story post #1

Please let me know what you think, and how you think I could improve! This is a very rough draft, and I am completely open to suggestions.


“She’s gone, Carter. She’s gone. They tried all they could, but they couldn’t save her.”
The words hit Carter like a ton of bricks. His fiancée, his best friend, his life, his everything. Gone. He was speechless. His heart felt like it had shattered into a million pieces. She was gone, and with her, everything he had ever known.
He sat back in the chair he had spent nearly a dozen hours in, waiting, hoping, and praying. He had seen it happen. He had seen that pickup go a little too fast through a light that had been red for at least 10 seconds. He had seen that pickup slam into the driver’s side of her little Civic. He had seen her airbag deploy. He had seen the driver of the truck reverse and speed away. And there had been nothing he could have done about it.
They had been on their way to the homecoming football game. It was their senior year, and it was supposed to be perfect. That night, they were supposed to dress to the nines and go dance the night away at the Homecoming dance.
After the accident, Carter had been unable to bear the pain of even looking at the accident. They were required to stay at the scene to recall what they had witnessed, but Carter had sat in the backseat of his truck, and tried to feel, think, say, anything. He hadn’t watched the ambulance take his beloved fiancée away to the hospital, he hadn’t watched the police cars surround the scene. He hadn’t even watched when the tow truck had hauled her crushed Honda away. All he could do was stare blankly at the back of the seat in front of him.
He had been driving with Trevor, Chris and Tony. She had been with Taylor, Megan, Shannon and Elizabeth. They had all met at Carter’s house beforehand to grill out and get ready for the game. Everything had been perfect. The perfect weather, perfect day, perfect friends. It had seemed like nothing could go wrong. Trevor had offered to drive to the game, but Hadley had insisted that she wanted to. Her parents had just paid to put gas in her car, and she wanted to drive. The girls had dressed up in the school colors, blue and gold, and painted the windows of Hadley’s car. They had been looking forward to this game since the beginning on the semester.
Now, in the waiting room of Belden Memorial Hospital, the four girls, the guys, and Carter, sat quietly, unsure of what to think of what had happened. The face paint the girls had so carefully applied was in streaks, due to the tears that had been falling down their cheeks almost constantly since the accident. The guys, once “too tough” to cry, had broken down into tears, just as Carter had. Hadley’s parents sat in the corner, her mother sobbing heavily into her father’s shoulder, and her father staring straight ahead, a blank look on his face, unable to feel anything.
They said Hadley was gone. But Carter wasn’t sure how easy it would be to accept it.

worrying too much.

i worry too much. period.
i know this. and i am aware of it. and i hate it.
i overthink situations. and i wonder too many things. and im nosy.
and i make things negative when they do not at all have to be.
but im working on it. im working on not deciphering every little thing that happens.
im learning, every single day, to just let go, and let God. I cant decide what is going to happen with my life. That is for God, and God alone, to decide.
i am going to try to stop worrying as much as i do already. it isnt good for me, or for anyone it affects.
i worry so much about the future, and how things are going to turn out, and what is going to happen.
Let go, and let God.

my savior wears jeans.

Jeff's little sister, Jennifer, wrote this.
And she gave Scott and I permission to post it on our blogs.
I really really like it. and think its really good.


When I finally pass away some day,
I can merely hope and pray
That I will gaze upon Christ.
Though he is constantly depicted in free flowing robes of white,
That is not the Savior I expect to see in my sights,
No, that image simply is not right.
My Savior wears jeans.

Yes, He wears jeans, an opinion I refuse to deny,
And if you need reassurance you only need to look toward the sky,
And gaze at the intricate shades of blue.

His jeans are long, battered, tattered, and torn.
They've been stained with blood, tears, and sweat since before I was born.
The blue varies through fades, and prices He's paid.
The most appealing part of the jeans are the many splotches of bleach,
From where He has tried to reach and teach,
As He walks to and fro,
Cleaning the coats, of those whom He knows.
And I will be the one of the first to confide,
That those stains on his jeans will stay there with pride,
No matter how much He uses Clorox 2 or Tide,
Because the blotches we see is from where He's lived, thrived, and died,
And eventually risen days after making his crucial decision.
Yes, it is true; I can see through the blue, my Savior wears jeans

negativity in focus.

i have begun to realize that i start out a lot of my blogs the same way.
and i have also realized that i start blogs thinking i have some really awesome idea, but then i start to write and realize that it is actually really dumb.
so hopefully, that isnt going to happen this way.
but im not really sure.
anyways. most everyone, it seems, has been kind of negative lately. especially the last month.
and i hate it. a lot.
i think it had something to do with the fact that everyone was together so much, for some people anyways.
that never particularly bothered me. because i loved hanging out with the guys, and bailey, all the time.
but, i think that took a toll on some people.
a lot of the time, i know that i dont get taken as very serious. i know i mess around a lot and i try to make a lot of situations funny. which apparently annoys some people. but i dont like it when people are down, especially if it is for a reason that i cant do anything about.
i can be kind of nosy.
and i am well aware of that.
but it is always for a good reason. i always want to know what is going on that i can try to resolve/salvage the situation. i guess i dont always tell people that, because i guess i usually assume that they don't or won't care.
i feel like a lot of times i have to explain the things i do. i have to let people know the reasons i do things, or otherwise they wont ever understand me.
but i am starting to realize that that isn't at all necessary.
the people who matter are going to love ME for ME. regardless of what I do, or how i do things, or what i say, or how I act. the people that are always going to be there for me arent going to care what kind of person i used to be, the people i used to be friends with, the habits i used to have.
they arent going to care what i wear, or how i do my hair, or the car i drive or the music i listen to.
they are going to like me. all of me. no matter what.
and i thank God every single second of every single day for giving me people like that.

Wayne State College.

this is going to be the longest summer of my life.
it is the end of day one of summer.
and i already hate it.
it might sound really dramatic and super lame.
but this sucks. i want to go back to school.
i knew i would miss my friends, and i knew i would be a bit down.
but seriously. how am i going to survive without the people that i spent almost all of my time with.
i can honestly say that i have never had friends like the ones i have met at WSC.
Jeff, Aaron, Fowler, Scott, and Bailey. The 5 people I spent the most time with. They are the ones I miss the most right now.
I had no idea that being away from people could be such a big deal.
But that just goes to show how important they are to me. The more you miss someone, the bigger the impact they have had on you.
Every single one of those people has changed my life in some way. Whether it was big or small, they all made some sort of impact. It hurts so bad knowing they wont be just across campus to go talk to or hug or wave at. or watch play cod. :)
I am not going to lie, I cried this morning when it kind of hit me that I wouldn't be seeing some of the guys for a long time.
The camping trip this summer is going to be unbelievably fun. and i cannot wait to get everyone together again. :)
until then, I have a very long six weeks ahead of me. August 19th can't come fast enough.

nerves.

i do not understand how people can say the most rude hurtful horrible things and not even care at all.
tonight i was told that i am not an individual. that i am a follower. and shallow. and close minded. and not unique. and rude. and basically worthless.
who is he to decide what/who i am? who is he to say that i am not unique.
he didnt even care what he did to my feelings. he just said what he thought was right. and said that a lot of my friends agreed with him. and just didnt tell me.
did he try to be nice about it? did he care about what i thought? or how i would feel? no.
i defriended him on facebook. and deleted him from my phone.
i learned from my best friends that he is completely wrong. and that i dont have to listen to him. because he has no idea what he is talking about, and has no right to say what he said.
it is currently 2:59 AM. Jeff and Scott just left Bowen about ten minutes ago, after coming over to see me because of what happened.
I have the two best friends on the whole entire planet. no joust. among other people, without those boys, i do not know where i would be.
scott dropped what he was doing to come over. and jeff stayed up extra late.
just to come to bowen to make me feel better.
this summer is going to suck. no random people showing up in the middle of the night.
no hugs from them every single day.
no hanging out for hours on end every day.
im not at all excited for the summer. but i cannot wait to see everyone halfway through.

the end of the year.

i realize that i talk about my friends a lot.
but that is because i seriously do not know where i would be without them.
growing up, i definitely did not have very many friends. and the ones that i did have, were definitely not good role models, or good influences.
most people don't know about the kind of person i was. yeah, from about seventh til ninth grade i got into the whole weed thing. i hung out with not so good people. had a mouth like a sailor, which stuck with me for far too long.
i got into fights a lot, i went places i shouldnt have gone, i broke things and even stole stuff a couple times.
i was not a good person, nor was i living my life for God, by any means. I generally do not tell people about that way that I was, because I am seriously ashamed of it. Now, I am so against smoking and doing anything like that, but that is some of who I used to be.
At the beginning of this year, I still had that sailor mouth. Sometimes I hung out with some not wonderful people, though never as much as when I was younger.
I always hated church when I was little. I thought sermons were boring, hymns were stupid, and I didnt understand why I had to go. It didnt make any sense to me.
The summer before my senior year, I went on a mission trip to Arkansas. My youth group went with another group, from a church in Omaha called St. Paul United Methodist. Those kids were some of the most amazing people I have ever met. And they changed my life.
Jess and I started going to their church every Sunday instead of our home church. St. Paul UMC has a very strong youth program, which is something our church lacks. Both of us attended that church through most of the school year, but I had to stop going when my dumb job kept scheduling me for Sunday mornings.
The point is, that most people don't know the kind of person I have been. Even now, I am terrified that someone is going to read this and think completely different of me and not talk to me anymore or something.

Scott sent me a message on Facebook telling me a lot of important stuff. And he doesn't know it, but it absolutely meant the world to me. I am the kind of person who needs to hear things in order to believe them. i dont think im beautiful unless someone says so. i dont think im funny unless someone says so. i am the kind of person who sometimes needs to be complimented.

i know that i have become a better person simply because of the people i am surrounded with everyday. and i cannot begin to thank them enough for that.