Heart Breaks and Hard Times

Cherish here.

I'm having a tough time now if I ever have. Riley and I just broke up after a fantastic two years. We had a good run, we really did. And he's one of the most incredible people I've ever met. Since he moved away though, things haven't been so good between us. We fought a lot and tonight was the straw that broke the camels back, I guess. He wasn't thinking and he hurt me deeply. It was the last thing I could handle.
And so, after a long and so painful talk, our relationship has come to an end. They say you'll always love your first love, and I believe that's true. He was so good to me for so long. And so, my love, if you read this, know that despite everything, I honestly believe that one day we may meet again and the planets will be properly aligned this time. There was just too much against us right now..
And if we don't find our way back to each other, then I hope you find someone who will love you better than I did. Because you deserve it. I know it's hard. But goodbye, my love.

Cherish out.

Tiny Fins and High School

Cherish here!

Today was the first day of school for most of the students in the Marysville area. It was also the day of our first swim meet. It was kind of a fun meet, the events weren't the regular events. Some of them were harder and some of them were just for fun. Also, I had to swim, which was annoying but I love the coach so much that of course I'm going to do it. Almost I won't even complain. Almost.
Anyway, it was a relay meet. So I should have only had to do two, maybe three dives. Unfortunately our team is no bueno and I had to do five. I have an eleven dive list. I'm going to districts. My other divers have one dive. So while Ashley threw a forward dive I had to do a forward, a twist, a reverse, an inward, and a back dive. I was stressed. I was also swimming three events!
One of them was a senior relay with fins. While the rest of the girls in my relay have tiny feet, I have some pretty giant ones. So I had to go first and cram my toes into these tiny flippers. I was so glad it was only a twenty-five. I still had huge red marks where the rubber cut into me.
I don't even know if we won the meet but I do know I had a good time! Anyway, I'm off to bed. Hopefully. It's three in the morning, and I just haven't been able to sleep. I hope you guys are doing better than me!

Cherish out!

The Marine, the Girlscout, and the Trekkie

Cherish here!

I went on a fantastic hike yesterday! So here's the disclaimer, this post will have a whole lot of photos!

It was called the Green Mountain Trail, and it follows these really cool old mining tracks along a river. It was closed less than one and one half miles in due to landslides but we passed the trail closure signs and kept going, we were on a mission.

The whole trip we saw maybe fifteen people, and about half of them were leaving the trail when we got there. I went with Kim and her long time good friend Jacob, whom I'd only met twice.

It was actually fantastic. I hadn't been hiking in about a decade (which makes it sound like so much more than ten years). He told me it wasn't going to be an easy hike, but I didn't expect to have to straight up climb a wall of rock.

At the same time though, it wasn't nearly as daunting as I expected. I actually did better than the other two. Early on in the hike Kim slipped and cut and bruised her leg. Fortunately that didn't really act up until the next day. When Jacob fell it was terrifying. It was like the sort of thing you see in movies, time slows down and you just see your companion grasping for anything to catch themselves on. We were trying to find our way down to the river to go swimming.

There was a group of people in the area we had planned on hiking down to, so we went on for nearly another mile before we found somewhere we thought we could get to. For a fair distance we were cut off by an approximately fifty foot rocky ledge. Jacob though he could slide down it when we hit a section with dirt and plants on top of the rocks. He made it a few feet before we got him to come back. That's when he slipped. He grabbed Kim's hand but she's tiny, not nearly strong enough to keep him up, and I was stuck behind her. When Kim started falling forwards I grabbed her and she let go of his hand. He slid down the ledge, frantic to grab anything that would hold him.

He tried to play it off as though he wasn't shaken up or hurt though we could both tell he was. His arm was all scratched up, his shirt ripped, and he was afraid he broke his toe. He had to hike through the rocks until Kim and I could make it down the ledge to get to him. Kim was so upset, so mad at herself for letting go. I don't know if she really understands that she would have been hit much worse had she fallen headfirst. Anyway, after much more hiking we finally managed to find a nice place to swim.

This is where things got ridiculous. I forgot my swimsuit. But I had no intention of missing out on the swimming. And I'll be honest, I was not wearing the most demure underwear I could have been. I was so glad I was wearing a sports bra at least. I thought it was funny, I met the guy twice and already he was seeing me in my panties. So I kept my tank top on. Not much, but more than Kim's swimsuit covered.

I didn't think Kim was going to make it into the river. We had to dash across the current in the deep water to get to the calmer part on the other side. There was a trickling waterfall behind us and huge rocks to climb on. And it was cold. So cold I thought I would die. But it was also incredibly beautiful. There's something about swimming in a river completely isolated, so far away from anyone else that all you can hear are the occasional birds and the rushing water that takes your breath away. 

We hiked on a little while further. I'm not sure if there used to be a waterfall there, but it looks like this used to be a dam. Which makes little sense where it is and there's no channel on the other side.

 Either way, I was the only one brave enough to go all the way to the other side. I think we're going to do this hike again, and next time go past this, though the trail looks really tough beyond. Somewhere there's an abandoned mining town that I'm excited to find. The whole thing was so cool. And walking across this was so surreal. I felt like I had to keep moving, like if I stopped I would fall. Then I felt ridiculous, the diving board is much thinner and I've never fallen off of it. It also doesn't have seventy foot drops on either side, but that's unimportant.

It was definitely one of the best times I've had in awhile. A fantastic start to Labor Day weekend! Have a good one, dear readers!

Cherish out!

Call Me Captain!

Cherish here!

Or should I say, Captain Cherish! I've been a busy bee and I'm sure you're quite irate with me for not posting more often. I would be too. Mostly I'll tell you about the cool things. I'm a Youth Action Volunteer Team Captain. It's an offshoot of Volunteers of America, and basically we have leadership training and volunteer activities once a month as a big group, and we're encouraged to go out and do other volunteering in smaller groups. It's pretty cool.
This last Saturday was our first meeting, kind of an orientation and then a big volunteer project. The team is sponsored by a bunch of baseball teams, so we were doing a school supply drive for underprivileged children at an Everett Aquasox game. It was actually a great time and for a great cause. They bought tickets for all of us to stay for the game, but I'm not a baseball fan, so I left pretty early. On the other hand, that's not the only thing I'm captain of now! Wait for it...

I am also captain of my high school's dive team!! I'm sure you're thinking, so what? Well, it's really great. I always wanted to be able to say, yeah I was a team captain, there's only one or two of them every year. It's an honor and a responsibility. And I'm proud of myself. It's been a lot of work, and we're only two weeks into the season. My goal is to make it to state, and that's not going to be easy. I've got a lot of work ahead of me.
The hardest part of diving though, is the mental part. Diving is terrifying. You stand on that board and know that what you're doing could seriously injure you. It's categorized as a high risk sport. If you're like me it's twice as bad. You walk up to the board bravely and then your mind kicks in. You over analyze the situation until you're suddenly terrified of it and all the bad things that could happen are replaying themselves in your head. You see the possible smack, you relive bad experiences, and you remember seeing people hit the board and hurt themselves all at once. Before you know it you're paralyzed with fear. So what I'm working on now is getting past that. And it's hard. But it led me to a great website!
Nerd Fitness is a great fitness website, and definitely left me inspired! I love the guy who writes it so much that probably I could marry him (don't tell Riley)! The way he describes everything and relates it to nerdy things makes me happy and inspired. I'm trying a few of the things I've read about. I'll get back to you on how it goes. I read a great article on getting over fear that I'm trying very hard to relate to diving. You should check it out! Join the Nerd Fitness Rebellion!
Since dive has started I don't have a choice but to keep up with the rigorous core work out we do and the several million lunges. (That's an exaggeration, but I really don't like them!) Anyway, this website inspired me to do more on my own time. Maybe it will help you too! We can level up together! Be well everybody!

Cherish out!