A Year Ago Today

People change a lot in a single year. For me, every year I have changed an extraordinary amount. Each year my relationships with friends are a little or even a lot different. Usually I lose and gain friends over the course of a year. I stop hanging out with some and lose touch while others I become 10 times closer to.

Today is Lance's 23rd birthday.
A year ago today, Lance was just turning 22.

You want to know what we did?
We went up to Huhot with his family, then he drove me back to my apartment so that we could spend the rest of the day packing. That's exactly what we did. We stayed up talking and packing up my apartment and driving thing to the storage shed and to my mothers all day and night until the wee hours of the morning because I had to be out by February 1st.

I made Lancelot pack all day on his birthday.
So what did I come up with this year, you ask?
Well, today I made him be my personal crutch and help me walk around Wal-Mart and Save-a-lot.
I told him that he can only imagine what I'm going to think up for him to have to do next year on his birthday.

In any case, he is an absolute doll. He's always taking care of me and helping me out on his birthday.
I did make him some cinnamon rolls today, though. :)


This was the closest picture I could find. It's actually from Christmas of 2011, but I took next to no pictures January of 2012.

Then, here's Lance and I on New Years Day This Year. <3



_________________________

On the beginning note, a lot changes in a year.
A year ago today, I would have never suspected I'd be where I am.

That was part of my extremely tough ten months of my life.
Here is where I thought I would be in January 2013 in January 2012.

I thought I would still be working at Hunts.
I thought I would still be dating Charles.
I thought we might even be engaged.
I thought that I may be pregnant since we had originally planned to try for another child.
I thought that I would be in another apartment and maybe going to college.
I thought I would still be an only child.


None of those things are true.


My Mother told me a few months after January 2012 that she was in fact having the child that I thought I would be carrying that year. Charles and I broke up a month and  a half after he got out of jail. I am not pregnant. I am not in college and I'm now working at Accent.

You know what I have to say about that?
I am so perfectly happy. I have such a wonderful life.

Although I miss Hunts very much some days, I'm happier at Accent. I loved the people there, but some of the rules got a little bogus. I mostly quit because we weren't allowed to have our cell phones and I needed mine to keep my sanity. Plus, walking home from work every night since I don't have a car really gave me the heebie jeebies. Plus, I really enjoy working with Lancelot.

Lance makes me a very happy lady. Really, he does. Even when he screws up, it takes him less than five minutes to apologize. We sleep on the floor because it reminds us of old times. He introduces me to all sorts of new TV shows, gave me that extra push to learn guitar, and is extremely patient with me. He makes me a better person. That's what I really want in someone is just for us to be happy and to make each other better people.

I may not have the child that I believed I so wanted, but that's okay too. As much as my female hormones keep screaming "baby! baby! baby!" in my head, I know better. I don't want a baby right now. I'm 20 years old. I've got another 3 or 4 years minimum before I even really want to consider it. I'll only be this young once. I want to be able to stay up until 3 am and decide to go to wal-mart because I really want some goldfish crackers. I want to be able to spend money on yarn to crochet things. I want to have the free time to crochet. I don't want to have to find a babysitter anytime I want to go out of my friends. Most of all, I don't want to deny my child of having a full-time committed mother because I'm too busy caught up in my own life feeling like I never got the chance to be young.

I'm really happy for my mother. I now have a beautiful baby sister and she is the most precious little girl in the world. My mom gets the chance to raise a daughter the way she would have wanted. A full-time mother who already learned from the mistakes of her first daughter. Being the second kid is like being the second pancake. The first one, you just try your best and hope it turns out alright. By time you get to the second one you realize what you did wrong with the first one and take this opportunity to fix it and do it right the second time around.


I lost a lot of friends through my break-up with Charles and I gained a lot of new ones both through Lance and the experiences I had during those 10 mysterious months.

My world is nowhere I thought it would be, but I think I'd much prefer this one.
I can only imagine where I'll be a year from now.
I'll be in a new place and my sister will be 16 months old.
God knows what else will be different.

Becoming An Adult

Becoming an adult is a really weird thing...

I feel like I've taken a few different steps in my life in these past two years that really made me feel "older." Now, I feel like I'm entering actually "adulthood," and frankly it's starting to scare the hell out of me.

1. I started driving and my mom didn't ask me where I was going or how long I'd be gone. This happened the summer I was 17. I tested it out first. First, just leaving to go to the store, then to a friends, then I'd stay out all night and half of the next day. When she stopped asking questions, I began to feel responsible for myself.

2. I moved out! When I moved out, I really felt like I was getting older. I hadn't quite graduated high school, but i was in college and I had already been 18 for 4 months. Moving out was a big decision and a difficult thing to do. Paying bills meant no more choice of having a job or not. Having the choice to pay bills or being homeless will make you grow up real quick.

3. Getting Pregnant. When you're pregnant, you become responsible for two people instead of just one. When I first found out I was pregnant, I refused to tell my mom. This meant that I had to go get it confirmed with one of my dearest friends. This meant I had to deal with getting pregnancy insurance by myself. Charles went with me to hospital visits, but I lacked anyone that had personal experience with being pregnant.

4. Graduating High School. All of these things occured before I graduated high school. I didn't think doing that would feel like such an impact, but it really did. I feel like an all different kind of person now that I stay up all night and sleep all day to keep up with work instead of school.

5. Sitting with the Adults. When you sit with the adults and talk about how psycho teenagers are instead of hanging out with the teenagers.

6. When the parents say they got rid of you and then you came back. It's funny when you move out because you can't stand your parents and then you really start to miss them. I think I spend more time at my mom's now than I ever did when I actually lived there. My mom and I have long conversations and we play cards and talk about kids. I go over there for dinner and we have a pretty good time. I think some of this is due to the fact that I don't have Charles to listen to everything I say anymore, too.