change your heart. change the world.

now that i drive down the street and see signs for graduating seniors of 2011, it makes me realize how long it really has been since i graduated high school. i can't believe it's been a whole year. a lot can happen in a year. and a lot has happened. but one thing i have learned, life doesn't happen the way you plan. so roll with it. a year ago today, i was 2 days away from graduation. i dreamed of moving away and never coming back. i would get a job in johnson city and find an apartment and live there forever. pay my parents back what i had to and live by my own rules. find a guy at etsu, marry him, have babies, be a nurse...typical 18 year old girl plan. i look at my life today and wonder how i got to where i am now. i don't live in johnson city. i go to school there, but just moved back into my parents' house about 2 weeks ago. the only job i had in johnson city was 2 hours a week at a daycare. my parents still pay for everything i have which makes me feel completely worthless sometimes. i found a guy, from spring hill. i will marry him, when we find enough money. i will have babies, forever from now. and i don't wanna be a nurse anymore. i want to be a history teacher, which is a subject that i completely hated when i was in high school. last summer i spent just about every night at the park with my  2 best friends, cory and collin. once i went to school, i had no intentions of coming home for weekend visits. little did i know that collin would invite me to a show that his band was playing in and that would be the beginning of the last relationship i would ever be a part of. i love etsu a lot, but will probably graduate from mtsu so that i can be closer to him when we get engaged. i've met a lot of people that have played big roles in my life...some of them will stay my friends forever, some were just in my life for a season, and that's okay. i met a lot of people from franklin and spring hill that i didn't even know when i lived here. i used to love hanging out with them, and they were a big part of what made me so homesick. i don't talk to hardly any of them anymore because they are totally different now. funny how you move home for something that doesn't exist. at school i went through a few groups of friends. i met forrest and spenser, which i still love and can't wait to go visit this summer. i met the "party platoon" which was just what it sounded like. 10 kids who thought they were way too cool for their own good. we were inseparable for a long time until i got in a fight with one of them and ended the whole thing. i met seth, john, mitchell, and micah, who are four of my favorite people. i can talk to seth about anything, and john loved me before he even met me. mitchell is one of the funniest people i have ever met, and micah broke my heart so bad that i'm grateful. number one because he reminded me that i can't bank on every brand new relationship that i find myself in. number two because if i would have stayed with him i would have never been with collin. or at least not at the point we are now. i went to a church conference that changed my whole outlook on life and made me realize that i was a lukewarm christian and that i needed to follow God with my whole heart. i did some crazy things, like go to roan mountain in the snow, sing way too loud in the car with my gospel group, the redeemed, drive home for a show that i would have to spend the night for and wake up at five the next day to drive all the way back to school. drive to unicoi and greeneville just to attend some trashy get togethers, fall in love with the mountains, discover some amazing new restaraunts, try out for the voice just because i'm so tired of never hearing anyone say how good my voice is anymore, teach myself how to play a song on the piano because i miss it that bad, go back to the high school that i hated just to watch a musical and a choir concert, and find the most amazing meal that i have ever had that will remain my favorite forever. some good, some bad, and some just not seemingly important, but ever moment has shaped who i am today, and going through the last year has broken me down in a way that needed to happen. i look different. i act different. i have different friends. i know who's really part of my family. i know what i believe. i know what kind of difference i want to make. and i have three more years of college that will probably continue to help me grow. nostalgia is a part of every day when you live in two places. when i'm in johnson city, i miss collin. when i'm with collin, i miss school. but i'm happy with where i am because i don't let life bring me down anymore. and that's what it's all about.