I check this blog every morning and evening, sometimes even three times a day, in hope that a new post will emerge to keep me sane in a fall full of madness. It's occurred to me that many of you might also do the same.

2/11/10 - Excerpt from my first folded-page journal entry (previously unread/unheard by
anyone else).
"I thought I'd be able to change myself here, to end up a more self-confident person than I started. But judgments will be judgments, although maybe all this stuff is just in my head. It's probably all in my head, because people seem the same back at home."

3/1/10 - Excerpt from my second folded-page journal entry.
"Sometimes I feel like they're all laughing at me...I had let my guard down some, but now it's back up, and it's staying strong."

4/12/10 - Excerpt from another folded-page journal entry
"...I retreat to where I feel safe, giving an outward appearance of fatigue, silence, and even depression. It pisses me off sometimes that I get like this. I want to be comfortable being who I am, but I'm not."

I honestly don't remember what caused me to write any of this, but I was rereading parts of my journal tonight and realized exactly how much TMS ultimately made me happier and more self-confident than I was when I left home because I was in an environment where I could be proactive about making my voice heard (if I wanted to) and learning more of who I was. The only problem is that no one at my school seems to realize that I am not the same person I was before I met you guys. Yet their expectations that I be exactly the same have caused me to revert back to my old mindset without wanting to. For most of our semester (with the exceptions of a couple points where my mind went nuts and needed to vent as seen above), I was a much happier and optimistic person than I generally have been. Back at home, now, these journal entries could apply to me on any given day when I come home from school. This fall has taken such a toll on me mentally; even though I know that Spring '10 can never again be repeated in the same way (even if we attempt to do so), I just wish that I was able to completely remember the person I was last May, revisit that state of bliss, optimism, and sureness, and insert those qualities into my life again.