This might be a long post.

This might be a long post.

I'm a at a weird place in my life.  I have found since starting college in January that my priorities have shifted majorly in that time.  I almost don't even feel like the same person that I was before I started school.  For the first time in my life I have a major goal.

Before that all I cared about was having my independence and being able to care for Shadow by myself, which I accomplished by 2002 or 2003 when I moved out on my own.  Since then, it's been one struggle after the other just to maintain any sort of "decent" standard of living.  By "decent" I mean a roof over our heads, and that's about it; keeping this house from falling apart all around us has been a chore and major financial drain in and of itself.  There were years when most of Shadow's clothes were hand-me-downs or bought by my mother.  There have been years when I couldn't drive myself to work because I didn't have a working car.  There have been years when we wouldn't eat if it was not for food stamps.  And I'm just so tired of that.  I'm done with it.  I'm not doing this anymore.

Even though this past semester was hard I survived and I came out on top.  I don't have all of my English grades yet, but so far, so good.  If I make an A like I'm expecting to I'll have A's for all three of my summer classes this semester.  School is definitely my priority and takes precedent over every other aspect of my life except for the well-being of my family - which includes Shadow, Shaun, and the animals.  School is the only way I'm going to make any big change in my life and I'm beyond ready.  I'm actually very excited about the future and what it holds.

I can't even nail down all of the things that are going to change for me in the next few years.  Shadow is about to start the 10th grade, so he'll be graduating high school and officially an adult before I know it.  If I get that scholarship to JSU I'll be a full-time student and scraping by on grant money and student loans.  When I graduate from there I am taking a good job and I don't care if that means leaving this neighborhood or even this state for a while.  Shaun and I have even discussed living on the same piece of land.  Neither of us are 100% sold on the idea of living in the same house, but we have time to figure shit out.

I don't know.  I'm having a hard time doing anything but focusing on my goal.  The thing is - I don't make decisions and plans often, but when I do I'm ALL IN.  So even though I've only had a couple of days with no classes, I'm antsy.  I'm ready to go back and get on with it.  I know that I probably do need to relax for a week before the new semester starts and I definitely have some things to catch up on around here, but it's really difficult for me to focus on doing anything that isn't moving me forward.  I don't know.  I think my brain must be wired weird, but I felt so lost without homework last night.  I had to restrain myself from doing the last section of Algebra homework over.  At least on Monday, I can go to the bookstore and figure out what books I need to get.  That will be fun.  😃