Forever and The End

So I was able to mark off one task from my list: I finished reading Forever by Judy Blume today. It was a book that I had read once upon a time and one of my favorites. It is about a girl, Katherine, who meets and falls in love with Michael, with whom she has her first sexual experience. They are high school seniors and deal with teen pregnancy (not hers), the attempted suicide of a friend, and the expectations of parents. It is beautiful and sad as they break up at the end after 7 weeks away from one another the summer before they go to college. Katherine's story is completely different from mine in that I was never close to my parents, I was not as secure with myself as she was, and my first lover was not a boy I was in love with and in fact, I have never made love to the first boy I ever loved. There are things I miss about being young and if I had to do it all over again, would make very different choices. There are things I do not miss about being young and in high school. I never did well with boys and have no answer as to why. There is someone that I could ask, but I am not counting on an explanation. And I guess, why even go there, right?

So there have been some major changes over the past week - the most important being that I am unemployed. Before I start getting messages about this, it is for the best that I am no longer with my previous employer and have lost 10 pounds in the week that I have been gone. I was sad and depressed and unhappy though I loved the people that I worked with. I have applied for a couple of positions, but have only begun to think about what to do next today as I was so occupied with the DEMO gala. There are so many possibilities for me and I am excited. G wants me to focus on a career in writing, but I still think that needs to be a part-time activity. I think I have a great idea for a novel and will begin to work on that in my spare time and after I get caught up on my sleep.

I am still working on my spirituality and my faith and have been attending church. Last week they had a program in which the brass bells were played. I started to cry once I realized that it was Jesus Loves Me. It was the culmination of many years of mistakes and heartbreak and hardship and confusion and realization and relief. I am not a woman that cries, so the whole thing felt awkward to me. Today I chatted with the mothers at "Little's" dance class about being unemployed and what my next move would be. One of the women I think so highly of went through something similar and said that she prayed to get her answers. So I will pray to get my answers. Thus far, my prayers have gone unanswered in a way that is obvious to me.....but, as we know from the above paragraph, I do not easily give up, even when I should!