The end is drawing nigh

This week has been filled with a lot of 'lasts' for me.  I have been organizing the end of the year banquet for my Frisbee team. It has been quite the emotional ordeal.  For the past week I spent all of my free time planning and making their gifts.  We settled on making photo quilts.  I was super excited to start.  I had all the non-seniors on my team start gathering their favorite photos of the graduating players.  I then printed these photos onto fabric that was backed with paper and could be sent through a printer.  This for me was the hardest part.  I had no ink and had to borrow a friends and it took forever.  In my friend's living room, the stress of the party started.

From there the stress traveled with me, heavy on my shoulders and crowding my thoughts. I had so much to do before these quilts were finished and so much studying to do for my chemistry class.  I loaded the lecture videos onto my computer and settled down with my sewing machine.

The past four days have been a fog.  Chemistry flowed in one ear and quilting thoughts flowed out the other. Monday night I took my test and yet the stress wasn't gone.  I kept on quilting.  Through the whole day yesterday I sewed until my thread was gone.  I reloaded the bobbin and continued on. 

Things got down to the wire.  6:30 and I was finally putting the final touches on a seam when I completely ran out of red thread.  I had none left and this was a showing seam.  So I did what any crazy, stressed-out crafter would do,  I grabbed all small strands that had been discarded earlier and I sewed that stupid quilt shut by hand. 

I gather my wits, whipped up some stuffed mushrooms caps and headed to the party.  At this point I haven't slept or eaten enough and I want the party to be over before it starts just so I an can nap, but instead I make small talk, watch a highlights reel, orchestrate the presentations and feel wiped out.  After the senior speeches I stand up to give our seniors their gift and it hits me.  It being the tiredness, the stress, the sadness these girls are leaving, and I start to cry.  In front of everyone.  It hits me how much I love these girls that are leaving our team.  We had all been through so much together. These were the girls that first welcomed me to the team, and I didnt want to see them go.  I choked out some sentiments at them and essentially threw the quilts at them too. 

And that was it.  I was done.  I felt fine.  The rest of the party were some quick goodbyes and I got to go home.  I got to my room and realized there was a certain gentleman I hadn't talked to all day.  I layed down on my bed and picked up my phone.  We quickly rehashed the days events and my best friend got home. She climbed into bed with me and we watched Say Yes to the Dress until we were to tired to hold open our eyelids and fell asleep. 

Today I feel in control of my life again.  I have one more take home test and this is all over. I am working part time at the Post Office on campus and that is that.

It has been a wonderful year, but has taken so much to get here.  So much stress, a lot of tears.  There are going to be a lot of people that were a regular feature in my life that I am not going to be seeing a lot of.  I can't dwell on that though, people move, I move, things change.

As much as I hate change, there is nothing I can do about it.  At then beginning of the year I had my cat die on me, and at the end of the year I have a bunny.  Things get better and things get worse, but I am excited for the future and the years to come.