I am so cold right now. The room isn’t that cold, but I have the chills for some reason. I’m pretty sure that I’m sick, this is just my only symptom. I’ve been feeling off the last few days and haven’t been able to pinpoint the reason behind it. I hope it passes quickly. I don’t want to be sick my last week in Ningbo. Yay! It’s my last week in Ningbo.

I got dinner with a girl who works in town that I don’t know very well. I asked her to dinner a few weeks ago and we weren’t able to get it coordinated with our respective families being in town. It finally happened tonight and I’m really glad it did.

She’s very smart, pretty, funny and driven which are all qualities I respect in a person. We ended up talking about real stuff which was so nice. I miss being able to talk about real stuff with people near me. Sure, I still do it sometimes when I skype with people from back home, but it’s certainly not as often as it used to be. It’s also nice to share physical space with someone while talking about issues we’ve encountered in our lives. She’s had similar struggles to my own which she shared with me. I in turn shared my struggles with her. I’m grateful that worked out.

I broke down crying when I got home. I haven’t cried like that in a long time. I know it’s from talking about these things that I’ve got locked away that I don’t share with people often. I feel like I can share them now; like they aren’t experiences I need to hide or run away from. I didn’t get deep into the specifics, but even just mentioning them in the manner I did has clearly set something off inside me. I’ve got to share with other people and/or write about the experiences of my past. I need to clear my chest and my heart of them. It’s clearly weighing me down more than I’m able to realize and my freedom depends on me working through the emotions associated with them in a positive, cathartic way. I want to be able to walk away afterwards and say “hey, these are experiences I had, but they in no way define who I am.” I’m a different person today than I was a year ago. I was a different person a year ago than I was a year before that. I continually like the person I’m becoming more than the person I was in the past and I’m enjoying the journey of becoming a new, different person. If this trend continues, and I have every reason to believe that it will, in another year, or few years, I’m going to really be at a good place. I like where I am now, but it’s really great to see progress that’s being made. I finally have hope and don’t feel nearly as helpless as I once did.