EMO ELMO

I voted today for the first time. It was slightly surreal.

I'm packing. (My next post will be from Colorado)
I have stacks on stacks of stuff to bring covering ALL of TT's bed. I can't see the bedspread.
and then I have a pile of junk going into my backpack spread out all over my bed.

When I left of the Academy I moved out of my room and threw most of my room away. Everything I wanted to keep (including clothes) was put in three boxes in the basement. When I came home, I moved into the little room and unpacked two of those three boxes. (The last one is still sitting unpacked in the basement. It's mostly old yearbooks and photo albums. Things I'll want later but not in this in between time.) Needless to say I don't have much junk.

But the one thing I have in my room is a drawer full of letters. Every letter I've gotten since last June. Including all my Academy mail. I came home and threw all my letters in that drawer without rereading them or anything. I only open that drawer every once in awhile to throw in a new letter. Until today that is.

Over the past month or two I've started healing and put my life back together. and I've been putting off reading these letters even though I know I'll have to at some point in order to move on. I don't really want the Academy to define me for the rest of my life. So I went through my letters. It took the past two hours and there were many tears and too many memories but I found some interesting stuff-

-14 envelops from KO! each one had one sheet of paper in it. each paper had one letter on it. Putting the 14 sheets together they spelled "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" I remember opening these the first day I was in DOR and spreading them out on the empty bed next to mine and just crying. I left them lying there until my roommate moved in three days later.

-warning sheets for the meningococcal vaccine, yellow fever vaccine, and the Hepatitis A vaccine I got at the Academy. I have no idea why I saved these. The only people in the US who have the yellow fever vaccine are military personal.

-5 pictures from the Sesame Street coloring book colored by Lisa, Kirsten, Sarah. One is of big bird wearing "bling" pushing Elmo on a swing. Elmo has a black heart because supposedly ""he's emo." I guess Lisa, Kirsten, and Sarah were feeling a little melodramatic that day.


-a road map of Michigan

- Cedar form letter from TT. I've sent bunches of these over the years and this was the first one I'd ever received!

-plus tons and tons of other letters, cards, and postcards all sending their love and support

Thank you everyone. I'm blessed to have so many people love me.