Not now, but for eternity

I was thinking today of all the things that I still have in my life that my grandma will not be able to experience with me. Things like my high school graduation, my wedding, my children. I actually got really upset thinking about this earlier.

There is no way that she will be here on Earth for those events. But I know she is in Heaven laughing at my blondeness, cheering me on at polo games. I know she will be clapping, whooping, and hollering as I receive my diploma in June.

She many not be able to be here to experience these things in my life, but I know that when it is my time, she will be standing at Heaven's gates welcoming me Home at which point I will be able to spend eternity with her in Heaven's perfectness.

Not now, but for eternity.

Grandma is Dancing with Jesus

Carley and I had a great time at the Hillsong concert, dancing and singing our hearts out. Hillsong had TWO encores, and all of my favorite songs were played. It was the first time all week that I felt like everything was right in the world.

When I got home, I found out that my grandma had passed away right before the concert began. So as I was dancing and singing praises to my King, she was dancing WITH our King! She even got two encores. How many new members to Heaven get that?!

Maybe why the "everything is okay" feeling existed was because I knew that my grandmother was in a better place. I am so thankful that I had those few hours of happiness and peace before arriving home to the hurricane that now stands before us.

Please continue to pray for my entire family, this next week is going to be especially trying for all of us.

Cho-Family

This week has been so emotionally exhausting. I haven't been sleeping at night, and then just napping throughout the day trying to get as much sleep as I can before the dark and the silence sets in. The emotional hurricane of the my grandmother being given a 24 hour window, and not having my dad here was hard enough. Add in a massive lack of sleep, and I was doing good to just be functioning.

I stopped returning phone calls, I stopped replying to texts. I stopped answering phones, or even just letting it ring until voicemail picked up, I would simply ignore the calls. I would get on facebook to update my status' as a simple method of updating everybody else, but for the most part I went into hibernation.

I honestly think the only thing that has allowed me to get through this week has been the constant support from my Cho-Family. They were the first ones to get that phone call on Sunday night, they were the ones to listen to me bawl, they were the ones who woke up at various intervals that night to shoot me an encouraging text message. They spread that frantic text message begging for prayers for my grandmother and my family. People I didn't even know that well at the end of the summer were sending me simple messages with the words "praying for you". They wrapped me up in their arms, and positively encouraged me to keep pushing through this week. The assistant summer camp director spread out a prayer chain for my grandmother and my family when she read the news. Everybody jumped on the bandwagon and stormed Heaven's gates for my grandma.

Cho-family. They are more than coworkers, more than friends. They are the people you can go months without seeing, and can pick up right where you left off. They are the people you laugh with, cry with, and pray with. They are such a family and security net that I do not know what I would do without.

I have heard people call the Cho-family amazing, and prior to this week I would've stood by that without a doubt. They were my best friends and second family. After this week, I can honestly say that I have experienced that. I know that a huge reason I have been semi-functioning this weekend is because of them, because of their prayers, and their constant support.

These past 4 days have been extremely hard. There are good hours and bad hours. I can hold myself together when there is noise, commotion, and things to be done. It's the silence and the dark where I begin to lose it. Maybe that is why my radio has been moved to within a foot of my pillow, the noise is constant throughout the night. I still have Cho-friends that text in the middle of the night even though things are slowly getting better. Not an hour goes by when I don't think about my grandma, not a day goes by when I don't break down. I know that without my Cho-family and their constant support, this week would've been even harder. I am so grateful to be in that wonderful support system!

Operation: Distraction

When bad things happen, I almost always resort to distracting myself so that I don't become too upset and drive myself crazy.

Last night, I wasn't thinking and so didn't have anything planned to keep myself busy. Luckily my friends were able to talk on the phone at the ridiculous hours I was still up and were able to provide comforting words to allow me to calm down enough to get some sleep.

This morning, I woke up with a game plan. I rolled out of bed and hopped right in the shower. After the shower, I turned up the volume on my radio and began to clean my room. I spent about an hour going through two 1 foot x 1 foot boxes in my room, before getting ready to go to Kole's baseball game. At that time, Dad decides he wanted to head up to Iowa to be with his side of the family while his mom is in the hospital.

Mom drives Dad to the airport, and I end up going to Kole's baseball game for moral support. I bawled the entire way there, but pulled myself together enough by the time I got there. Luckily, most people there knew what was going on by the time I got there, and so I didn't have to do much explaining. After about 10 minutes I was driving myself crazy. I normally LOVE to watch Kole play ball, but I wasn't into it today. I called Renee and talked to her for a few minutes just explaining what was going on. Then I called my camp friends.

Within 45 minutes of updating Kristen and Carley about what was going on, they were pulling up to the baseball park to offer moral support, and warm cookies. We talked and cheered Kole on for the remaining hour, and then we came home. They followed me here and we just talked about who-knows-what for about an hour before they had to leave so Carley could drive back to League City for work (she was spending the weekend with Kristen in Memorial, about 20 minutes from Cypress). I don't know what I would've done without Carley and Kristen, they were able to cheer me up and provide an unplanned Cho-Yeh distraction!

Now they are on their way home, and I am back sitting in my room with the music turned up. I figured, if I have to "do" something for the rest of today, I might as well clean every square millimeter of my room! Not only am I being productive, but I'm also providing my own distraction!

Tonight will be hard, as driving and quiet nights are always the two times where I break down the most. Maybe I'll even tackle my closet tonight or the bathroom and be super productive!?

I know that my God is in the hospital with Grandma, with the doctors, with my grandfather, with my uncles as they are driving, and my dad as he is flying. I know He is up there with all of them, and I know that He is down here with us too. Heck yes this is hard, but I know that my God has a plan, and I will take comfort in that!

I'm Glad My Twin Has Better Computer Luck Than I Do!

One of my now best friends named Carley is a fellow Cho-Yeh-er... We have so much in common it is absolutely insanely ridiculous, and hints why we (and all our mutual friends) are convinced we are twins. The only problem is that she lives in League City which is down by Galveston, so we don't get to see each other too much.

BUT!! Carley will be road-tripping it up to Houston next Friday night! We had been talking about going with some other Cho-Yeh'ers to the Hillsong United Concert that is playing at the Berry Center about a mile from my house for quite some time, but that plan fell through as nobody else could go. I went on with the hopes that there might still be some tickets left and that Carley and I could go, but had no luck.

WELL... Carley did have luck! She secured 2 tickets for us for the March 4th concert! So, Friday afternoon she will be coming up to the wonderful H-town to meet the rest of her "family", have an amazing time at the concert, and spend the night! I cannot wait!!! :D

Interruptions

I have always been one to keep my thoughts to myself. My freshman and sophomore year was spent with these thoughts and emotions bottled up, never being expressed. I would write more than anybody knew as a way to get out everything that was seemingly trapped in my head. I had a camp friend call me out on that very thing at the beginning of my junior year, and then started this blog in December of that same year. I got better about talking about what I thought: about my day, about what I was looking forward to, about what all was going on in that often not-so-normal brain of mine.

Tonight, I realized why I always had the standardized response to any question... "How was your day?" "How are you?" "How's your year going?" "How are things going with your friends?" "How is swimming going? How about work". The answer was ALWAYS "fine". My day was fine, I was fine, my year was going fine, my friends were fine, swimming and work were fine. Life was fine.

The definition of fine is simply put as "alright". Fine is a word that requires no further conversation, but can express a wide variety of emotion.

So this afternoon/evening I had a lot on my mind that I was talking about. About water polo and possibly not having a team, about anatomy and catching my teacher jacking me of 20 points on a test, about a Quidditch club at Cy-Falls that has it's first meeting on Wednesday. About a wide variety of things that would have answered the "how was your day" question much better than "fine".

All afternoon not a sentence could be spoken without somebody butting in. All afternoon. When somebody butts in and asks the person I'm speaking to a question of not 9-1-1 emergency and the person I'm speaking to answers them and begins having a conversation with them, I feel as if they didn't really care how my day was. I know they probably do, and might not have realized that they cut me off. They might not have even realized when they in fact cut me off themselves. We're human, I get it. But today I realized that maybe that is why the answer has always been "fine". There is no way that you can be interrupted in that one syllable response!

So there, there is my frustrations poured out in a blog post!! Now off to do homework, as my camp-twin and I telepathically pinky-promised each other that we weren't going to let senioritis get the best of us this week!

New Job?!

I was offered a new job today! I spent the day with my girls today at their meet, and a coach from another team asked me if I would take over their entire learn-to-swim program at that team! He offered me more $ and more/fewer hours (Depending on what I wanted), but nothing could take me away from Dennis and Kris! I think this coach new that too... I know the assistant coach on that team, and I'm pretty sure he had told the head coach to ask me. Haha, it was funny regardless!!