"What's love? It's about us, it's about trust babe".

Hello Strangers or People I Know,

I have made it a goal to do two things. 1. Read my bible more through d365.org or the physical bible that I have at home. My heart has been drawing me to the book of Hebrews at home, but d365 is quick and allows me to organize my thoughts. I'm also going to finally download this app that I see on a friends snapchat all the time. It's called "eternal sunshine", and I promise not to delete the app in order to make more room for pictures. 2. I decided that I would blog more, because I need a healthy way to express my feelings and hear my own thoughts. I have chosen not to be sad and to try and be positive about my life choices and everything that's been going on. Writing my feelings and expressing myself if a great way to do it. I have learned that I don't enjoy talking about myself. I can talk about my friends and things going on in their lives, but I don't like talking about just me. What's going on with me or what I'm feeling. I guess that's partly, because I don't really focus on me. My life is just something I'm pushing through to get to the other side or a better place. The fact that there are only 6 more days of summer school after today makes everything better, because that has been a big cause of stress. I want my degree. It's important to me.

But I told you it's hard for me to worry about myself. The two things that have been heavy on my heart are my boyfriend and one of my friends. My boyfriend has been incarcerated for 48 days now. It is my hope and prayer that he comes home soon. It would be great if his release from jail was the answer to all of our problems, but it's not. I'm all in when I love someone and I truly believe that him and I are building a life together. We are trying to get careers (through school for me and finding a job for him) in order to eventually move in together, get married, and start a family. I don't know what his timeline is, but I see all of this coming together within the next 3 years. He doesn't get scared when we talk about marriage and commitment. The truth is that neither of us can imagine being apart. Even when we talk about the idea of him moving to Topeka or Kansas City, we both decide that its impossible. Yesterday, he ended up saying exactly what I was thinking. If he moves away, then one of us would have to commute to the other every night. We can't sleep without each other. Aside from this period of forced separation, we see each other every day. It's not a burden or something we do just to keep it going. We just love being together. But when he comes back, he has to navigate life after a felony. Most of us don't think about these things. I didn't know any of this before meeting him and trying to help him navigate everything. But having a felony excludes you from living in most apartment complexes and it makes finding a job extremely difficult. He's going to need a job to survive and pay for the legal costs hes accumulated. None of it is pretty. My role as a girlfriend is to just be there emotionally. I've enjoyed room hunting, because wherever he ends up is going to be somewhere where I spend a lot of time as well. I'm worried about how hard it will be for him to get settled, but hoping for the best. God doesn't close a door without opening a window, and like the rest of the world he forgives and looks past mistakes. God is full of second chances, and I believe that love between one another should be modeled after the love that God has for us. That being said, I'm willing to forgive my boyfriend not 7 times but 77 times. This doesn't include abuse or cheating or anything like that. But if he makes a mistake that sets him back, I don't think being there to help him get back up is a bad thing. Everyone needs love. Especially in tough times. So I'm constantly thinking of things that could go wrong or things ways that he could explain his criminal history to make things easier. He tells me not to worry about it and let him handle everything, but that's hard for me to do.

As for my friend, she has become my boyfriends arch nemesis. To be fair, he hates her a lot more than she hates him. He doesn't want me to be friends with her anymore and rightfully so. Most of my friends don't want to be friends with her either. They didn't like her from the beginning. She's the type of person that fights with a majority of the people in her life and has lost countless friends over the years. It's easy for her to cut ties with people. I'm upset with her, because I turned to her in my time of need. She wasn't there and she hurt my feelings. It matters, because I was already down. That was additional hurt that I did not need and couldn't handle. The fact that I don't open up much and actually tried to open up only to be shut out, sucked. She had a lot of excuses or reasons for why she acted the way she did. She had specifically asked me not to talk about my boyfriend. She said that that's because I was going through a phase where I made anything and everything about him. What she thinks of as a phase is something I think of as love. I was falling in love and she didn't want to hear about it. She didn't want me to have my moment. That's rude. When I mentioned the mean things she said, she said she was only speaking to me the way I speak to her. But I know for a fact, I don't speak to people that way. Yes, I've said that some men are a bad idea and even gone as far as saying I hate them, but I think it was for good reason. I was doing all this to prevent what ultimately happened from happening. Her listening to me would have been a good idea, but I still didn't hold it against her or say "I told you so" to her face like I could have. I feel like I've spent hours of my life listening to her talk about things and she says that she does the same for me, but I just don't think so. Yes, she'll listen to me talk about random things (celebrities, stories I read, religious stuff, and other random facts that live in my head). And there are times when shes listened to me talk about serious stuff like when I was going through all this family stuff. I just don't see it as the same. I feel like I'm a way better, more invested friend. And I'll never get that same friendship back. Overall, I've decided that that's okay with me. I decided that because this friend really needs a friend right now. And by right now, I mean for a long time after now too. She is going through something life changing. I've chosen to support her, but my boyfriend doesn't understand. He doesn't believe that anyone should hurt me or be rude to me. He thinks I need to stand up for myself, which I agree with. I just can't abandon a friend in need. I'm too need. God gave me too big a heart.

Song of the Day : What's Luv by Fat Joe ft. Ja-Rule and Ashanti (I was listening to this 2000s radio through Apple Music and found this song. I used to love it. It goes hard.)

Quote of the day: "You weren't always the person you are today, and thus, give others a chance to evolve as well. Before you judge, sympathize, and inspire" - Eternal Sunshine App

This app is already exactly what I need to hear. I feel like it's okay to sympathize with both my boyfriend and my friend during this time. I need to give them both a chance to evolve and have no right to assume that that won't happen.