My Island

I have discovered an island. Yep. The ironic thing is that it isn't surrounded by any water at all. It's accessible by one state highway, and one interstate, there's an airport, and I suppose that someone could walk or ride their bike here.
Today the temperature on my island is 113 degrees with about 30% humidity. I heard it correctly phrased last night by a young man at the grocery store, "Who lives here anyway?"
I am alone again because my family keeps going on vacation to Newport Beach, Santa Cruz, Carmel, Sacramento, and San Diego. I have a school on my island, a college rather, and I have to take four classes which takes pretty much ALL of my time from 8am until 11:30pm. No vacation for me.
The island is not lush and tropical; it's actually a desert without natural trees, a forest, or an ocean.
Okay, enough of the "cute" metaphor. I think I'm having a mental breakdown and I have to express it through writing or I don't know what will happen to me.
I woke up this morning sweating, my family was leaving town again without me, I had three hours of class looming, and I got a surprise phone call from a professor at 9:00 to say that he wanted me to complete an assignment by 12:00. Problem, my other class begins at 10:30. He had a no exceptions policy, so I finished my three-page essay in 40 minutes, and then went to African American Lit. for three hours. During class, which I can't really disturb to go to the bathroom because it is a televised section, I got a huge piece of something in my eye. It hurt sooo bad and when we finally had a break it looked like my eye was bleeding but I couldn't see anything in it and even still I am in pain every time I rub it or blink. My stomach started to growl really really loud during the second half of class and I was thinking about freedom to the point that my paper was full of scribbling, Patrick's name, hearts, the cursive alphabet, you know...
Finally back in my car, I couldn't even touch the steering wheel because when I did, it actually burned me! The house was empty, quiet, and stuffy, as it will be for the next few days and I got a peach and started eating before the tears started to come and they came! I think it was the pain in my eye that triggered it, and then I started to think that I have been in Bakersfield since May 17th. I've been in class since June 12th, I've been writing papers and reading textbooks, and talking to professors and the dean and associate dean and the transcript evaluator, and the department chair All about settling my classes and evaluating my transfer from ACU. At my computer in the corner of my mom's room is where I spend most of my time doing assignments. If not, I'm in class, or by the pool. Bakersfield has the lowest population of young adults of pretty much any city. The college groups at every church have about 4 people and in mine, they are all single, very available, seeking, men. The friend prospect is dismal and in all of my classes everyone is married with kids and a job. I need nature to survive, I just do, I need adventure, change, weather, and relationships. There is nothing within a two hour radius of me and I don't have extra money to travel beyond those boundaries of my island. Secondly, I have a one track mind and Patrick seems to be all that I can think about. It is so hard not only that he gets to be outside at a camp exploring, driving a boat, spending time with amazing people, and learning about God, but I just miss him in every way and it is so hard that I can hardly even talk to him. He can only either write emails or talk one the phone for about a total of 30 minutes on a good day and then the weekends. This weekend was especially hard because we talked for about 40 minutes and then I haven't been able to talk to him since then. So...I feel utterly alone and miserable and in love and ahhh.
That was the emotional spew. I know that everything is factually sound, but the feeling that accompanies all of that, makes it just so much worse.
Why is it so difficult to realize two things:
1. Life is just so imperfect, filled with consequences, decisions, heartache, difficulty, pain, and it just stinks sometimes.
2. Joy can be found even in those things, or if not joy, hope. I've been praying about my life recently and all of the decisions with graduate school and graduating etc. and I read Jeremiah 17:5-18 yesterday in church.

5This is what the LORD says: "Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans and turn their hearts away from the Lord. 6They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, on the salty flats where no one lives.

7"But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. 8They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.

It was just so encouraging to know that if we hope in God there will still be the drought and the heat and all of the things that could harm a tree, but we will still be in His care and producing fruit and I just have to keep moving forward and paying attention to the blessings along the way.

For example:
- Patrick is amazing! He is doing everything that he can to let me know that he thinks about me and cares for me. My love for Him grows each day especially the more I place my hope in God and see His will for our lives.
- I am growing closer to my family. It was a rocky beginning of the summer, but things are starting to even out.
- I am probably going to start my masters degree in the fall and I'll be able then to graduate with my masters by December next year.
- I got a job working as an editorial assistant
- God is growing me and stretching me every single day and I am a completely different person than I was three months ago. Praise God for His faithfulness. Please God, continue to give me strength and hope and courage to face every day. I love you.

I think that I will go and get some material to sew something. Here's my last project from a few weeks ago:



It was kind of a trial run. I left the hem unfinished and tried to call it vintage. I don't know if that's going to work :)