A good friend of mine recently tried to give me some advice and started by telling me this quote "It's your life...it's up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go of...". I thought this was kind of interesting considering the relevancy of it to my life these past couple weeks. And because of it, im urged to become completely skeptical of this so called quote she likes to go by.

I would like to think that you can have total control of the people in your life, but i don't think it's always the case. How can you possibly decide who you let walk away? I can say from personal experience that I've had people in my life who have walked away when with every part of me I wanted them to stay. So whoever said that is full of shit.

Anyways, on another note I just want to say how much a pain in the ass packing can be. I've been doing quite a bit of it lately and you never do realize how much crap you own until you're going through every last bit of it. I am one of those people who has a lot of crap. Useless crap. I've just packed three huge boxes of wolf ornaments. Nothing useful...just pretty. But I'm pretty close to being all packed up. Life dealt me a pretty crappy hand this year. And yeah I know I have to take responsibility for most of it. But I'm hoping I can change that and make the best of what I've got. This Sunday I'm taking all my boxes filled with all my goodies and putting them in a dark basement at my dad's house. Then I'm going to take my bag of clothes and my bookshelf and move that into my mom's basement. It's not the greatest arrangement, but it's the only arrangement. So I can't be picky, I must take what I am offered. With that said, my dad has offered me a car. I was shocked when he gave me that news, and only because certain people who live with him like to spend all the riches he has. It drives me insane but I've learned to not expect much of anything from anybody anymore.

I just keep thinking, in 8 months everything is going to be different, and in 12 months I'll be on the other side of the world.

So it's been forever and a day since I've been able to get to a computer that actually has hi speed and works properly. From this point in time I have less then two weeks at camp and I'll be back at home. Not quite sure where home is going to be at this point but that will all be figured out soon. I've had a lot of time to think over the past two months about what I want out of life. Afterall, I am graduating in 8 months and from that moment on my life will become much different. There will be new goals that I make for myself and new challenges that need to be faced. I've started to think about some of those things and this is what I've come up with.

Having fun is always a good thing. I've learned that this summer. I've worked my ass off this summer but it has been fun. The cracker eating competition at the lunch table between me and the waterfront director was fun....i lost but it was fun (who can eat 5 soda crackers in 1 minute
?). Eating a McChicken sandwich at 11pm at night on the docks with some friends is fun. Having your friend text a hot hockey player without you knowing and receiving midnight phonecalls from him is VERY fun! Hmmm, what else.... trying to wakeboard and not being able to move the next day or the day after is not so fun, but it's memorable. Blobbing people off the water trampoline during the sunset is pretty fun too. Having a bunch of friends come into the health center after hours to play doctor and run a hair salon is quite fun and interesting too. All these memories of camp are awesome and I will never forget them, but the summer is almost over and it's time to move back into reality and think about what it is i want to do with my life. So here it is....these are the next goals I have for my life.

The first goal is to finish my undergraduate degree and become a nurse. For the next 8 months I'm going to dedicate "almost" every moment of my time to my courses and practice so that I can graduate. When I graduate I'm going to work. I want to work in oncology and I'd be so happy if it were at Sick Kids or PMH. Once I work for a year or two I'd like to go back to school so I can be a nurse practitioner. Once I've accomplished that my career will pretty much be set.

My second goal is to have a family. I've decided this summer that I'm tired of messing around. I don't want to use people and I definitely do not want to be used anymore. I want to have a relationship with someone and eventually have the whole family thing. I want to move to a house on the lake where I can be happy with people I love and who love me back. And of course there would have to be pets.....lots of them.

I think reaching these particular goals is going to be challenging. And I say this for so many reasons. I have lots of things to overcome but I think if I put my mind to it I can do it. Anything or anyone that's gets in the way of this will have to be "eliminated" i guess. When there's something you want, all the world conspires in letting you get it. I'm not going to let that happen with me....not this time....

Let me just start by saying that being a girl sucks ass at times. It really does. Girls like me always end up having feelings for someone. No matter how hard I try to fight them. This summer I've done everything to try and forget feelings I have for certain people but it is totally impossible. Tom Cruise himself could not fix this. Swimming doesn't fix it, friends don't fix it, hugs don't fix it, and certainly Dr. Mc Dreamy himself (who we have here at camp right now.....but that's a totally different story) could not fix this. He helped a bit yesterday though. We had a conversation about how men and women do not understand each other. How we are so completely different. And its true. Women need to feel loved. They need to feel secure. And most importantly, they hate to be hurt. And boys like to hurt girls feelings...although most of the time I'm sure they don't even know they're doing it.

Yesterday I was hurt. For some reason or another I felt hurt by something someone said. It may sound stupid, and maybe I have no reason to feel this way, but I do. And I feel so helpless. I wish that feelings could be just squished in a ball and thrown away....more than anything I wish it was that easy. But it's not. Unfortunately these things linger in the corner of your gut and make you feel physically nauseated.

I get all these inspiration notes from people at camp telling me how great a job I'm doing and how my smile and patience is something we should all have....how I just might be the nicest person they've ever met....all these little things are great to hear at times. They really bring a person up. So many people see this but why is it that the one person you want to notice it the most turns a blind eye to it. This is kind of a sappy blog but I think it's just one of those days. The days to come are going to be much better.

So I'm still trying to figure out how this entire blog thing actually works. Once I accomplish that then I can actually get to writing something meaningful on here.....if anything on here is ever really meaningful.

So I got home from camp last night and I have to go back tomorrow for 6pm. It seems like such a short period of time but I'm already missing it. I was not prepared for what I was coming home to after the five weeks I just finished. And it took me just one day of returning home to actually recognize just how much good being up north for the summer is doing for me. I feel horrible for saying what I'm about to say and I hope nobody judges me for it but here it goes anyway. Two months ago when I was working at the home depot and living in the basement, there were so many days where I feared getting out of bed. There were more times than normal where I did not want to face another day. I was so unhappy. And everyone around me noticed it while I sat there and denied it. I denied it because I thought that I was happy. Somewhat happy anyway. Until I moved away.

Moving away is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I say it all the time and I'll keep on saying it. CAMP IS GREAT. I work from 745am until about 10pm everyday and I'm on call all the time. And every morning when my alarm goes at 715am I have no hesitation when getting out of bed. I have no negative thoughts about what the day is going to be like. I actually look forward to it. I have never been so dedicated to something in my life. But this I am. I run the health center and it is very stressful for me at times, but I still love it so much.

Because of this change, I have finally had the opportunity to eliminate all the bad things in my life that were bringing me down and focus on the positive things that are going to help me live a healthy life.