2016
2016: A Monthly Journal
July: The searing loss of a dear friend's husband shatters our hearts as soon as June ends. The very next day another friend celebrates a wedding. Memorial services for pillar members of my church are sprinkled across the month as I take on even more work with my church's custodian job, work fourteen-hour days, and acquire an illness made from fatigue, emotional sickness, and crappy eating habits. I start the process of apartment hunting in Ellensburg. I attempt to become more mindful, begin working out to Dollar Workout Club, and, at the end of the month, have a restful five days at the old Lakehouse.
August: The month begins badly with our water system shutting down, having to take showers and brush teeth at work, and coming to a climax in grief -- a climax which mercifully induces healing afterward. My substitute custodial job ends and I am back with a few hours more rest each day. Me and three of my best friends have an afternoon party at my house to celebrate/commemorate our imminent parting in September. Our youth group leaders take the four of us for a splendid night with lots of food and riverfront walking in Hood River. We find a Godsend of an apartment in Ellensburg and I finalize registration and talk with my prospective advisor about moving into the math major at Central.
September: So . Much . Change . and . So . Much . Heartache ., and yet somehow healing begins. I learn how to stand on my own two feet as I numbly take responsibility for my new one-bedroom apartment two blocks off the Central Washington University campus in Ellensburg. I grieve the necessary loss of friendships and old lifestyles, but manage to settle into my new math classes with some grace. I begin work as a writing tutor, meet about a hundred new people in my first week at school, and then quietly celebrate my twentieth birthday with my family at my new apartment.
October: Every time I think I have some semblance of control, something happens to reassure me that I don't. I realize I can't fly by in linear algebra after all like I would have in any other class. I sign the papers to become a “real” math major, I work late hours, I talk to a few more people, and I slowly build friendships in and out of church. Life in Ellensburg feels a little more normal. My best friend Bex comes to visit for a few days near the end of the month and we talk and hang out and act silly.
November: The month that flies. I return home for the first time in eight weeks and face a torrent of emotions I never expected. I face the anxiety of my second test in linear algebra, am justly excited when I learned that I aced it, go on a hike in Leavenworth with some of my new church family, help at a math outreach event in Thorp, help at a math outreach event on campus, attend Geoffrey Burleson's piano concert at Central, and slowly get to know my coworkers more. I get a haircut, have a good few days back home during Thanksgiving seeing family, then go back to face only two more weeks of linear algebra before I'm done.
December: A beautiful month adorned with Christmas lights and the quietude of softly falling snow. My apartment is a mess because studying > cleaning. I give my presentation on Fibonacci numbers in Math 299S, take my Math 260 final, and perform excellently in both. Yikes, it's cold outside! I prepare with much fear and many tears for my linear algebra final and have to come to terms with the fact that my GPA will not always be a 4.0. I learn after I come home that I got an A- in linear algebra and I want to jump up and down, I am so happy. The first few days at home are a difficult adjustment, but as the month goes by, as we celebrate Christmas and the entire family is together, I settle so firmly back in that I don't want to leave on the first day of 2017. I get together with my girls, message and call and email back and forth with my dear Bex about her impending wedding, and organize stuff for application for REUs and scholarships. I see Rogue One with cousins and slide on ice in the car (scary). And then suddenly . . . it's goodbye to 2016, a busy year, a hard year, a horrible year, a wonderful year.
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