on national best friends day.

Before delving into the real meaning of this post, gotta give a little update.

School ended on Wednesday last week, and Thursday was my last official day as Library Assistant. So ends yet another library phase in my life. Friday I spent the day training for my new position as registrar. The current registrar was going to be out of town Monday and Tuesday this week, so I had a nice four-day weekend planned for myself consisting of many sno cones, much book-reading, and a super lot of hours spent by the pool. My body took this small amount of freedom as its own, and by Saturday afternoon I was dead on the couch. Sick. Wee. I have left the house only four times since Saturday, twice for partial-day work related things and twice for food (priorities, right?). I had to miss my first day of summer school today because I woke up still too sick to go to work this morning. What a joke. Thanks a lot body. Jerk.

Anyway.

Yesterday I posted this:

 

 

I like celebrating all the little holidays, donut day, pizza day, (any day involving food really), national siblings day...all the best days. But I really like National Best Friends Day because I have some really great people in my life.

 

Pictured alongside me in the bottom left, in all our awkward, adolescent glory, is a girl who has been my best friend since eighth grade. Through good times and bad, I know I can always count on her and our friendship to be a constant rock in my life.

 

Top left includes my husband (perma-best friend, sorry babe) and two super great people that need to move their butts to Boise! Our travel buddies, couple significant other, and people who just understand us. They complete us.

 

And the ladies on the right. Not enough great things can be said about them. The amount of happiness they bring into my life is indescribable. It has been fun to see where life has taken each of us, but I wish it would take us together more often! They are the only people that I can be 100% myself around. They've seen be at my best and helped me through my worst, and I wouldn't be who I am without them! Come visit me!!!

 

I like having friends, as any average person would. And there are a lot of special people I have met throughout my life that will always be important to me. This is a super cheesy post, but where would we be without the people who have molded and shaped us?

on goodbyes.

I hate goodbyes. Ask my friends, or my family, or Brandon. I cry every single time I have to say goodbye to someone I care deeply about, even if we already have planned to see each other again soon.

That being said, today was the second to last day of school. I didn't really think anything of it, because most of the kids I have interacted with this past year are sixth and seventh graders, so I will be seeing them again next year. I didn't think about the fact that I will probably never see any of the eighth graders that I have gotten to know ever again until my 5th period student aide stopped at my desk on her way out of the library for the last time. She looked at me and said "thanks for putting up with me all year." I ALMOST LOST IT. Right there amongst all the books, I almost started bawling my eyes out because my witty, sarcastic little eighth grader made a joking comment about our time together this year, and she probably doesn't even know that I'm actually going to really miss her. She really messed it up for the eighth graders I only kind of know but don't see every day (which is most of them), because every time I saw one of them the rest of the day I just kept saying "I can't believe you're going to high school. I'm going to miss you so much. You guys just grow up so fast." And generally it was followed up with "uh...I just wanted to turn my book in..."

Granted, I am not a teacher. I don't spend all day every trying to wrangle and shape the minds of pubescent preteens who could not care less about what I was saying-I just give them books and take their money when they are irresponsible with said books-but boy, do I love them. I don't know if teachers enjoy their kids as much as I do, maybe for like the first few months, or maybe not at all (kudos to all my teacher friends though, I really don't know how you do it) but I appreciate these students so much just through the little interaction I have with them. They are such special humans, so unique and powerful and driven and determined to get to where they want to be in life. One eighth grader that was on the receiving end of my emotional we'll-probably-never-see-each-other-again spiel, who is kind of a trouble maker and struggles with his grades a bit, responded "Yeah, I'm going to go to high school, then I'm going to graduate high school, then I'm going to go to college, and then I'm going to graduate from college and get a great job." And I almost lost it again. Maybe we don't unfairly judge all the kids, but we sure don't expect as much from them as they are capable of. Great things, magnificent things. So much more than the tiny blip we get from them in a 45 minute period each day.

When I started this job, I didn't think about the fact that every year in June, I would have to do the one thing that I really probably hate most in life. For some students and all my staff friends (which is all of them), the goodbye is just for the summer. But for other kids, it's more than likely a goodbye forever. But I hope they know that even if I never see them again, never find out where they are at in life, I'll always be their cheerleader, hoping that they are happy, pursuing their dreams, and being the best them they can be.