Red

There's been a lot of lovely red in the trees lately. The yellows burned out fast, dropping their leaves almost as soon as they caught their color. Just like a wildfire.

For once, I'm not dreading the winter. Every year I am more ready to be happy when the vibrancy of life is lost under sick-girl grey. It didn't used to be that way. I used to look at the leaves dying and feel myself dying, too. What an awful, awful feeling.

I've got all kinds of plans that I'm afraid to think about too much, because I always have a nagging fear that nothing will turn out like I want it to. Doesn't matter how long I study for that final, I simply won't ace that exam. Or, whatever I do is never enough. The thoughts of a dying woman. There is no point in trying when nothing will be what I want.

Luckily, that's not me anymore. Reading Kaylie's most recent blog just confirmed, again, what I already knew. That it is a choice to be happy. It doesn't just happen to lucky people; decisions aren't made any easier because you're wearing a smile. But if you keep smiling soon you'll start seeing the bright side everywhere and then, although the decisions may get a little harder, you'll find that you already have them made, or that the answer is so much easier to come by than before. At least, that's what happened for me. It's still happening.

Every winter I get a little happier. I fall in love a little more with the grey sick-girl skies, and I notice the stark beauty of dark against light. There is always something beautiful to find, if you can open your eyes wide enough to see past what's in front of you. I appreciate snuggling up with a mug of hot chocolate, making fires, playing in the snow, wearing silly hats and breaking out my collection of scarves.

Still, there's something about autumn I never could get over. Maybe it's all of the color. I've been seeing red leaves all day. Red in the morning, looking out over the Virginian hills outside of my room; red coming back from Art History, peeking out from behind beautiful red Main Hall; out by the Knight statue as I sat in Stonemetz Hall, wringing out my over-Frenched brain for the answers to my placement test.

That test. That test is everything in my plans, although that didn't really hit me until Monday night. I studied all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, but I know that I could have done more. And that's the reason why I feel like my plans are going to fall through. Because I didn't do enough. I hate that feeling. I hate the feeling I had coming out of the test, like I was completely unsure. I was. I am. I have no idea what the results of that placement test will be. I know what I want them to be, and I know what they probably will be, and I'm not exactly happy about it.

It's not the end of the world. It sets my master plan back a few months, a few months that will probably not be pleasant but will teach me something necessary for my preparation for the life ahead of me. They will not be pleasant, and I will be disappointed that I didn't do as well as I wanted. I will not be smiling and maybe I will make other stupid decisions that will lead to unhappiness.

Ugh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't say anything. I don't know what will happen. If I score as well as I hoped, then I don't think I could fully express the joy that it would bring to me. My silly eyes are tearing up at the thought of it. It would mean that, for the first time in all of my years, I get... Man, I can't even think about it. Every time I do, I compare it to another time where I had a similar something and I hadn't studied enough, so to speak, in fact had gone backwards, and even though I told myself not to hope I did anyway and then I got my scores and it was exactly like I had told myself to expect but I hadn't because I thought that it was time for me to be happy like that but it wasn't.

Just like now, when I didn't study as hard as I could have, although I'm really trying to do the right thing, I'm not going backwards this time, at least I don't think I am, and I know that I'll start going forward eventually, it's just a matter of when I think I'm ready versus when I actually am.

I didn't mean to bring you into this. Didn't want you to see what I'm thinking, because really this is just a very recent bump in a long line of pretty happy. Not perfectly, because I'm still a screw--up sometimes. But, in this jumping-off place, which is exactly what these red hills feel like for me, I'm being better than my teenage years have seen.

Anyway. This is much too long for anyone to read. I'm going to go tell myself that not getting what I want will be good for me, and I'm going to go figure out what it is, exactly, that the Lord would have me do now. And then I'll read my scriptures and I'll sleep and soon enough, I'll be home for a few days.

Stay happy. See bright things. See colors. Don't let the sick-girl grey get you down, or anything else for that matter. Because I love you and I will do anything within my power for you. I will always put you before me. I will be okay with being forgotten. Whatever you need.