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#MeToo

Earlier in the week, an actress by the name Alyssa Milano “encouraged [sexual] assault survivors to use the hashtag #MeToo in an effort to prove just how pervasive the problem of sexual assault and harassment is” after sexual assault allegations made against Harvey Weinstein, a studio & film producer. If this is the first you’re hearing of it, then you either must not get on social media or have incredibly lucky (or maybe just quiet) friends. Over the past week, I’ve seen more and more #MeToo posts. By friends, by strangers, and by celebrities from all areas of stardom. It’s been terrifying and, to a certain extent, liberating. 

Liberating?

Yes. Liberating. 

Why?

Because #MeToo. 

For the longest time, I felt like it was just me. I felt like I was the only one. No, I wasn’t raped or molested by an older man or anything too traumatic, but yes, I’ve been sexually assaulted. My close friends know the story, and I’m fairly certain my mom knows as well, so this won’t come as a surprise to them (unless they forgot), but for most of you reading this, you probably had no idea. Honestly, I was toying with writing this post for a good portion of this week. I decided to do it. I decided to be vulnerable after seeing many #MeToo posts. If those men and women can be vulnerable, I can too. 

For the protection of his privacy (which my dad or brother might argue that he doesn’t deserve any after reading this), I won’t be using his real name, but we can call him John. 

When I was in the eighth grade, I rode the school bus. Every morning and every afternoon. The bus in the eighth grade was a lot more fun than it was in seventh grade. I had a few friends who rode the bus too - Bre and Mandy. There were a few boys who rode the bus too, and they were in the seventh grade while we were in the eighth - one of them being John. 

Now, I never liked John. I always thought he was kind of a jerk. He wasn’t ever mean to me. John was annoying, but what twelve and thirteen year old boy isn’t? However, I wouldn’t call John a friend. Bre and Mandy, yeah, they were my friends, but John? No way. I wasn’t upset if John wasn’t on the bus, and I wasn’t happy if he was. He was just kind of... there. 

Another thing about John was that he was always kind of weird. He was always trying to do things to make us laugh or weird us out - boys and girls alike. He got off the bus a couple of stops before mine and got on a few stops before mine. So whenever we were on the bus, we always saw each other. Most of the time he was pretty quiet or he was joking around with the other boys. He was one of the two seventh grade boys who got to sit at the back of the bus with us eighth graders. 

Something important that I should mention about my bus was that it was incredibly small. Some busses sat three kids to a bench while ours could practically sit one kid to a bench. There weren’t a lot of people on the bus, but we were still like any other bus. The eighth graders sat at the back and the seventh graders sat at the front, unless you were invited. And these two seventh grade boys and Bre were invited. 

Anyway, there were a few weeks in the spring of my eighth grade year, I was fourteen years old and always in a “relationship” if you could call it that. Another important thing that you should know about me is that I started puberty a little bit earlier than most girls. I was wearing bras in fourth grade, started my period in sixth, and by eighth grade, I was.... rather developed. Continuing on....

One day, John asked if he could touch my boobs. I said no. He asked why. I said that it was because I didn’t want him to. So he left it alone for the rest of the ride home. This went on every day for probably two weeks. After the two weeks, he started getting more aggressive. He would sit next to me and ask. And after he got tired of asking, he just started going for it. I kept saying no, and fighting him off. I physically pushed him away using my hands, my feet, saying no, no, no, no. But he still kept on. 

I know why he kept on. 

He kept on because I laughed. I laugh so easily. At puns, at little jokes, at cat videos, and especially when I’m nervous. I laughed, and he thought that I thought it was funny despite me physically kicking him out of my seat on the bus and saying no, no, no. Despite me telling him to stop, he still did it. He still moved on the bus to sit next to me, he still asked, he still tried, and I still laughed and kicked him out of my seat.... literally. 

He kept on until one day, he did it. After he grabbed my boobs, he never bothered me again. 

This all took place over a few weeks or a month, maybe even more. Riding the bus went from something I enjoyed to something I despised. I hated when Bre or Mandy or one of the other girls wouldn’t be on the bus, so I wouldn’t have anyone to sit next to, to make sure that John couldn’t get close. Whenever the bus doors would close and we’d start rolling, I would let out a sigh of relief if John wasn’t on there. I even started sitting in the front of the bus again just to get away from him after it happened. 

From that point on, any time I saw him, I would get nervous. Not because I thought he was going to do it again but because I knew what he had done. I knew that he was proud of himself. As an eighth grader, I did everything I could to block out the memory. I tried my hardest not to talk about it, not to think about it. I didn’t tell anyone what happened for years. Not my friends, not my mom. The only people who knew what happened were me, John, and the kids on the bus who sat near me. 

In eighth grade, nobody wants to be the person to stand up to the bully. I don’t blame the other kids for sitting there a letting it happen. I didn’t even blame him for what happened. In the eighth grade, when you’ve been taught nothing about sexual assault, you think it’s your fault. I knew what he had done wasn’t right, but I believed it had been my fault. It was my fault for having boobs in the eighth grade while other girls didn’t. It was my fault for laughing nervously. It was my fault for sitting in the back of the bus every day. I was the reason he did that. He wasn’t trying to grab any of the other girls’ boobs on the bus, so it was clearly my fault. 

All of this became internalized, of course, and thinking about it even now makes me feel icky. Though now, I have the ability to say that it was his wrong doing. It was his fault. I did nothing wrong. I said no. I said to stop. I physically pushed and kicked and even pulled his hair (it was long- like the classic Justin Bieber hair) to get him to stop. But he still got what he wanted. It turned into me hating my body. I wore t-shirts and bagging sweaters after that and I tried to show as little cleavage as possible. I didn’t like anything too form fitting and if it was, I always covered up with a vest or a jacket or something. 

After it happened, I felt alone. I was the only girl I knew who had something like this happened to her - or at least none of them were saying anything about it if it did happen. Of course, my friends talks about how boys were touching their butts, but that was different. They liked that attention. I didn’t like the attention I got. And butts are a lot different than boobs. I felt alone and I felt scared, and as mentioned before, I felt like I was to blame. I once kissed a boy in preK4, and my family still teases me about it. I was scared if I told my mom about it, that she’d tease me about this as she had done when I kissed a boy on the playground. Of course, knowing now, she totally wouldn’t have, but then? It sure felt like a possibility. Overall, after John sexually assaulted me on the school bus, I was scared. 

As for now? I don’t think if affects me much. I don’t think about it every day or every week or every month. It might cross my mind every now and again, if I’m watching Law and Order: SVU or if I go back to Woodstock (I’m currently in Rome) and I’m worried that I’ll see him. But otherwise, I’m not affected. I’ve made my peace with what happened. I’m not mad at him or scared of him or have any feelings towards him other that just.... normal human feelings when they see another human. He’s a stranger to me now. We haven’t seen each other or said words to each other since I was in the eighth grade, so just as many feelings you have towards the person who’s shopping at Kroger near you as I do. If he walked in the room right now, I don’t think I’d be happy to see him or want to talk to him. But I’m fine with what happened. It’s just a part of my story and my journey. 

As for the moral of my story, there’s three:

One, raise your boys better and empower your girls. Teach boys how to respect girls and women. Teach girls how to speak up for what they believe in and for what they think is right. And teach both the difference between right and wrong. 

Two, call sexual assault what it is. It’s not just “boys being boys.” Boys being boys is playing with monster trucks in the dirt and getting more food on their shirts than in their mouths. Boys raping, molesting, and sexually assaulting and harassing women and girls is not “just being a boy.” It’s not a boy flirting with a girl on the school bus because he thinks she’s cute. 

And finally, the last moral is to know that if it’s happened to you, whether you are male or female, you are not alone. Because #MeToo. 

[A photo of me from the eighth grade, around the time that all of this happened.]

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I Just Don’t Understand

There are so many things in this life that I don’t understand. Now, you probably think you know where this is going. Well, spoiler alert, this blog post isn’t about to get all philosophical or deep. It’s all about one thing: peeing. 

Now, I understand the works of the body. That’s not the direction this is going in. This all has to do with kids and weird things they do. The number one thing that I don’t understand kids is this one little weird habit. Working with a different group of kids each week this summer has been a joy. I’ve loved (almost) every minute of it. The kids I’ve been working with this year have been so extraordinary. So unique. So sweet. But so, so strange. 

One habit that I’ve noticed, no matter the group of kids, is that they have no problem eating off of the floor. I get it. The five second rule is a big deal. I literally ate a piece of food off of the floor yesterday. (Isabelle Vinelli can attest to it. She saw the whole think happen.) However, they will leave their food items on the floor for multiple minutes before returning to them to eat it. 

I have never done this. 

Never. 

Not even as a child. 

Once I was able to understand germs, my food never went onto the floor again. Nope. We put our feet on the floor and I would never feed myself a sandwich using my feet. 

However, something I’ve never had an issue with was going to the bathroom. If someone didn’t flush? No problem, I’ll pee on top of it and flush it down with mine. You know why? Because it’s all going to the same place.

You know what kids these days don’t do? 

PEE IN A STALL OR A TOILET THAT HASN’T BEEN FLUSHED YET.

Children will literally EAT off of the floor, but they REFUSE to use toilets that haven’t been flushed? They also REFUSE to flush said toilets so they can use it?????

I DON’T GET IT. 

If I had a dollar for every time I have told a camper to flush a toilet then use it or why they weren’t using the open stall, I wouldn’t need to work this job in the first place. 

I have a week and a half left of camp, and I don’t understand why. 

They can eat food from the floor. 

Okay?

But they can’t flush a toilet that someone else used.

WHY?

The pee will not jump out and get you. It’s less dirty than eating your food off of the floor?

AND YOU KNOW WHAT?

You are literally going to flush a toilet, do the same thing that the person did in the toilet before you, and then flush the toilet again. And then.................

wait for it....................

WASH YOUR HANDS!!!

Someone, please. If you’re reading this... tell me why kids are the way that they are.

Why can’t they flush toilets.

Why do they eat food from the floor?

WHY CAN’T THEY FLUSH A FREAKING TOILET?

Okay. I’m done. 

I hope you enjoyed this post. 

Coming up, I’m going to be posting my homemade brownie recipe that have been called “the best brownies ever made” by my mom. (Though I think she had to say that.)

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I Wrote This Instead of Studying

So it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted something here on my blog, but I figured better late than never, right? I just feel like these last few weeks have been nothing but go-go-go with school work and stress and when I wasn’t going school work or crying because of how stressed I am, I was sleeping, working, or with friends. Mostly sleeping, though. I literally cannot function if I don’t get at least seven hours of sleep every night, and at that, I’m still a witch when I want to be. I prefer my solid nine or ten hour nights, not to brag or anything.

I do, however, get to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to work at the Berry College Child Development Center three mornings every week. As much as I hate waking up around 6:30 or 7 in the morning three days out of my week, waking up with a rowdy bunch of three and four year olds is one of my favorite things to do. We have a cute little group of about 14 kids in the classroom I’m in, and they are the funniest and most energetic kids I’ve probably ever met. Next to my own newphew, of course.

I’ve been working with them since January, and I like to believe that I warmed up to the classroom nicely. Now, I feel as though the kids talk to me freely, knowing when I am and am not going to be there. Even the group of little girls who were so painstakingly shy have warmed up to me, and I’d like to think of that as an accomplishment.

Something happened today at work, and I couldn’t believe that at one of my last shifts with this particular group of kids, it took this long to get to this question.

Back in August I pierced my nose. If you didn’t know that, well… Surprise! I rebelled on my first night back at Berry and did something my mother would hate and I pierced my nose. (I mean, c’mon, at least it wasn’t my tongue or my eyebrow and at least my hair isn’t a bright green or blue or pink color, right mom?!)

So, I’ve had my nose pierced for around nine months. It was irritating at first, and then I didn’t like it anymore, but now, it’s just part of my face. I don’t really notice it anymore, and I definitely am in love with it. My nose was still pierced this past January, when I started working at the preschool.

However, now it is August, and just now are kids starting to ask about it. Our class is a very observant group of three-to-four-year-olds. If something is off, they notice. If you’re missing something during an activity, they’ll tell you. One little girl in particular remembers everything you tell her. We rely on her to tell us who has and hasn’t done the class activity, to remind us when something is happening this week, and which parts of the classroom can and cannot be played in every morning.

But today, the youngest child in the class, who just turned three in January (or maybe December, I don’t remember) looked at me, and with her little raspy voice, she asked me, “Why do you have that thing in your nose?”

And for a moment I saw my mother sitting in front of me.

I just looked at her, not sure how to explain to a three year old about my nose piercing. So, I just said, “Because I like it.” (To be totally honest, after four months of being asked ‘why’ all the time, I have gotten to the point of just saying ‘because that’s just how it is’ as opposed to actually explaining why something is the way that it is. But they take that as an answer, so I mean, it kinda works right?)

And then, with eyes so full of curiosity, she touched her own nose and said, “Sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesn’t, right?”

And without thinking I just nodded and said, “Yeah, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

And then every child at the breakfast table in the classroom (approximately six other kids) needed to see it. And touch in. And ask if it hurt. While that didn’t shock me, simply because they’re three and four years old, I was shocked that it took since January for one of them to ask. Especially because every day they would tell me what color my shirt was. (Spoiler alert, my work shirt was blue. It was always blue.)

So there we go. There’s my story from the Child Development Center. I hope you enjoyed this because chances are, I’ll probably have more stories about the class next year and some stories about the kids at summer camp this year!

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i loved my high school theater department so much, but here’s why i’m not in the department at college

I loved my high school theater department. I loved every minute of it. From the classes I took, to the shows we did, to the few drama club meetings we were able to have, and even our constant loosing at One-Act Competition (but s/o to them this year for making it to State - I’m still super proud!). And I still do love it. I love theater. I love performing, I love working backstage. I love the rush you get right before the curtain opens and the lights go up. I love the sad achey heart you get after a show closes. I would have never been able to get through high school as happily as I did if I was not in the theater department. 

Of course, our department suffered from a lot of drama (ignore my pun) during the four years I was there. I had three or four different teachers. Almost a new one every year. At one point, our chorus teacher was teaching our drama classes while his class had a sub. It wasn’t perfect, but I think that’s what made it so fun. 

I always said that we didn’t have the most talented group of kids, but that we had a lot of heart. All of us really loved what we were doing, and yes, there’s a lot of talent in that school, but compared to Milton (who we continually lost to every year at one act competition) we were nothing. We weren’t heavily funded, and we were greatly overlooked. At least while I was there. I do hear good things about the department now. Big casts, sold-out shows, and lots of new people auditioning! 

I’m so happy and so grateful that I was introduced into such a wonderful department so early on in high school. I have friends who didn’t get involved until later in high school, and they regret not joining sooner. And I’m happy that I started in my freshman year. I’m happy that I was one of four freshman cast in the spring musical back when seniority had a bigger play in the casting process. I’m happy that I did everything I did. 

No eight hour rehearsal bothered me. Being at school from eight in the morning to, sometimes, nine o’clock at night was so worth it. I have so many memories of being in the auditorium, laughing and crying and screaming and joking and painting and dancing and sleeping. And I miss it every day. 

I miss how it felt, walking into the auditorium after a long day at school, and taking my shoes off and eating my snack and trying to do homework but getting distracted with the scene that was on stage. I miss complaining that I was on the call sheet even though I was only used for a few minutes during rehearsal. I miss making giant posters of all the props and set changes and stressing over how fast we had to turn Elle Woods’ bedroom back into the Harvard classroom... or if Luke had the blindfold in his pocket before he went on stage... or if all of the mics would work and if the impossible quick change would really work... or the fact that my toe was bleeding literally seconds before I had to go on stage during because I stubbed it backstage during the blacklight number in Seussical. 

I am so unbelievably happy with everything that happened in the drama department. I’m happy we had the teachers we had and I’m happy that I made the friends I did. I’m happy that the department is changing for what seems to be the better. I’m looking forward to going back this weekend to see the spring musical. A bunch of my friends are seniors this year, and this will be the last one, and it’s crazy because I feel like my last show at Etowah was just a couple of weeks ago when really, it’s been a full two years. 

With all of that being said, let’s get into the second half of that title. Why I’m not doing theater at Berry. Well, it’s really simple:

It just doesn’t give me that same fuzzy feeling.

That feeling I talked about at the beginning of this post? The nerves before the curtain opens, the anxiety about the set changes, the giddy feeling when you had a good first act? It just wasn’t there. I did a show, and while I love theater, it was too stressful. 

I don’t want to say that I’m burned out. I’m not. Or I don’t think I am, but I just didn’t have the same feeling when I did a show at Berry. And that makes me really sad. I didn’t instantly connect with the people in the department. I didn’t, honestly, feel very welcomed as a freshman. No one really talked to me unless they had to. And I have a few friends in the theater department here at Berry who love it. It’s not a bad program at all, from what I understand, but it just wasn’t right for me. 

And I think what hurts me the most is that I wish it was. I wish I felt like the theater department here was worth the stress I get about school and the sleep I lose. Of course, people grow up and move on, and not everyone stays in theater after high school. I know that. I only know a few people who have continued on with it post-high school, but it was such a big part of who I was. 

A big part of my identity was rooted in the fact that I was in the drama department in high school. I started taking drama classes waaaaay before that, though. I was in elementary school and I took classes and camps all the way through middle school and that’s when I started auditioning for shows and blah blah blah. You heard the rest all up above. 

Berry’s theater department is full of a bunch of rockstars. I’ve never been disappointed after I’ve seen a show. Everything from the actors to the sets to the costumes has been perfection. So don’t think I’m trying to hate on the department or the staff or the program in general. I just couldn’t connect, and that’s been the hardest part about adjusting to life at Berry. Such a big part of who I was for so long just kind of... disappeared.

There’s really not a moral to the story. You can try to make one up if you’d like. Maybe that if you love something, sometimes it just might not be for you. Or... I don’t know. Even that was kind of a stretch. But I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog post. Another one will be posted next Wednesday about why I hate reading and how it’s affecting me in college! 

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Spring Break 2017

Instead of writing about my trip to Nashville that I went on this past weekend, I decided to make a video documenting my time! I had so much fun, and I wish I hadn’t been feeling under the weather while I was there. 

Also - this video was originally posted to my Youtube channel. If you haven’t yet, go check out the video I made for my Senior Project back in 2015 and the bloopers video that went along with it!

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my depression...

In the summer of 2016, I was officially diagnosed with depression after suffering for quite a few years. For me, my depression took many shapes. All of which range from loss of interest in anything I found interesting to low self-esteem and high levels of anxiety. It wasn’t something that came out of no where. It slowly built, and it was subtle. It wasn’t like one day, I woke up and there I was, depressed in all my glory. But rather it was something that just slowly came about. 

when it all started

I first noticed it when I was in the tenth grade. I thought that it was just me being tired. I was heavily involved in my theater department at school and in my community theater that year. It was show after show after show for over a year. Charlotte’s Web, Seussical, Aladdin, Bridge to Terabithia, It’s a Wonderful Life, Drowsy Chaperone.... Whenever I had a few weeks off, all I wanted to do was stay by myself and lay in bed. I thought it was just from being worn out. I mean, It was weeks upon weeks of rehearsing almost every day, having school all day, and homework and friends and.... the list goes on. 

I thought that was just what it is, but as my life went on, I found myself wanting to stay in bed more and go out less. I tried to find reasons to not go to school. I missed the bus or I “didn’t feel good.” I got good grades, and I never got in trouble. I was a good kid, but I just didn’t want to go to school anymore. It got to a point during my junior year of high school that the only reason I went to high school was because of rehearsal.

The summer before my senior year of high school was the most amazing summer. I had a great group of friends, always something to do, and I had so. much. fun. I was involved with a production of Princess and the Pea, had my last year of counselling at Camp Camellia Rose, went camping, rode my first roller coaster, went off a rope swing at the lake, had a Fourth of July party, tie-dyed t-shirts, and had the most fun of my life. I can’t remember a time of being any happier. However, everything changed during that year. 

There was a ton of drama with my friends, and after the year was over, I was just glad to be done with high school. I was glad to be out of there, to be accepted to college, and to be moving on. But there was one thing that I could have waited for. My best friend in the entire world was moving across the country, and I never thought I was going to see her again. I was so torn up about it, but I didn’t tell anyone. The only person who had stayed by my side throughout all of the drama was going away, and I didn’t want to face it. 

That summer after graduation, while I was supposed to be having fun with my friends, laughing and riding roller coasters and swimming and having laughs and going to parties was destroyed with my anxiety about starting school and losing all of my friends. My best friend, Angel, was moving across the country at the end of the summer, and all I could do was lay in bed all day. That’s all I wanted to do. I didn’t want to see her because I didn’t want to have to say goodbye. For weeks, I stayed in my room, only every going out to do fun things. I wish I could say that I had the best summer ever before I started college, but I didn’t. I had the worst. I had some good times, but overall, things were weird. And I was sad. 

So at the end of the summer, Angel moved away. (And I cried so much, I don’t even want to talk about it.) I still had a few weeks left until I moved to Berry, and I spent those last few weeks like I had that entire summer, laying around my house and not doing anything. I moved to college, and things didn’t get any better. They may as well have gotten worse. 

life in the berry bubble

I was in a place I didn’t know very well. I was surrounded by people I didn’t know. My roommate and I weren’t best friends like I had hoped. My classes were hard. I was scared. And I really hated walking down three flights of stairs to have to do laundry. My bed was comfy and it was just so tempting to stay in bed all day. Of course, I did what I had to do and I went to class and I went to work and I did what I had to do, but it didn’t keep me from calling my mom at least three times a week to cry and cry and cry. And all I wanted to do was go home. 

I made great friends at Berry. I still have them around, and they’re the greatest friends I’ve had in a while. We did fun things together, had great laughs, but at the end of the day, they weren’t Angel or Ivy or MJ or Karah, and I wished so badly that they were. I wished so badly to go back to the summer before senior year. To go to the mall or to the lake or play with chalk or just laugh and talk all day long. To stay up late and wake up at noon. To make cookies and go on adventures and just have fun. My new friends were fun and great and exciting and what we were doing was so fun, but it wasn’t the same. 

Spring semester of freshman year was even worse. My classes were even harder. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I wanted to major it, and what I was going to do that summer. There was a point in April where I called my mom every night and I cried. And I cried. And I cried. And I’m sure she didn’t mind, but I bet it got pretty annoying. 

As soon as I got home, I swore to myself that I was never going back to Berry. I wasn’t going to go. I just wasn’t. I had a bad semester, and I didn’t like being away from home. I didn’t like not having the people I believed were my best friends nearby. I didn’t want to go to school anymore. I didn’t want to. I don’t know if this was my depression talking or my homesickness or my anxiety or what it was, but I knew that it had something to do with what came next. 

being diagnosed + medicated

It was no surprise to use that summer when I was officially diagnosed and prescribed antidepressants. And in a couple of weeks, I was different. I was willing to go out with my mom to run errands. I didn’t have a problem taking a shower or brushing my teeth. I was excited for the summer of fun that was waiting for me at Elm Street as a part of the summer camp staff. And I even went on a vacation to the beach with my friends for Fourth of July, and I was so, so excited to move back to Berry for that fall. 

However, my troubles didn’t end there. Sure, a simple pill put me in a better mood, but it didn’t take everything away. Like anyone, sometimes I forget to take my medicine. I forget and skip a few days and within a day or two, I’m back to not wanting to go to class or work or even to shower or go hang out with my friends. My friends can tell a difference in me, though, from now and how I was freshman year. They’ve said I’ve seemed “happier” and I have been! But I’ve been sad too. I don’t like to be sad around them because I don’t want bad memories with them. But sometimes, I just can’t help but be in a bad mood. 

life now...

It’s still a day-to-day challenge. I still have to convince myself to go to class and to go to work, which I am still guilty of not going to. I have to tell myself that my friends don’t actually hate me, like I sometimes think. And I have to remind myself that I’m going to see my best friends from home again one day. I have to bribe myself with things to make me go to class, like Starbucks or being able to watch a new Youtube video after I finished an hour of work. When I go home for the weekend, I cry and protest going back, but I end up back here anyways. 

It’s really, really difficult to deal with. Especially because if I miss one day of class, I miss an entire lesson. If I don’t do homework, my test grades show for it. It’s so hard for me to pull myself together when the only thing I want to do is lay in bed. And it’s not that I’m lazy. I’m internally motivated to do well in school, and I’m my own worst critic. If I miss school, I blame myself, and I feel guilty. It’s not that I want to waste the THOUSANDS of dollars my family is spending for me to go to school here by not going to class. It’s that I physically, mentally, and emotionally can’t pull myself together enough to take a shower, let alone go to class. 

I don’t really talk about my depression. Not with anyone. Not with my best friends, and not even really with my mom. It’s something hard that I’m living with. It something that I’m kind of embarrassed about, actually, but I’m working on that. It’s not something I should be embarrassed of. It’s not my fault that I have this wrong with me. If you’ve made it this far, I’m sorry that it got long, but I had this weighing on my heart tonight. Hopefully, next week I’ll have a happier post.