Presently, my life is stressful. My grandfather has been going in and out of the hospital for tests and evaluations on his heart. He has an aortic aneurism and a clot that he needs to have fixed. He will most likely be going into surgery sometime later this month. Also to add to the stress level, it is the beginning of my sophomore year and the work has started kicking into gear. I am so bogged down for time that I can not really get involved with as many things as I would like to. Band takes up a lot of my schedule as well. If you want to talk about something stressful, it is definitely color guard. I love spinning and performing, but the practices can be brutal. I really value my family and friends. They drive me crazy, but yet they keep me sane. It is a paradox-like concept that I do not expect anyone else to really understand. My family on my mother’s side is full-blown Italian, and my father’s side encompasses the rest of Western Europe, heavy on the German, French and Irish. So basically, I am the proud owner of a loud, argumentative, sometimes-drunk, completely confusing but always loving family. I honestly would never want it any other way. As far as my friends go, they might as well be my family. I am very close with all of them, especially my boyfriend. They are all a part of me and without them, I do not exist. My greatest joy these days is being with my boyfriend and my dog. I really do not even care about how lame that may sound because it is the truth. They are the two absolute best friends that I have. With them, there is no pressure on me to act a certain way. I can just relax and be myself without having to worry about being judged. In a world where I do not really seem to belong, they make me feel like a perfect fit. I really could not ask for more. Before I die, I hope to accomplish everything I have ever dreamed. I want to have a family of my own to take a care of. I would like to have a good job with a nice salary that I have worked hard to get. I want to have a high education and a degree to prove it. I know what I am capable of and I expect to use it all to my advantage. Before I die, I want to travel the world. I want to see everything, go everywhere, and do everything. I never want to feel as though I have missed out on something great. Recently I have learned that the most valued and guarded thing in this world is not love, but trust. Trust is fragile. It is like a glass figure, once it has been broken you could try to krazy-glue the pieces back together, but they will never fit they way they once did again. If there is one thing I value, it is another person’s trust. If there is one thing you should value from me, it should be my trust. I am very selective with who I “let in”, so to speak. I have been hurt deeply in the past and those wounds will not heal themselves easily. There are very few people in the world that I truly trust and would tell anything too. Those people mean the world to me. I hope they feel the same. -- Also old.