OHIO!

Not Ohio, but this is my mom, and me looking incredibly dorky. What a surprise.

Again, not in Ohio, but this is me holding Pauly (from Catskill Animal Sanctuary, see links in sidebar), standing with my dad.

So - that's my way of saying hello from Ohio, and these parental types are who I am visiting. YAY! It's only Wednesday night, which means Le Heedee-uss final was last night. Holy cats, man. It seems like sooo much longer ago than a mere 24 hours. Funny how time stretches and compresses at the end of the semester. At any rate, here I am in Ohio. I arrived late this afternoon. I just spent a very enjoyable evening with my mom and dad - it's so very, very nice to see them. It's been way too long - over a year. I miss them every day, so it's great to be here, especially given the stress of late. I feel completely at ease here, though to be honest I'm still pretty keyed up. My dad says I'll probably feel like a new person by Saturday - he should know, having been through years more schooling than me. Simply, it's wonderful to be here.

I don't really have much to say right now - I'm pretty much running on fumes at this point - but I wanted to check in. The final was pretty horrid; I'll find out what I got on Friday. I had an A going into it, but I'm pretty certain I blew it last night. Ah, well. At least there was a nice cushion for me to do badly, right? I'll keep you posted. I'm sure you'll all be waiting with baited breath. Or is it bated? Bated isn't even a word, is it? Moving on.

I also wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your support. Your words and kind thoughts mean more to me than you can know. I feel like I'm letting everyone down by talking about how things are and then doing nothing about it... but that's not actually true, at least not at this point. I said at the beginning of the year - mental health improvement and finishing my RN are my top priorities, and I'm getting those ducks in a row. Ultimately, things with my relationship have to change, that much is clear. For now, though, I don't think I can make big, sweeping changes with regard to it. Maybe that will change next week, maybe I'll be able to hold out to the end of the RN - I don't know. What I do know is that there will be change. (ed. note: if I write the word "change" one more time, I am going to kick myself in the shins. Good Lord. Yes, I'm exhausted and my mental thesaurus is thusly handicapped.) The better I feel and the closer I am to being finished, the stronger I get. I suppose that's all I have to say on that topic for the moment - I'm so tired my eyes are practically crossing. I hope I'm making some scrap of sense. I'll sign back in tomorrow. Again - thank you, thank you, thank you.... and take care.