Palm Sunday

It's Orthodox Palm Sunday, in case you didn't know, and I'm not at church because of schoolwork. (There's no church in the town where I go to school--I have to go home to go.) And I just feel very discouraged about the fact that I didn't share Palm Sunday with anyone. It's not that I feel guilty because part of the reason I didn't go home this weekend was so I could go home next weekend for Pascha (Easter). But still. I've spent too much time without a community already. At the same time, I feel very strongly that God put me at my school and I love it, so I can't see myself leaving. And I know I would be miserable at home with my family. That's just the way things are. It's still hard to realize that we moved 3,000 miles away from everyone we knew so we could have a community and then here I am without one. I feel alone. I know that God is always with me, and the Mother of God and the saints and angels as well. But I've also messed up a lot this Lent. I haven't followed the fast strictly--again, not entirely my fault because my body needs protein and the dining hall here does not know how to serve vegetarian meals with protein in them--and I've slacked off on all of the spiritual things I was going to do. It leaves me with this feeling that I don't have any fruits to bring for the past 40 days. And that's both sad and scary to me.

I know that things will probably get better and I'm partly stressed about school because I always feel like I'm slipping behind. And the weather has stayed cold and grey far later than it was supposed to--we had snow, rain, and hail yesterday. And my situation is what it is. But all the same I can't help feeling like there's something wrong.