hahaha

God has a great sense of humor, doesn't He?

sometimes i have to just stop and laugh right out loud because of the plans i see unraveling that He knew about all along. how ingenious. how perfect.

of course. it's God.

i have a lot going on in my life, if you couldn't tell in my last post.
but please don't mistake what you read as me wishing i had a different life.

i'm grateful for the one i have. i'm grateful for the challenges which stretch growth out of me.
i was again reminded that if we were to all throw our troubles into a pile and have a look at what others really deal with, we would quickly snatch our own back up.

{please give me back my rocks, please... i like them better than yours.}

right now i'm teaching my little 7th graders about resiliency, grief, and "ants" {automatic negative thoughts}.

i learn so much from preparing the lessons -- feeling they're more for me than anyone else. and then i gain so much insight from these young teenagers who, some of them, have had to live too much life in the short time they've been on earth.

some of them are cynical; love, happiness, and positive things seem like a bedtime story they were told as children -- but they "know better now." the hurt, confusion, and anger swirling inside them is mistaken by everyone - maybe even themselves - as teenage moodiness and chalked up to puberty and hormones. yet as i get that privileged view as a health teacher into students' lives where they start talking about real-life examples of emotions, stress, and grief.....

i see there is so much more to them, to their feelings, to their mood swings.

well, i actually figured that before. it's why i wanted to teach junior high school students, in the first place. i actually enjoy learning about their difficulties and teaching them positive ways to deal with life, head-on.

maybe that has a lot to do with my own junior high experience. ......it wasn't pretty. but i have to believe God gave me experiences that could help me empathize with others.

now as i teach about negative thoughts and bouncing back from hard stuff, i smile inside knowing that even now God is reminding me to keep going through the mud. i have the strength.

and when i don't?

He does.

. just . breathe .

sometimes i get caught up in the whirlwind.

ok.

not sometimes.

all the time.


emotions have a tendency to sweep me up and blow me in any sort of direction.
emotions, feelings, .... stress especially.


the whirlwind i'm currently navigating is squeezing the breath out of me -- i'm wondering if that's also in a literal sense, as well. not only am i struggling to keep everything in my life together as i feel like life threatens to smush me flat like a bug on a windshield, but starting late last year i started to develop a weird breathing problem. i constantly have the sensation that my lungs aren't filling up with enough oxygen until i take huge, deep breaths.


you see... i'm student teaching.
at a junior high school.
seventh graders.

i do love it. i do! and i love them. yet, having so many of them.... 40 students in each of my six classes. oh, but one of those classes has 41 students. this is all so much.

not that it feels like i've been thrown into the ocean without a life preserver or a knowledge of how to swim. it's more of a feeling that i've been thrown into the ocean with a knowledge of how to swim, but my life jacket is too big and i'm tired. i'm starting to sink lower into the water as i see the sharks watching and waiting for me to drown.

there is a lot going on around me. a lot to deal with and a lot to figure out.
sometimes i let these things consume me.

maybe that's when i need an emotional breather just as badly as a literal one.

for now, all i can think to tell myself is: "just breathe."

this time of year does things to me

you think i'm talking about the christmas music, my red and green attire, the shopping, the holiday greetings and gay happy meetings, the should-be/would-be snow that has come and will come ......

no.

that is not what i'm talking about.


i'm talking about the what i saw referenced on facebook as the 1% of the semester that holds 99% of the stress:

finals.


for me, it's not even "final" tests. it's the final deadlines, final projects, final realizations that everything from the entire semester has to be turned in or ...........................else.


if you know me pretty well, you know that starting on december 1st, i wear red and green every single day until after christmas. honestly, it's mostly to get me through the end of the semester. and this year i've really needed it more than any year before.

i don't know where my head has gone, but it's definitely not in real-life. or at least in my real-life.
my mind is constantly swirling from one course to the other, trying to find the best way to analyze and summarize information or create a representation of my growth as a future teacher..... all of this at the same time. everything at the same time.

life is still going. it never stops. crazy things are always happening. so i need to get my head in the game.
{oh gosh, ....i just had high school musical flood into my head}

today in a class, i was chatting with some classmates. of course we were all discussing how badly we wanted to graduate and how we felt soooooooo old. one girl claimed she was probably the oldest in the entire class. i told her that wasn't true, i was probably the oldest. i asked her how old she was. her answer was twenty-three. quickly, she asked me how old i was and i replied the same. she asked when my birthday was and we all discussed birthdays. then she said the year.

1988.

then it clicked.

"wait. ............... 1988? i was born in 1987."

simultaneously they said "then you're twenty-four," as i said, "i'm twenty-four!"
i'd been so stressed this week that i'd forgotten what age i am. instead of all this work making me more intelligent, i feel like my brain is working slower. i'm getting dumber.

oh well. ha. at least i remembered sooner rather than later that i turned twenty-four.

i hope that this time of year --- weather it's finals or crazy weather or crazy shopping or crazy people --- is treating you well!

twenty-four

i was shopping for some halloween doodads about a month ago with my roommate when i noticed all of the turkey-themed decorations cluttering the aisles.

in one little moment -

a surreal little moment -

i remembered i would soon be twenty-four years old.

you may be thinking.... duh, that shouldn't have been a surprise.

yet it snuck up on me!

however, my sudden panic was not about what age i would be. it was about realizing what this particular age meant to me.

living in provo utah, a girl tends to adopt certain beliefs -- even if said-girl is not originally from these parts

~ i claim the east coast, thank you very much ~

 even if those certain beliefs go against everything said-girl used to believe.

the most important and prevalent of these beliefs is an adaption from jane austen {italics represent modifications}:

"it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good testimony and eighteen years of life, must be in want of a good husband and loads of children - right away." 

side note here --- pride and prejudice is actually a very interesting book to read as a social commentary of provo's current ideals of marriage and courtship.


so if you're having a hard time doing the math, eighteen was six years ago for me. that's a long time.
and what was my panic about?

well... somehow twenty-four meant something twenty-three hadn't to me. twenty-four meant "marriage" and "babies" and the world most of my other same-aged friends are living in. it meant more responsibility. it meant more.


quick! somebody help me find a rock to hide under!

you know me... when fight-or-flight kicks in, my first instinct is flight.


but now i've been twenty-four for a week. i've had time to feel it out, wear it in, and see that it's not as scary as i thought it would be.

i was in portland with sundy, tyler, and my darling little brother paul for my birthday celebration. i couldn't ask for anything more. i had everything i could want. my wonderful family, incredible friends, and the love of my Heavenly Father and Savior.

things are "up in the air" right now with a lot of aspects in my life...., but i know everything will work itself out because i'm an adult and i'm in-charge of my life :)

grateful

...to be in portland.

...to be with family.

...to be with my sister and brother-in-law. i love them so dearly.

...that i can be with them through such a difficult time.
....just to be near them.
....to share in their grief and pain.

...for a break from my own stormy, self-centered focus.

...for the almost always present rain that pours outside - as a reminder that when it rains it pours.

....that this statement is true for both the trials and the blessings -- the constant pouring of blessings Heavenly Father sends down when i feel least deserving of them.



today is thanksgiving 2011. it feels like this last year has both flown by and lagged-on forever. so much has happened since my last visit to portland for the thanksgiving holiday. i know i am extremely blessed.

i truly am grateful for all that i have and all that i am.


i know that trials provoke change. change brings growth. growth is vital to becoming a better person.

i'm a different person than i was last year..... in a different place than i was, too. i'm grateful for change. i'm grateful for the ability to adapt. i'm grateful for lessons learned.

p.s. Truman, i love you.

i miss you.

i got my baby back

ribs.

ha!
just kidding.

i mean my computer!!!

you don't know how long i've been without my laptop. ugh! it's been months! five months, to be exact.
i broke the screen in may by dropping it backwards in a very frantic moment of academic insanity, and i didn't have the money to fix the screen -- then get it fixed from viruses :) ...joy... -- until after school started.

that is a long time to be using other computers, finding time to go use the school computers, and borrowing friend's laptops {thank you, best roomie in the world, for letting me take your laptop to teach seminary classes! you're a peach and a lifesaver, too!}



not having my own computer, i didn't get online very often. and when i did, it wasn't for very long.
if you have stuck with me through my sporadic postings, you may have noticed this was not the time to be without a computer .... without a place to sort out the thoughts in my head and figure out what's been going on.



i have moved out, i've gotten five roommates, i've gotten a boyfriend {that one is kinda more recent though...}, i've learned a lot of life lessons, i've screwed up on the lessons i learned, and then i learned even more about hope and change and forgiveness.




i've missed you, blog. i've missed having a place to write.
now that i live in an apartment where privacy is a thing of the past and "alone time" is almost unheard of, it's nice to know i do have a safe place somewhere that is open anytime - day or night.

it's good to be back.

the family we choose

"maybe it's not blood bonds that make us a family. perhaps it's the people who know our secrets and love us anyway, so we can finally be ourselves." -- gossip girl


i'm going to be honest. when my parents moved out east for the school year and left my brother and me with no family, i felt alone.

then my brother got a full time job in addition to his full time school. though we may live a mere two yards away from one another, i see him about once a week -- sometimes less (like this last week). when there is so much physical distance between family, it can accentuate any other kind of distance - emotional distance.

i love my family. don't misunderstand me.






what i am saying is that i am finding, being here secluded and left with no physical family (that i actually see, talk to, or spend time with) to speak of, i am creating my own "family."


the family of my own creation is one made up of roommates, friends, and mother- and father-figures who can substitute for the real thing. all these people who come to know me, know what makes me who i am, and know my secrets ..... loving me anyway. sometimes loving me because of them.


i just watched "country strong" two and a half times in a twenty-four hour period this last weekend.

{yes, i loved it}

...there's a song called "coming home"

it's my absolute favorite.... it speaks to my heart.

home is not a physical place. it is where we feel safe, comforted, loved, and know that we won't be judged. it is where we join with the family we choose for ourselves - home is created there.

and within that home, having a small taste of the true home our Heavenly Father has waiting for us, we find the motivation, hope, and even the courage to keep going on the road that will bring us back home.

delightful fall feelings

i know there is so much to say.

so much i haven't said lately. and each day starts and ends while i continue to get my bearings on my circumstances. on the new things of my life.



i don't know if i have ever been so grateful and excited for general conference.
i need it.
i need answers.
i need directions.
i need to feel the spirit.
i need to be reminded of eternal truths.

welcome fall.
welcome comfort and happiness.
welcome, the most delightfully uplifting time of the year.