Fictional Character Attachment Disorder

**SPOILER ALERT** If you are not up to date on Downton Abbey, I would recommend exiting this page right now. Don't read it. Mom, that's you. Stop reading. I mean it.

I get too attached to fictional characters. So I'm creating a real disorder. Fictional Character Attachment Disorder, or FCAD. I know I'm probably using "attachment disorder" in the wrong context, but it makes sense, doesn't it?

I can't let go of fictional characters. I just can't. I started watching the first episode of season four of Downton Abbey (it's not that shocking, people. Just look it up on the internet. You don't have to live in the UK.) and within the first thirty seconds, I was freaking out. I feel for these characters like they're real people. Most human beings get over fictional deaths very easily. Not me. I have been mourning Sibyl Crawley's death for about a year. If I lived in the 1920's, I would still be in black. That's how bad it is. This was me while I watched that episode.

Anyway, I had to stop watching the new episode because I was so sad. I went to bed instead of watching the long awaited Series four of Downton Abbey. I was literally too sad to watch it. Of course I have now completed the episode, coming out with only minor emotional injuries. I knew I had to face it, because I am so freaking addicted to it, I just knew I would cry a lot. And I did. It was hard. Freaking Mary and her fatherless child.

It's not only Downton Abbey that I cry over profusely, but lots of other things. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was horrible. I was a wreck. And due to all of the Harry Potter pages I have liked on Facebook, I get to endure Fred's death every day. Why do admins enjoy posting pictures relating to Fred's death so much? It's uncalled for.

Oh, and Les Mis wasn't fun either. Such an incredible book. That's another can of worms though. Eponine's death had me SOBBING in the theater. I was shaking and my face was covered in tears. It took a lot of strength not to make lots of awful crying noises. Fantine wasn't fun in any way either. I was only capable of not crying my eyes out during Jean Valjean's death because I knew it would suck really freaking bad. I literally had to gear myself up to watch that last scene. I situated myself so I wouldn't be prone to a fit and got ready for a storm of feelings. I was avoiding something like this:

That happened to me too much in Downton. Ugh. So many feelings. 

I added that one mainly because of Avatar. It's the best cartoon ever made. Ever.

Anyway. The point is, if you ever feel like you can't let go of characters as if they're a part of your family, you probably have FCAD like me. I don't think there's a cure to this. We can go to all kinds of doctors, but it can't be fixed. But is that a bad thing? I don't think so. I think being overly attached to fictional characters shows your ability to love people in general. My great grandma always says that "the heart doesn't divide, it multiplies". That's one of my favorite phrases ever. We don't have a limited amount of space in our hearts. We can expand our hearts by simply loving more.

So there is nothing wrong with loving characters a lot. It's just a step towards loving people a lot.

So there.

I am officially a student at Paradigm High School! Oy. I wrote a draft of this post and it didn't save. We will see if I can remember what I said.

Well, as always, life has worked out. At least this part of life. There is so much to life that you can't really say that it's ALL worked out. Anyway, I am so grateful. The odds that I would get in were very small. But I felt like it was right, and I realized that if it was, that it would happen. I had to put a lot of faith in God. It was so worth it. 

There's more to this than just being in a good school, though. When we were talking to the counselor, my mom asked her if I was going to be able to graduate normally, because I took my sophomore year off, basically. The counselor was surprised, and said something along the lines of "oh no, you'll graduate normally, no problem. You have two years, you'll graduate." HOW AWESOME IS THAT? I got to have a year off to breathe and grow, and it will hardly affect my education at all. 

So I have something to say to all the people that told me that I'm "screwing up" my life, and that I'm making the wrong choices by doing what I did, and that my mom is a "bad mom" for letting me drop out like that. Here it is: ha ha, you were wrong, my way was better than yours, I win, in your face, SO THERE. 

I know it's wrong and extremely childish to behave that way, but can I just have a minute to rub it in their faces? I mean seriously. I have been putting so much trust in God over the last year. I walked into this situation because it felt like the right thing. I didn't know why, but it was. I just kept on trusting, and because I kept having faith that the answers I was getting were right, I was led here. Trusting God was much more effective than trusting google. I would recommend it. 

I am so blessed. 

I was given a year to stop and breathe. It was much needed. Life was going too fast before. Things would happen, and everything was going so fast that I couldn't digest them. I needed some time to recuperate. And what's amazing is that I was actually given that. Like I was given a year of perspective and paradigm shifts. (Ha. Geddit? PARADIGM shifts? Yeah alright.) It was almost like in movies when someone wishes for something like "I wish I never had a mom" or "I wish my birthday was every day" and then they get it and they realize it sucks. Then they cry and they're like "I take my wish back wahh" and then when it's reversed, they're so grateful for their life that they can't stop smiling. Then someone asks them why they're acting so weird, and then they just wink at the camera or something cliche like that. 

That's what this is like. I can't stop smiling. I'm so happy to have a good school and education that I just love life. I think that's an achievement. If there was a camera to wink into, I would wink into it.

Life is wonderful, you know?