I'M IN!!!

I'M ACCEPTED INTO MARQUETTE'S PA PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!! After bugging my parents incessantly for the past few days for updates, my momma emailed me today with the good news. What a relief! I had been trying not to look forward too much to how I would react, not wanting to get too excited or too nervous. I was on my computer already, I saw I had an email, saw it was from my mom titled "CONGRATULATIONS" and I flung my computer down, screamed in the study lounge, and ran laps around the school. One of the best things I've felt in my entire life. Been working towards this moment for years now, and what sweet gratification it is. The fact that the next three years of my life, and my future, are pretty much planned out now hasnt hit me yet. I'm excited to be able to stay at Marquette and in Milwaukee for a few more years where I've started to feel at home (now I just need to continue sending Marquette hate mail and demanding more money).

I cant believe I'm at this point right now. I sit outside in the courtyard at night alot and try and grasp what I'm really partaking in. I think of how far away from home I am. I think of how comfortable I feel, I think of how I've changed, I think of friends I've made, friends I've lost, and friends I've yet to make. I feel guilty at how much I've been given and stranded in a way by never being able to show how massively grateful I am - to whoever gave me my family/my adventurous spirit/enough money to experience new things/my brain and contemplative mind, to mom and dad who have worked way too hard to support/put up with me through irrational behavior and sacrificed too much for my well-being, to brothers/sisters/aunts/uncles/grandparents who constructed who I am in their own individual way and make me feel comfortable in such an isolated situation by always knowing they could do anything at all within their power for me, and to friends who have given me stories/lessons/morals/overwhelming feelings of companionship and probably understand less than anyone how much I need them and treasure our time together.

And now add to this this recent news, and I even moreso cannot grasp where I am. I guess Damon's and my quick stop in Milwaukee a few years back crossing the country proved to be pretty monumental. Where did two years go? When did I reach the point where I can seriously start thinking about where I want to work, much less even being able to consider intensely my career? CAREER?! I can't believe how much I've done in my life, how many stories my friends and I have, how many places I've seen, how many good times I've tried to take slow and how many bad times I've tried to work through. I felt this way when I got to Rome - pure guilt. I wish there was some way to show pure gratitude in its truest form, because if there was I'd be commissioning Michelangelo to start working on it right now. We talked today in aesthetics that art is expression of irrational ideas, of pure emotion, of things farthest removed from nature, and I wish I was an artist and could share these feelings of graciousness, love, and overwhelming happiness I get when I reminisce on life up to this point.

I have more to update on life here, but I'll leave this emotional, sappy post be and make a new one for that. Thanks for letting me ramble and try and express all that...

Love always,

Zach