On a different note...

I finished a letter today that a year ago, I would absolutely not have even considered writing. I hope it was the right thing to do, and I hope that the level of forgiveness it required of me is a level I can remain at. I don't want to send this thing and look back and regret it.

Jonesboro has thrown some crazy weather at me since moving here. 2009 broke the rainfall record that was 160-something years old, resulting in my apartment flooding twice, and puddling a third time. I think Karen & Terry's contractor got things fixed, but we'll just have to see next time we have crazy rain, as I'm sure we will coming into Spring. Two days ago, we broke the snowfall record, apparently. Terry said that the record was 3" in one day, set back in the 1960s, but two days ago, we got SEVEN inches in one day! That's the most snow this Texas girl has ever seen. The snow was preceded by freezing rain, so my car had a layer of ice literally a half-inch thick. It was insane! Everything is so pretty right now, though...the snow looks like a coat made up of billions of diamonds laid out in the sun.

Last week, I attended Lifegroup for the first time...Southwest breaks into house churches except for Sunday morning worship, and I finally went last Sunday. I intended to try a different one Tuesday night, but it just didn't work out. Tonight, the one I went to last week canceled because of the ice, but I'm hoping that Tuesday night will work this week. It's the only way I know to make friends around here...I just hope that there are some singles in this group. All the married couples I've been meeting are sweet...but since I didn't know them before they formed families, it's hard to call & try to make plans because I'd feel like I was imposing on their time together. I wouldn't feel weird if they invited me, but my taking the lead just doesn't feel right. Maybe I'm being silly about that...I don't know. But I want some single girlfriends who I can call & go see a chick-flick with. I want a guy who'll go out for coffee with me & not expect anything more than that but who'll hug me for a while when I just need to feel a man's arms around me. I'll get there one of these days.

I'm filled with a deep desire to go home, too. Being in Fort Worth for just those few days made an already-present want into something desperate and immediate in a way that it hadn't been before. From the time I left Fort Worth to go to Harding, my plan was to go to school and then come back home to stay. When my parents changed that, it was still my plan, always, to move back home as soon as I could. Life got in the way and delayed me, but now...I'm in no hurry to cast aside the blessings that have been dropped in my lap...I know that my job and my apartment are pretty spectacular gifts. I also know that I can't stay in either of them forever, and wouldn't want to...I want to find a job I love in a city I love and have a home of my own. So, that's my goal at this point...get my life in order and figure out what I want to be now that I'm grown up, and then work toward going home.

This was a sporadic post; I'm sorry. Just lots of little things that I wanted to voice, as much to myself as anyone else.