Last night was the Communication Arts end of the year party at Malone. It was the first time that I really began to get the reality of graduating. It will bring so many things: New adventures, new friends, lonliness, distance with some people now in my life and more conversation and growth with others. I spoke to a few people yesterday who are hoping to come visit me at the Pennsylvania Rennaisance Faire! How cool! People will actually drive that distance to see me again. I feel so blessed.
It seems that in the times when I'm the lonliness, I am always reminded of the people who love me. Brent Schloneger sent me an amazing email yesterday, reminding me of our friendship and thanking me for my involvement in his family's life. The Comm Arts professors gave me a book and each took a turn writing a message to me. Both Marcia and Tammy told me that I was their friend and that they loved me! I am overwhelmed. I began to cry last night as I cried in my newly cleaned room (It's always easier to feel full emotions in a tidy room) and asked how I ever deserved to be so blessed by the love of my friends. I then realized that it's not even a matter of deserving love. Love can not really be deserved. I cried more.
In the movie American Beauty, Kevin Spacy's voice over says:

"...It's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...and then I remember to relax and stop trying to hold on to it and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."

Jessica Pacula taught me something interesting the other day. I was house sitting for a family with a hot tub and Jess, Celia and I decided to take a dip one evening. Jessica climbed into the tub and described the moment as perfect. I thought about that. What is perfect? Is anything ever perfect? Why am I always so dissatisfied, wanting more than what I am given at the moment? I then began to let myself relish in the beauty of the moment, forgetting the other places I would go tomorrow and looking into the hearts of my present company. I concluded that things can not ever be perfect, but there is a certain perfection that comes with one's reaction to almost perfect situations.

She wanted to understand, but they scrambled the words so that her mind could only grab at them in desperation.
She wrote a powerful symphony, beautiful and honest, but had no instruments in which to perform it and no concert hall in which to sing.
Her fingernails pealed off, her skin cracked and she looked down at her hands to wonder if she would ever be pretty again.
She screamed with every ounce of her warm blood pulsing through her veins but the canyon belted back with the power of a siren and drown her pathetic whisper.
Her heart, her soul groaned without intermission until she closed her eyes and her ghost slipped silently to a place of eternal rest.