This isn’t a letter to mom. This is me writing so some of those swirling emotions inside me can potentially find a way out. I should have known today would go like this. It’s the first day in a while where I’ve had the chance to slow down and breath and because of that, all the emotions are welling up to the surface. I’m surprised it took until now to get to where I’m at. Silent tears running down my cheeks as I sit in front of the computer thinking about the mountain of everything that’s happened in the past few months.

Like normal, I don’t even know where to start.

I suppose I can start with the cutest thing first. I adopted two farm kittens this past Monday. My boss knew someone who wasn’t able to keep them and needed to find a home for them. So they now have a home with me. They’re sisters and they get to stay together. I don’t care that my lease says I can’t have them. I’ve seen the guy across from me come out to his balcony and his cat follows him out. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I accept whatever consequences there may be, including being evicted. They’re worth it.

They had their first vet appointment this morning. They were given a dewormer since mama cat was an outdoor cat and they spent their first six weeks outside eating who knows what bugs they were playing with. The vet said they sound fine and that there aren’t any signs of health issues so far. From the behavior I described to him he says there’s currently nothing to worry about. They go back in two weeks for their first vaccinations.

Their names are Saber and Dagger. Saber is the greyish one, and Dagger is the brownish tiger one. They’re my snuggle buddies. They both love curling up with me in bed. Saber is more reserved than Dagger. Dagger’s going to be the hellion of the house. I can already see it.

Thursday was my last day for DSS Leadership. I had to do my About Me slide. I know when I do it in the future it will be much different. It will have pictures of the kittens on there. It will have my DSS Leadership group picture on there. It will have a lot of different things there because I’ll be further in my journey.

This time it had a lot about mom in it. I talked about how it wasn’t until her death that I felt like an adult and how sometimes life throws you a curveball that you could never be prepared for. I talked about how I went to therapy because I wasn’t equipped to handle everything in my life on my own.

It was pretty emotional. I told my classmates at the beginning of my presentation that life is a lot like a heartbeat. You have ups and downs and that my story was going to have a really low down but there were positives on the other side of it so I needed them to stay with me through the hard parts.

My FA gave me a hand made give with my personal credo on it. “Show up to battle and fight for what you believe in.” I’m going to hang it on my front door so I see it every time I leave the apartment; my reminder to be the type of person I want to be. I had tears in my eyes as she gave it to me.

She also told me that I was chosen to write an article for the October edition of the Tech Talk news letter. It’s the letter that gets sent to literally every PCT in the company, and FA, and who knows who else. Literally, thousands of people are going to get this email with my article in it. It’s an “About Me” article since I guess someone somewhere feels like I should share my store. It’s humbling and intimidating and I’ve already written my rough draft and I’m emotionally exhausted from everything. Work, DSS, writing, studying for school because that’s going on at the same time…

I feel honored for the opportunity to write about my experience so far. I get to say thank you to everyone in my Orlando clinic. I get to include them in my journy and show how the company really is more of a village, a community, rather than a company. At least it can be if you let it.

School is going well so far. I feel fairly on top of my assignments. I finished the flashcards for chapter three in my Human Structure class. I want to take the test tomorrow, but with how little I’ve studied in comparison to what I wanted to do… I’m not sure.

Being sad and tired is factoring into not studying as effectively as I normally would.

I have the shopping list written out, but the thought of actually going to the store right now is draining. Who knows. Maybe I’ll feel up to doing it later tonight once it’s dark and hardly anyone is out and about.

Jon survived the hurricane. Thankfully it downgraded pretty severally before reaching Florida. He was on call at the hospital which got him a ton of overtime. Glad it was fairly uneventful for him.

The next few weeks at work are going to be pretty chill. I only work three days each week. THREE! And only one of those days is going to be at Cap City. I can totally handle that. I want to try to add structure back into my life. I want to figure out a class at the gym do each day I’m not working. I want to do the Adventure’s League at Hobby Town with Ox.

I want to figure out how to have a life again. I think that starts with building a routine. I think I want to go through and to the 30-day challenge again. I think that could help give me structure and focus and help me identify goals and milestones.

Oh. I did my yearly physical for my insurance. I’m .1 freaking point away from an extra $400 off my yearly premium. ONE TENTH OF A POINT! >.<; OMG

That’s so much better than what it first was three-ish years ago. It’s awesome to see that even though I feel like I haven’t made progress since last October, that I still sort of have. If I can get back on the bandwagon of going to the gym along with continuing to eat healthily I should be ridiculously phenomenal next year.

So… yeah… my numbers aren’t where I was hoping they would be at, but they’re still pretty good. Definitely healthier than where I started.

Ox and I had a small talk the other night. I asked him if he could try not smoking in front of me. I’ve been doing really well with not smoking. Not 100% awesome since I’ve had a few drags here and there. I had a whole one with New RN Friday when we worked together. But compared to the over half a pack I was doing a short two weeks ago… I feel like I’m doing pretty freaking awesome.

It’s hard to not want to smoke with the other girls in my LPN class. God, that sounds so much like a high school thing to say, but there you go. We’re all just kids with more expensive toys.

I want to be part of the group. I want to belong and to be part of “them”. But I don’t want to smoke, so if I go and hang out with them while they’re smoking then I’m going to make things awkward. I’ll also want to smoke and that will sort of ruin the whole retiring thing. And yes, I’m going to refer to it as retiring. It was super cute. One of my DSS classmates told me to say retire instead of quit since quitting normally a bad thing.

I can’t lie, saying that I’ve retired sounds way more dignified. XD

Anywho, I’m sort of struggling on Tuesdays more because I want to have a feeling of belonging rather than because I want a cigarette. When I’m with Ox and we’re outside and his smoking it’s sort of hard, too. When we’re out grocery shopping and he has one before getting in the car… It’s hard to not feel denied. I want one, but I can’t have one, but I have to watch while someone else gets to have the thing I want and they shouldn’t share with me because we both know I really don’t want it but I do…

He said he would do his best to be better about not smoking in front of me. I’m grateful for his effort. I don’t mean to be annoying about it.

Surprisingly I don’t really know what else to type about. I sort of want to go to the store now. I feel like I have a bit of energy. I could get the shelves I want for the apartment and keep plucking away at making this feel like my little dragon den.

I guess we’ll see how the rest of the night plays out.