Let's just start with the most obvious excitement in my life: I'M ENGAGED!!!!!!! :) I couldn't be happier to be engaged to the most incredible man I've ever met. Kyle is the best friend and the best man the Lord could have placed in my life. He is good and kind, smart and real, most of all, he is true and honest. I cannot wait to be his wife. Shortly after we were engaged, someone asked me how I knew I was in love with Kyle... and I quickly answered, "When you can be your absolute truest self in front of them and when you can tell them everything... every. single. thing... that's when you know." I tell Kyle the good and the bad and he accepts that, praise God. My heart feels like exploding every time I think of spending my life with Kyle. As Meredith Grey (from Grey's Anatomy) would say, "He is my person."
Next on the list... I'm GRADUATING IN LESS THAN 2 MONTHS! Oh my. That's overwhelming to say. It's a long awaited day. I've worked as hard as I could to finally get to this point. So many tears have been shed due to the stress I've had the past couple of years. Kyle can testify to those tears. Bless his heart... he put up with so much crap. Student teaching has been rough... but the classes and the professors were even worse. I absolutely adored a couple of the professors I had. They couldn't have been sweeter and more understanding. However, for every one awesome professor, there are about ten bad ones, which sucked. Now that I'm an intern and I'm basically teaching all day every day, I realize how a big girl job can really weigh you down. I'm so incredibly excited to have my own classroom and to follow my own rules and to do things my way. Student teaching will really open your eyes to the things you don't want to do as a teacher.
The day after I graduate college will be the most excruciating day I will ever face. Kyle will leave for basic training in Paris Island, South Carolina. I will not hear his precious voice for 13 weeks. He is becoming a Marine. No situation has ever felt so bittersweet. Part of my heart is full of complete pride and honor as I look at Kyle in admiration. He is one of the most courageous men I've ever met. He is also the most protecting. So, for him to go into the Marines, I have the utmost confidence that he will succeed in any situation he faces. At the beginning of this journey, when Kyle first signed, it was heartbreaking for me. I probably wasn't the most supportive girlfriend in the world, but as we have become closer and Kyle has had more Marine functions to go to, I've become more accepting of the fact that my life is going to change. Partly for the good, and partly for the bad. I'm not excited about leaving my family. My mom, brother and I are very close. Not being 5 minutes away from her is going to be really tough at first. However, my mom made a good point a couple of months ago when we were talking. She said, "Rachel, this move might be good for you and Kyle. It will make you lean on one another when times get tough because all you will have is each other." She couldn't be more correct. I've always called on my mom whenever something bad happened. I'll occasionally talk to Kyle, but Kyle is a man and he doesn't always want to hear me rant and run on about my chaotic day. But, if and when we move states, he's going to have to learn to deal with my venting, and I'm going to have to adjust to his job and the fact that he may or may not always be sleeping beside me at night. There are a lot of changes that we're going to be faced with in the next year or so. It's crazy to think that I will be in another state this time next year. I'm slowly becoming excited about it though. Now that we're engaged, it's becoming real that we will spend our lives together and I will have his children and we'll grow old together. I can't wait to begin my life with him. I really can't.
That may not seem like a lot of changes to you. But, if you take a step back and think about all of that happening in your life, you'll probably think differently. Getting engaged, planning a wedding, graduating college, looking for a job while Kyle is in basic training for 3 months, getting married, and then moving to a new location away from my family, and starting my teaching career. It is a hell of a lot to take in all at once. I try not to think about all of it at the same time, because I know all it will do is make me paranoid and overwhelmed.
I'm learning to lean on Kyle when I become overwhelmed. Sometimes I still hold it all in and pretend it isn't going to really happen, that December 9th will never come, and that I won't have to really go 3 months without seeing or speaking to my sweet Kyle. But, the reality is that all of that is going to happen. I can't change the situation, but I can change how I handle and approach it. I'm definitely going to keep myself busy with something. Granted, I know the first week he is gone I'll probably just crawl in my closet with multiple boxes of tissue and the biggest tub of Blue Bell's Cookies-N-Cream I can find. But, after that I will have to learn to adjust to him being gone. I have to stay positive.
"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."
