So. This is awkward. I haven’t posted anything to my blog in a month and a half. I guess there’s just been too much going on for me to sit down and write a little bit. But in all honesty, this blogging thing is really relaxing and it’s extremely therapeutic. I feel like writing things out is good for me so I’m gonna try and write at least once a week again. Wish me luck!
I don’t even know where to begin. I guess I can just give the highlights of the past 6 weeks and see where that takes me. It might get boring but I’m hopeful that I’ll appreciate that I did this one day. Also I realized I have almost no picture documentation of my life for the last little bit. I’ll do what I can.
Starting with fall break. That was fun because Joe and I went to Salt Lake City for the day and got some food, walked around the city, and played in a book store for an hour. I’m glad we both like books so much. It was a good day. On Saturday of the break, I went with a bunch of friends from honors housing to see Thriller. I saw it last year with my family and it was just as good. I love watching people dance! Speaking of dance, I also had a dance lab that I performed at and I competed at the Hillcrest High competition with my friend, Morgan. We got second place in gold rumba and fifth in gold swing. (That swing was a hot mess! We came up with some bronze level choreography after entering the competition about an hour before it started and then we got on the floor and forgot everything. We made a fool of ourselves but we didn’t even get last. I was shocked!)
I also went home for one of the weekends to accompany (not babysit, as so adamantly noted by my sister) Mikelle, Morgan, and Christopher while our parents and the other kids were off having fun vacations without us. We played a lot of Just Dance, watched some movies, went shopping, and took advantage of the cash our parents left us for food. Yum. Joe also hung out with us that Sunday and we made dinner for everyone when they got home. Good thing I’m nice.
Halloween happened. That was good. Joe and I went as a cat and a cat toy. We were funny. And actually I do have a picture of this one! The picture is kind of blurry but at least it’s still cute.
We carved pumpkins and then I tried really hard to stay awake to watch Monster’s University, but the constant state of exhaustion I seem to be in lately decided that I’m not allowed to watch movies anymore. I fall asleep during everything these days! It’s whatever. Come to think of it though, I am able to stay awake during some of the scary movies we watched like Silence of the Lambs. I was too frightened to be tired I guess.
This last weekend, I was able to spend some time with my family since they were in town for a dance competition. Joe and I went out to dinner with my parents, Boyd and Sarah, and Shannon and her mom. It was so fun. My parents are actually hilarious and so are all the others so being with them is always a good time. Also, Boyd is something else . But I love them all. We also played a good game of nertz with my sister and Lauren.
So there’s been a lot of good things in my life to be thankful for lately, but at the same time there has also been a lot of heartache and sadness. It’s been really hard but I’ve learned a couple of really important things. This semester has been rough, and not in the “I-just-hiked-Mount-Everest” way but in the “why-am-I-even-trying?” way. If that makes any sense. Either way, there’s been a lot of time to reflect about who I am and where I’m going. Ever since I was young, I feel like I’ve had a different take on what happiness is as compared to people around me. Someone told me that maybe my happiness isn’t just having joy. My happiness isn’t necessarily the absence of sad either. My happiness is a mixture of both. Being sad, in an odd way, actually makes me happy. I’m sure this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But to me it does. It explains why, this whole time, I’ve almost enjoyed being stressed, or sad, or depressed, I guess you could say it’s a comfortable feeling, and I need both contentment and sorrow to be happy. Without having pain, we can’t know joy and without having storms we can’t appreciate the calm. Ever since I’ve accepted that, I’ve come to learn a little more about myself and love myself more for it. I am a different kind of happy.
I’ve also learned that falling down and getting up are not the same motion. Physically speaking, it’s impossible. I think I’ve always given myself this unrealistic expectation that if I stumble through life and am unable to immediately rebound than I am not good enough. This is absolutely not true. You can’t fall and pick yourself up at the same time and I’ve definitely realized this in the past couple of months. It has nothing to do with whether or not you are good enough. It has everything to do with knowing you can’t do it on your own. Spiritually speaking, I feel like a lot of people think they’ll never measure up to who they want to be, who their friends and family want them to be, or who God wants them to be. Maybe they think their faith isn’t strong enough or that they aren’t important enough as just one person among billions to be able to lift themselves up again or to see why their mortal life here is valuable. The way I see it, you had to have a testimony to get where you are today, and that same testimony can get you back to where you’re from. And even if we feel that God isn’t there for us, we must not mistake his patience for his absence. He loves us whether we are sad or happy or any emotion in between. We are worth amounts unfathomable in God’s eyes and no one has the right to make us feel worthless. Not even ourselves.
Just My Two Cents 