"It's okay to be afraid"

There is this interesting concept that fear is a legitimate emotion. Pretty new to me. It seems that you should allow yourself to be afraid, but you shouldn't let the emotion control your life. I realized today that I have no real way of dealing with fear. I can deal with heartache and anger and frustration to some extent, but fear? It makes me want to crawl into bed and sleep all day and spend all night in front of my computer. Which doesn't help the situation at all. Fear numbs me and makes me inactive and I need to find a way to deal with fear, because it's not going to go away anytime soon. I don't know what will happen in the near future and the uncertainty is killing me, but the fear is even worse. I fear taking a wrong decision. I fear that outside forces will deter me from doing what I want to do. I fear that even though I want to change my situation, I won't be able to. After therapy today, I actually felt like I could deal with the fear. I felt like I could look into my options and do something.

Unfortunately, I got an email today that pretty much made me panic right away. I had the option of moving to New Orleans to go study at UNO and was trying to get information on that. I think I would have probably loved it there, because we have what feels like family there and I could have lived with them. But it seems that it's not really an option. The undergraduate degree would take about 4 years and even though I took classes here, it would probably only save me one semester. My grades aren't great and I'm not even sure if I would be able to study there. The state only grants student visas for two years and there is just no way that my parents can afford four years of me studying in New Orleans. So right now I want to cry and am fighting off a panic attack. I have no idea what I'm going to do and I can already see myself staying here, finishing another two years of university just because I have no alternative. Which would suck majorly.

The highlight of my day? I finally got to talk to my girl, you know, the special one, on the phone. We chatted for hours yesterday and it felt so good just talking to her. I can't believe how good one person can make you feel. So we decided that we would try to talk on the phone and tonight, we finally did. I was so nervous it wasn't even funny anymore, but she was too, so I guess it was okay. I was actually shaking, which in total might have happened to me three or four times before. It was amazing and a bit embarrassing all at the same time. She wrote some really beautiful poems and I had that dream in my head that kept replaying that I wanted to tell her about. It sounded great in my head, but it didn't really come out right. I'm going to give it another try and share it y'all.

We were finally able to arrange for you to come visit. I'm nervous and I keep checking my room to make sure everything is tidy and in perfect order. As I drive to the bus stop, my hands shake and are sweaty because I'm that nervous. I wait along with some other people and as the bus finally arrives, my heart starts beating faster. You get off the bus and look tired from the long drive, but the minute you see me you smile and I know I do too. We hug and it feels like this should have been there all along. It feels like the missing part finally fell into place and now we can really meet. I bought you flowers, a bouquet of yellow, orange and green, because red roses would have been too uninspired. I ask you about the bus drive as I take you back to the apartment, but for most of the ride, we hold hands in silence because we still can't quite believe that that day has finally come.

That's what I'm thinking of right now. The email came after our phone conversation, so it almost made my happiness over talking to her go away, luckily only almost. I wanted to tell her some things but nothing came out right. Is that what falling for someone hard means? That the connection between your brain and your mouth gets disturbed by your pounding heart? It feels good, but so embarrassing at the same time.