My Last Night

I hate to think of things as the "last" of anything, but there's really no other way to look at this. It didn't really seem that way- it was totally normal. Jamie did an awesome job on her story (the watercolor dots thing was SUCH a good idea!) and then I was sitting there eating a baked potato with Mary and it just felt so normal, like I'd keep doing this every night for the rest of my life. Stevie was late tonight because he was working (11 hours, poor baby) and we just sat and talked and talked and we made keychains and Stephen colored my fish and put his name on it and then we went and played dodgeball with beach balls and it was pretty awesome. Stephen got really into it after saying that he was too tired to go outside and play. Did I mention that Mary broke his heart? He offered her his keychain but she said no and he got so so sad but then they traded keychains and it was all better. I think that gave him the energy for dodgeball. In music we sang and danced and Stevie did his usual awesome air guitar solo and acted all tired again. With VBS done, we decided that I should have one final trip to Tropical Smoothie. Now, TS closes at 9 and we decided this around 8:30. Parents had to be alerted and we got out of church at 8:43 by Stephen's clock. He made lots of vrooooooom noises all the way there (with his mouth, not his engine) and we got there at about 8:50. The poor Tropical Smoothie people were certainly not happy to have 8 people come in 10 minutes before they close! We ordered our smoothies (I got a Sunny Day and Stephen paid for it like a good date) and when they were all made we left (it was 9:07 by Mary's clock). I made my sad goodbyes to Stephen and Jamie and Douglas and Mary drove me and Travis and Andy home (also Laura, of course) and sang to us and we met Stevie's car at a stoplight and rolled our windows down and yelled "I love you" to each other and blew kisses and the like. Then we got to my house and I had to say goodbye to Andy and Laura and Mary but I've made so many goodbyes recently that my brain can't process that this is the last one. I feel like it's just our normal hug until we see each other again tomorrow. But this time tomorrow I'll be in a hotel room in Washington getting to know my new friends and knowing I won't see my old friends for a whole year.

As excited as I am, there's a whole lot of sadness, too. I feel like I've just realized how wonderful these friends of mine are, and now I'm going away and things are never really going to be the same. We've had this really great final summer while we're all still young, and after this is going to be college and careers and grown-up things.

*phone call!*Sarah just called me and we talked for about 45 minutes and now I don't remember what I was typing about. Oh, depressing things. Well, I'll try not to make you all sad and I'll wrap things up (sorry for the delay if you were frantically refreshing, Stevie and Mary!)

Gender: 51% female