"Almosts" Can Always Break Your Heart If You Let Them

So much has happened in the last several months I am not ever sure where to start this one. School is almost over for me. I have one more class left and then I am done with my course work. It is so strange because I feel as if I should feel more accomplished. I mean I am almost don't with my masters degree and yet I still feel a little lost with everything. Maybe lost isn't the right word. Maybe I haven't been able to find the right words for what I have been feeling lately and that's the problem.

Student teaching starts soon and I am nervous about that. I know that I have taught before, but it feels different this time. It feels like there is more pressure on me to do well. How are you suppose to know when you are doing the right thing? I love teaching and I love kids, but does that make me a good teacher? Does that make me good at my job? Does that make me prepared to do this job? Yeah I am doubting myself. I am doubting a lot of things lately. I get it that it is a natural thing to doubt, but that doesn't make it easier.

But I am working through it. Well trying to at least. Doubt comes for me because of the "almosts" in my life. Everyone has them, the time you almost passed the test, you almost got the job, you almost got the guy or girl, or you almost found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.(that was funnier in my head)

I am scared to let Boston and everything that has come with it be an "almost" for me. When I first moved here I secretly was hoping that maybe I could make a new life here. Not that I would love the idea of being so far from the people who I love most in my life, but this was a new adventure for me. And now I have fears, fears that I might make this an "almost". For a short moment while I was here I really did consider staying. Wondering what my life would be like if I did and what I would be staying for. But something always kept me from fully committing to stay. Maybe it was God's plan for me to always go back home or maybe I kept myself from fully letting Boston in, but I can only hope that it's God's plan and not my own stubbornness that kept me and Boston at odds. I just don't want to leave here with a heavy heart being afraid that Boston and things here were an "almost" for me.

As of lately all I want to do is get out of here as fast as I possibly can.  But that doesn't have anything to do with these people. I will truly miss them. "The Mother" who runs because she is so stressed if she didn't she would exploded from energy and tension, but you can't help but love her and all her type a-ness. " The "Powerhouse" who I think secretly is actually a lot like me and that's why we spend so much time together, but she puts on that tough guy face when needed. The "Lover" as much as she wants just be free and fight the power she also has a heart as big as the sun and I have never met someone who cares more for her friends than she does. The "Funniest Person I Know" but I don't count her as someone to miss because I will see her in CO all the time I will make sure of it! Don't get me wrong I get to go home and see my besties!!! Which I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am for that!!! But I have met really great girls here and they may not know this or even read this, but I plan on keeping them in my life. I can't promise anything distance is always hard, but friendship has become really important to me this year and I hope they know that. Maybe I should tell them.

I can't say I have no "almosts" here and that is always haunting to know you have an "almost" that you are leaving behind and there is nothing to do about it. You always have one or two and that's always hard. I hate to think of losing people in my life or losing out on moments in my life. It breaks my heart, but I read the other day that sometimes we need to forget some people from our past simple because they just don't belong in our future. I just wish this didn't mean I was leaving an "almost" behind me.

Man these "almosts" could consume me if I let them. But all of this does help me to believe that maybe Boston itself isn't an "almost."  It does help me to be ready to leave and be done here. And I think maybe that's ok. Maybe all of this (for lack of a better term) CRAP that has been going on around me was a needed push out the door so to speak. If we can all say one thing about me it's that I do not deal well with transition and maybe one way to look at all of this "whatever" and these "almosts"  around me are the push and solidification that leaving is what I am suppose to do. Maybe staying was never meant for me.

So those of you who have known me and listened to me complain and moan about Boston being my on again off again boyfriend over the last year I thought this was a fitting song for my break up with Boston. And Boston, I am sorry our relationship has to end. I know we will always be friends and I will come to visit you when I can. We had some good times and a lot of bad times, but you have helped me grow up (even more) and helped me on my path in life to becoming the person I am meant to be, so thanks. We were "almost" a good fit Boston, but just not perfect. Agree to be friends? :)

FYI this is a beautiful song and I am using it in a slightly ridiculous way, but I actually really love this song.

Is it really better to say too much than to never say what you need to say again?

Second semester has begun.  Drama as Ed II is ok. My design class is a lot. I know that I will really benefit from this class, but I am so intimidated by the work. I have never really considered myself an artistic person. Art was my least favorite class in elementary school and now I am paying to take this class. It is good for me to challenge myself I know, but it could be a long semester. And last but not least my Teaching Young Actors class.. What to say about this class? I like the guy who teaches it. I really do. I just don't know if I see where any of this is really going. I want to I really do, but I am having a hard time seeing how this all applies.  This semester is just a little more overwhelming than I expected it to be. I just thought having already been through this for one semester I would be used to it and ready to just jump in and get this finished. Working 20hrs a week probably has not helped. Just lots on my plate, but I am working on it.

Before you read the rest of this, know I was channeling John Mayer and the movie "The Bucket List" It is funny I titled my blog, "Finding Strength in Me." I was hoping that by now after these last 6 months or so I would have been...I don't know... finding it. A friend of mine here in Boston told me the other day I should just say what I need to say. To just let it go and maybe I will feel better. I argued and said that would not be the best because sometimes when you say it then it really is true. You can't deny it then. She told me that was dumb. Then yesterday, I was talking to someone who I hope can help me learn to let go...to let go of stress, anger, of being overwhelmed, and so many other stressful things in my life that I just hold onto. The past. Things that I don't need in my life. So then I began to think. What if you could do that? What if you had one day, just one day to say whatever you wanted without any consequences? To tell everyone everything you think, feel, to tell them everything you want to tell them or have wanted them to tell you. To just let go of everything that you keep locked away (because you think its safer that way) What would happen? 

Sometimes I think about what I would say and how I would say it. Or I think about what people would say to me or what I wish people would say. I live my life very safe and keep most of that locked away. I don't take many risks. Some of my close friends would say I put up walls. Ok, I say I put up walls. But building a wall is not an easy job. Its hard to take something down you have spent so much time building. 

Sometimes it is good to have walls. Hear me out before you judge and roll your eyes at me. If you didn't have walls everything thing in this world would hurt you. "Walls" can be just another word for having tough skin. And yes, I know my walls have become so tall that I don't like to let anything in. Blah blah blah I know. I want to fix that, but how can you tell the moments that you should let your walls down from the moments you should keep them up? Some people have said you follow your heart and I can respect that, but my heart has been wrong before(and I am not just talking relationships here I am talking life.) Something can feel like it fits. It can feel like that is where you are suppose to be, and what you are suppose to be doing, and who you are suppose to be with, but other circumstances keep that fit from being absolutely perfect. So, do you put up a wall and move on to something that could fit better even if in that moment you don't think it exists or do you wait? Do you let go and say what you need to say to possibly get the perfect place, the perfect job, and the perfect person?

I don't know if this is making any sense. I am not even looking for the perfect answer, I know I need to find that out on my own. Before I can do that I guess I need to get a grasp first on what to hold onto and what to let go of. I wonder if there is anybody who has truly figured that out.