, but i’m not telling you like this. and you already know what it is

me: i’ve wanted to tell you a hundred times

e: i know it’ll make things harder, but it needs to be said regardless.

i hate the thought of moving away and more than likely never seeing him again. but if there's one thing that i've learned, it's that life goes on. and sometimes that means moving on. i'm gonna work on that. but maybe it can wait...

rejection

i have recently learned that rejection is probably the worst kind of hurt






especially when you're rejected by the people who are pretty much programmed to love you

please pray for joplin

i'm sure you guys have at least heard about this by now

but a devastating tornado passed through joplin missouri last night

the death toll was at 116 last i heard and is quickly rising

over 45% of the city is completely demolished

i have friends who live in joplin

thankfully they're all safe and have been reunited with their families

but there are hundreds of people who weren't so lucky

tonight we went to price chopper and my mom spent a couple hundred dollars on groceries and hygiene stuff for the people who are now homeless. i wish i could be down there helping out. but for now, these people could really use some extra thoughts and prayers.

all i want...

...is to go home :(

on the verge of personal

i'm having another bad day. this is the fourth or fifth bad day in a long line of bad days. and i'm so over it. i'm angry. and sad. and upset. and hurt. all the time lately. i get spurts of happiness/giddiness/i-effing-love-life-right-now-ness, but they are short-lived, and don't come as often as i'd like. and i'm not really okay with it. 

it used to be impressive how good i was at masking my emotions. i could fool absolutely everybody into thinking i was the happiest cat when really i was miserable. i'm not so good at that anymore. nobody ever used to ask me what was wrong. now it's pretty much a daily question. i hate when people tell me to "just be happy" ...it doesn't work that way. i can't just flip a switch and make all my negative feelings go away.

sometimes i feel like i have a right to be sad. a right to cry, and hurt, and just... be sad, if that's what i really want to do. but most of the time i wish my happiness wasn't so fleeting, and that it was more permanent. i just want to be back in ecuador. i want that feeling again. i want to recognize every single day how blessed i am. i want to feel that Heavenly Father loves me every day. i want to do nothing but good every day. i want to be obsessed with service again. i want to know that i am appreciated, and talented, and beautiful, and worth something. because i have a hard time remembering. 

i don't know what's wrong with me. 

all i know, is that i want to feeeel better.

home is... where the heart is?

if that's true, then my home is ecuador. i miss it so much. so terribly much. i think about it every day; my babies, my girls, my red and white house, my awfully uncomfortable bed, my everything. i wanna be back there so bad. howeeeevvverrrr, since i'm not going back anytime soon, let's talk about my life since i've been back in kansas.

actually, let's start with my journey back to kansas. it started friday morning at 4am. ariel and i left the house at 4 and headed to the airport. ariel is a winner and forgot her credit card so we had to turn around. when we got inside the airport we had to wait in a 2 hour long line just to find out our flight from quito was delayed 2 hours. then i was informed that my flight had been rerouted and i was going through atlanta now and expected in kc an hour earlier than planned. i liked that. when we got to miami and through customs, which was a pain in and of itself, i had to wait in another looooong line that caused me to miss my flight to atlanta. when i finally approached the american airlines counter, the guy told me that there wasn't another flight out of miami that night, and that there also weren't any hotels in the area that i could stay in. soo i took a charter bus from miami to ft. lauderdale (with a group of about 30 couples that looked older than my grandma who had just gotten back from a cruise) and then flew from ft. lauderdale to chicago. i stayed a lonely night in the holiday inn in chicago, and then caught the flight the next morning from chi town to kc. i'm finally hoooooooome!

now it's just doctors appointments and getting work lined up. i'm happy to be back in the states and back to real life. but i'd so much rather be where my babies are. where i feel good about what i'm doing every day. and where i'm a better person.

the best worst day of my life

this 24 hours is the hardest, i think. it started last night at our banquet. hearing all of my newest best friends speak about their experiences, growth, and feelings for the children we work with really melted my heart. i may or may not have been weeping like a child throughout most of it. i've learned so much from the girls i'm serving with. each of them has something incredible to offer and is unique and beautiful in their own right. they are my family.

i'm not good with goodbyes. i never really have been. and i know that. but i didn't think that saying goodbye to my babies and the workers at the orphanage would be this hard. i don't want to leave ecuador. i feel like i could do this for another 6 months and be completely content. this is my home now. these are my people. this is where i belong. i feel like everything i've done in my life up to this point has been insignificant and selfish. i like the way i feel when i'm with them. i like the way they love me. and the way they accept me. 

i'm trying to be happy. i'm trying to take with me everything i've learned, experienced, and felt. but it's really hard. my heart has never felt so broken. tonight we're going out to eat and then i'll say goodbye to everybody. ariel and i leave the house at 4:30 tomorrow morning. at least i'll have her. she knows how i feel and won't think i'm a freak if i break down in the miami airport.

here's to the best three months of my life. here's to my babies, my sisters, my ecuadorian friends. here's to changes. here's to the new me. let's go.

girls house is a happy place, unless cassie is leaving

today was cassie's last day with the girls
and it was the saddest day

because it was cassie's last

cassie is the site leader

which makes leaving hard

on everyone

but we took them sugar cookies to decorate

and they loved it

also i learned a new word...

"pepitas" means sprinkles

and then because these girls are so stinkin' crafty, they made us all hair braid bead things

i love my gh girls

no no no noo noooooo :(

today, is monday. and that means it's amber's last day in ecuador. and i know she said we're not supposed to talk about that because it makes her all sad and angry and such, but i just have to address the issue. like i just have to...

amber has been in ecuador for like 2 years, so i mean basically her whole life. and she has done so much good for all the kids here. i'm so happy i know her and i really hope i can be as selfless and dedicated as she is one day. amber is a fantastic person and has so very much to offer. i love her a lot and i'll probably cry myself to sleep for at least another month after she leaves, or at least i'd like her to think i will.

and really, why she can rarely take a normal picture i do not know... but i miss you already ambercita :(

who do you think you are?

i know i can't take one more step towards you

cause all that's waiting is regret

and don't you know i'm not your ghost anymore

you lost the love i loved the most

i learned to live half alive

and now you want me one more time

and who do you think you are

running 'round leaving scars

collecting your jar of hearts

and tearing love apart

you're gonna catch a cold

from the ice inside your soul

so don't come back for me

who do you think you are

i hear you're asking all around

if i am anywhere to be found

but i have grown too strong

to ever fall back in your arms

who do you think you are?

only the good die young

lately, a lot of young people around the community i live in have been killed. it's the saddest thing ever and i don't understand it. last september was zac mesmer from louisburg, last month was nathan stiles from spring hill, and last week was jacob carver from freeman. i hate it. no matter how close you are to them, when a life is taken, you feel it. last year when louisburg lost zac it was the biggest deal. i was already up at school and i remember getting a text on a sunday morning from my friend taylor that said "did you hear messmer died?" ...my heart just sank. the whole town was devastated. zac graduated a year before me, but i heard that the highschool the next day was just silent. everybody was heartbroken and in the worst mood. even more than a year later people still talk about zac on a regular basis. the sting of nathan and jake's death is still fresh and a lot of my friends back home are having a really hard time with it right now. i feel bad for the family and friends of these guys who don't have the understanding that i do that they will see them again. my heart goes out to all of them.

"only the good die young."

rest in peace,

jacob

nathan

&

zac

one of those days

i'd like to think im generally a pretty happy person. im usually pretty satisfied with life. in fact, there was this girl in high school who hated me cause she thought i was "too happy" ...really? isn't that a funny reason to hate someone? anyways, despite my tendency to regularly be in an abnormally good mood, yesterday was not my day.

every once in a while i just feel... off

i feel unattractive

i feel insecure

i feel unappreciated

i feel insignificant

i feel unincluded

i feel unwanted

and not myself

i dont like those days. so when that happens...

"i crawl underneath my blanket where i can hide away. i know i can't take it cause i see now... it's just one of those days"

thank you, joshua radin

but hey,

no one will know you're crying if you stand in the rain