The Morning After

Well, I made it to Alabama. The drive yesterday was pretty smooth. Aunt Sharon kept me awake with her stories and life advice. Something she said that will probably always stick with me is "You can't make people live up to their potential. You can't change people." That's appropriate for me because anyone who knows me knows that I am the fixer. I try to fix everyone and make them unbroken and whole and push them into the amazing person that I know they can be. But I can't always do that. We stopped twice for gas and bathroom breaks, and by the time I got to Alabama, it looked like any other place. Apparently there are swamps and alligators around here, though- which I was NOT made aware of beforehand. If I see an alligator, I'm jumping ship to California! The house is nice and fairly spacious. They live in the outskirts of a town called Pratville, which is ten minutes away from Montgomery. The road is in the process of being paved, so right now it is just orange dirt. But the house is cute and my grandparents live in the little guest cottage behind it. My room belonged to my ten-year-old cousin, Maddie, who cleared it out for me. It is pepto-bismol pink, but it's bigger than any other room I've ever lived in and it has a bed... That's good enough for me. I spent a good majority of yesterday in the house alone unpacking all of my stuff and putting it away. I went to my Gram's for a dinner break- ham and sweet potatoes. My granddad talked my ear off (bless his heart), until I was driven crazy enough to come back and finish unpacking. When I finished, I pulled out a letter from my friend Jacob. He wrote it for me and I didn't want to read it until I was here. The letter broke my heart. Maybe because Jacob isn't one to get into his feelings too much, or maybe because the written words helped to make this move and the reality of it more concrete. But I laid in my bed and cried until my cousins and uncle got back. I wonder if that's going to happen often? I tend to be pretty pitiful and emotional when I get overwhelmed. Will I ever get used to missing Cullowhee and the mountains and the beautiful people who make me feel complete? Will I get used to that little chunk of my heart that is now missing? Right now I miss Madison so much that it hurts. Physically, my body aches because she isn't here. Getting to Skype with her last night was great. But with me being an hour behind her and her being sick and overdosing on cough medicine... much talking didn't get done. I know that we will work it out to where we will get a schedule going, and eventually I will be Skyping with her and my friends on a regular basis. I remember in the car, my Aunt Sharon talking to me about Madison. I told her that we were solid and ready and we were going to take it one day at ta time and hope for the best. "You know distance is going to be hard, right?" She told me that this semester will be the trailmark for us, the test. But I know that I'm ready and Madison is ready and well... We can do it. So far everything has been very basic. I'm sure that soon we will talk about how I am going to go about my job search and I'll start getting a feel for the area. I'm nervous but excited. I am SO glad I invested in a smartphone so that I can send pictures and keep in touch with my friends more efficiently. My biggest fear is knowing that eventually me not being there won't feel weird anymore. It'll be the new... normal. And I worry that they'll stop missing me and life will just keep going. And of course it will continue on, that's life. But I'm going to do everything I can to remain close with these people. As for my psychotic parents who kicked my sister out of the house last weekend and told me I had until yesterday to get my own stuff out- I'll see ya never. Thanks for nothing, because your nothing turned into something. It turned into fire and passion and so much drive to get out and do better for myself than you ever could have done for me. I graduated high school on that nothing. Graduated from college with honors thanks to that nothing. Preeshate you, really. Day one in Alabama, complete. Let's see what day two has to offer.