Two Weeks.

I have approximately 14 days left as a resident of Virginia and then it's off to Alabama. My moods and feelings about this whole college thing range from "OMG OMG OMG I'm so excited so many new friends and people and things to do and see" to "I'm locking myself in the Suburban and living at home forever and ever and I'll work as a nanny or something as long as I can stay here".

This summer has been so crazily busy that interning kept most of these feelings at bay for June and really until the middle of July. Since I didn't really handle my feelings in a healthy way until, um, last week, the past few days have been a serious roller coaster of ups and downs and second thoughts and reality checks.

My list of places to eat are growing more and more lined with blue and only a few places remain: The Yard House next friday, my favorite mexican restaurant with my favorite waiters who are almost family now for my last night in town, Whole Foods for cupcakes, Sugar Plum for a slice of cake. No Frill for chicken sandwiches, Chicks for fried oysters, and Bakers Crust for tavern chips all got crossed off last week. One last Taste run is in order today with one of my favorite people ever, but who am I kidding, I'll probably take a second lunch sometime before I leave just for one more Hilltop.

I'm trying to balance running so I keep my head on straight, TidalWheel so I can have more time to hangout with my friends and favorite instructors, and now Pure Barre so I can kick those lassssssst five pounds off the scale that I was supposed to lose the week after graduation. Many thanks to those three for keeping my legs consistently sore/bruised for the past three weeks. (Sidenote: Pure Barre is no joke.)

Then there are things I can't even deal with/talk about: minute things like shower caddies, laptop cases, waterproofing backpacks, ordering stationery, when exactly my last sit on the beach day is, new glasses, where I'll fill prescriptions. In my next life, maybe I'll write a book about all this, and how to do things like moving more efficiently, because the refrain "I went to summer camp, this will be easy!" no longer applies. Things like school colors and matching and dorm schemes now apply.

Case in point: my mother and I go to Target for a white shirt, see one of my best friends, talk to him for an hour and a half, and leave with sheets and towels at 10:30 at night. I then proceed to take my sheets and towels to my monogrammer, get in a debate about what font and which colors to use with her, finally leave.  I picked up my coral sheets and navy towels in a trashbag three days later. Old high school habits die really, really, really hard. This has also been evidenced by the amount of orange and blue I've found in my room while packing and weeding things out. 

Back to my point, there are things I'm anticipating, like getting to eat at my favorite places, and things I'm not thinking about, like saying goodbye to my 30 or so closest friends until Christmas. Nothing triggers a good old "why didn't I go to UVA and follow the normal route with my friends so I could come home on the weekends and still see everyone" freak out like realizing I won't be at home or see anyone until almost 2014. Yikes. There's going to be no safety net of friends to fall back on the first week of school or knowing everyone in my class or my home to come to.

But that's okay. Life goes on and even though I'm a little terrified, I am ready to fly from the nest. I might stumble a little bit, but that's okay. I might not 100% think it yet, but I am ready and I know I'll be okay. I think it's my orange and blue bulldog heart that might take the longest to convert.

xx

July

Rabbit, rabbit y'all! I can't believe that today is the first day of July and starts my last month at home! June kind of slipped away from me with interning and lifeguarding really taking up most of my time. It's been a great start to the summer, but I feel bad neglecting blogging and pushing it off.

I wouldn't say my passion and love for this has gone away, but it's almost sort of a selfish cause behind my procrastination. When I started my blog, the whole "southern/preppy/WASPy" what-have-you was nearly nonexistent, and now there are thousands of clothing companies, anonymous twitter accounts and blogs all promoting their 'idea' of the lifestyle that I, like many other people, had grown up knowing but never put a title on. 

I guess this is a bit reverse-hipster of me, but I feel like the title and content is now almost cliche, and I'm at sort of a crossroads. I haven't made any major decisions, and I want to continue to keep this up, but it's definitely not like it used to be excuse me as I click nostalgically through my high school posts. One of my greatest flaws is that I don't like to do anything halfway, and I would rather not do something at all than do it less than 150%. While this is a great asset, it means I give a lot of 110%s to a lot of things, and this is something where the gratification is not always immediate. 

I'm working hard on revamping a little and sprucing this up before I head off to school a month from Wednesday (not even talking about it), but for now, I'm still Royar, the YSP!

Happy Monday!

xx

A Whole Week? Yikes!

I can't believe it's been a week since I've even opened the blogger in draft! Sometimes our heads just need a break and especially with everything going on at the end of the year, life just gets crazy! Definitely tunnel vision for sure.

So what have I been up to?

Lots and lots of grad parties! We went on a ship, the next night decked out in all white, then went to the beach the next day!

I've spent many afternoons laying out on my deck and at the beach. The start of summer wouldn't be complete without sand in my shoes!

We had our Vespers service last week as well! I cried a lot but it was fantastic and a great way to kick off graduation weekend. I can't wait to show y'all my grad dress - but that's for another post!

My eyes look so weird thanks to iPhone flash + dark fountain, but I'm so so so obsessed with my Vespers dress. This is my new favorite dress and literally go into my closet just to look at it. It's from Jules Reid and I've been working on building her blog for her! Go check it out - she is one cool lady and I've had so much fun working with her and getting to know her!

The rest of my summer is going to be spent laying on the beach as much as I can, interning, spinning, lifeguarding, and trying to pack up my life before I leave for school on August 7th!

It's so crazy that everything is starting to slow down but pick up at the same time! 

xx

Spring in Photos

One of the cutest sophomores at my school and basically my preppy legacy for the next two years, Katy, and I dressed up a few weeks ago for Lilly!

The Whole Foods in my city has macarons. Nothing will ever be as good as Laduree, but this Salted Caramel one was pretty darn good.

We had sprit week last week and this was preppy day! I got lots of comments about how I didn't look any different, which wasn't surprising.

My sweet friend Megan came up last weekend to visit me in VA for the first time! She's basically the older version of me and I loved showing her around my city.

Since there are so few of us in my graduating class, everyone gets a spot on a poster board to decorate. It was so surreal drawing this!

Have a great Tuesday!

xx

Mon-Day

Yikes, two quote posts in a row?

Today marks the beginning to the in-between stage. It's not yet Christmas, but there's no turning back now. It's not yet exams, but not the beginning of the second quarter. It's the two weeks of quiz-paper-test-project, because clearly teachers didn't learn when they were younger "if everyone else jumped off the bridge, would you too?", hence the same four things, six times over. 

But today is my day, and I'm going to be productive. The agenda has been written, the outfit picked out, bags packed, run planned, and breakfast made. I have been weirdly looking forward to this day since last week, partly because I'm itching to get some things crossed off my list, and partly because I really want to speed these next two weeks along. Time marches on, and there are far better things ahead. 

But I also have to slow down and appreciate these moments. For most of my classes, these will be the eleventh and last exam I will sit for. Second semester will fly by, and I'm going to be walking out of school for the last time before I know it. Sometimes I get so caught up in the future, in the possibility, the story that has yet to be written, that I forget that God has a plan for me. Then I get a reminder in the form of a few amazing girls, who remind me that everything turns out right in the end, that life is good, and that good times are ahead.

But today, first. Today will be an awesome day.

xoxo,

Royar

{The Young Southern Prep}

Tiller

Yesterday was one of those let's see how much can awfulness can be put in one day kind of days. It was cold, rainy, and just a downright miserable day. I really couldn't put my finger on what was wrong, and it was driving me crazy all day. And then I remembered, that one year ago yesterday, my sweet Tiller passed away.

His death was so unexpected, and I can't lie, I can't really think about him for too long without crying.  Hug your dog for me today, because I would give so much to have Tiller back for one more day.

Dogs aren't our whole lives, but they really do make our lives whole. 

xoxo,

Royar

{The Young Southern Prep}

C'est La Vie

True life: I take things really hard. I don't like it when people don't like me, or when things don't go exactly my way. 

While I know that this is not indicative of 'the real world', I have always been either too naive or ignorant to not realize that not everyone loves me, or I've just brushed it off.

However, life doesn't always go as planned, and I've learned that a lot in high school. But sometimes, excuse my french, life sucks, but the suns sets, and the sun rises, and life goes on, with or without you. Somedays you're the shoe, and somedays you're the spider getting killed by the shoe. 

Yesterday was an awesome example.  Something I had been planning for a while was pretty much pulled out from under my feet, and let me just say, I was not prepared for it. Add this to being super sick all day, I was a little extra snarky, yes. I try to tell myself that there's a reason for everything, and that this is just a sign pointing me to another direction, but the fact of the matter is it still necessitates a good long cry, and a few episodes of Sex and the City. Afterwards, I really got to thinking about how silly I was acting. As anyone will tell you, I get so worked up so much that I can't see the forest for the trees, and that creates tunnel vision where I really can't see that, truly, you can jump on the train, or you can wait and watch it leave without you. There will be other tests, colleges, boys, and opportunities. 

Maybe life really isn't about what knocks you down, but how gracefully you get back up, and all that matters is that you get back after it, and let go after awhile.

Somedays, I can follow my own advice, and somedays I only follow half.  But you can't take it on all at once, and I know one day it will all fall into place.

Because honestly, any day we have two feet on the grounds, a sun in the sky, and love in our hearts, is a win in my book.

xoxo,

Royar

{The Young Southern Prep}

The Light At The End of the Tunnel

I can almost see it.

I have three exams standing between me and summer. I can taste summer.

Last week on the other hand? Although I had summer and freedom in the palm of my hand, I couldn't see the leaves from the trees.

I had two tests, two final exams, one project presentation that counted as a final exam, a makeup exam, and a chapel presentation about my mission.

Somehow I stumbled through, but the sad thing was, I didn't keep the big picture in my head.  I didn't stay focused and remember that I was going to be okay.  I have been through many harder things than what happened this week, and I only ended up disappointing myself at the end of the week.

Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind.  The race is long and in the end, it’s only with yourself. ~ Baz Luhrman

How do you stay focused?

xoxo,

Royar

{The Young Southern Prep}

Just Be

Clearly someone has been trying to get my attention for a while, because it just smacked me in the face.

Thursday's devotion from The Daily Word

Two such simple words.

Y'all, I'm not going to lie. I'm exhausted. Like stick-a-fork-in-me-i'm-done exhausted. I would tell you what I've been doing the past two weeks, but quite honestly I can't remember.

I've been running from here to there and back and to see teachers and running errands and moving things around my room and telling myself that's being productive and cleaning my room at 2:30 in the morning and having dance parties to Starships by Nicki at 4:30 in the afternoon and walking around my school twice before I remember what I'm doing, all while humming a Big & Rich song from 2007. To say I'm a bit scatterbrained at the moment is a bit of an understatement.

The past two weeks have just been building and building with stress, anticipation, hope, fear, anxiety, and one too many Diet Cokes and Venti Iced Coffees.  

Wednesday, I just lost it. Over what you might ask? Trying to decide what science I'm going to take my senior year.  One thing I'm telling my college counselor how I'm hoping my schedule will pan out and the next I'm sobbing about how I haven't slept, eaten, or really stopped for the past two weeks. Thankfully she's one of the teachers that I'm closest too, but I'm still pretty sure I gave her a good shock.

Yesterday, I was refreshed. I could see the finish line. I was sprinting at the end of the race.

Today, I'll turn in my U.S. History Paper, a long tradition at my school and one of the two major projects of my Junior Year.  I actually really did enjoy writing it, and I learned a lot about Ronald Reagan in the process. But I'm not going to lie, I really don't want to see or type the words 'conservative', 'republican', or 'Reagan' for a very long, long time. Two tests later, I'll be free as a bird.

Monday, I'll board a plane for Chicago, then Delhi, then Kolkata, then Bhubaneswar, and will be a temporary ex-pat once again for two weeks.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't do this every spring, nor did I plan out my junior year this way.

But I do know one thing, stressed out or not.

It's my life and it's sure fun.


xoxo,

Royar
{The Young Southern Prep}