oooooooooh yeah

the good news is:

i have arrived!

the best news is:

today is the first day of the rest of my life and i actually breathed a sigh of relief today. everything has really come together and i honestly cannot take any credit for it. Thank you Lord.

as i was driving today, i saw a flock of starlings (fun little birds who fly on the breezes) and as they drifted over and under and over and under, forming patterns against the sky, i was simultaneously singing along with a song that was playing, the exact lyrics i was singing were (and really, try to read all of the lyrics, as i know sometimes when someone inserts lyrics, we are tempted to skim and go "blah blah blah, stop trying to be artsy and stop reading into things, but really, seriously, i got chills):

Yesterday
Is not quite what it could've been
As were most of all the days before
But I swear today
With every breath I'm breathing in
I'll be trying to make it so much more

Cause it seems I get so hung up on
The history of what's gone wrong
And the hope of a new day
Is sometimes hard to see (what you see)
And though I'm finally catching onto it
And now the past is just a conduit
And the light there at the end is
Where I'll be

Cause I'm on the up and up
I'm on the up and up
And I haven't given up
Given up on what
I know I'm capable of
And I'm on the up and up
I'm on the up and up
Yeah there's nothing left to prove
Cause I'm just trying to be
A better version of me
For you

and as i was singing "I'm on the up and up" over and over, i just go so happy, i got so excited, i had to squeal out loud (which, as Carla will testify, is something i do just like a little kid) and i clapped my hands, and my heart jumped up and down and i just was overwhelmed with a sense of excitment and thrill. i think that is the perfect word for how i feel about this new place and new chapter, hell, a new BOOK in my life: thrilled.