I'd rather be anywhere but here without you

Nothing ever happens the way you expect it to. Nothing ever is what it may seem to be. Things don't stay the same forever. Change is inevitable in every aspect of life. Embracing change... learning how to deal with it is the key. The key I have not quite grasped yet. But I am working on it.

I don't ever seem to fully understand myself. I think I have the world figured out, I have myself figured out and than something will come out of nowhere and catch you off guard. That is not always bad, but for me who is constantly looking for stability and consistency it can be a bit unnerving.

I have been extremely blessed lately. I have very little to complain about. And yet in the midst of my happiness comes my ever occurring doubts. The doubts that make me wonder if I am doing what is right. I am aways second guessing myself. Wondering if I am being stupid. Wondering if there lies in the past something I will regret. Wondering if I am doing what is right... what if I just think its right and I am wrong. What if I am wrong?
There comes a time when you have to stop listening to the doubts.. (the doubts that are a lot less loud this time remarkably). There comes a time when you jump. You just jump and trust God and stop worrying.
God will not guide us somewhere that is second best.
I need to learn how to separate fiction from truth. Imaginary from reality. I need to learn how to trust in my answers and my happiness... I need to realize that I deserve to be happy despite what I may have been conditioned to believe. I need to not sabotage a good thing and just let it happen.

I need to learn how to Trust. Sounds like something I have heard before...

I need to allow myself to be happy.

The past is a wonderful place to visit from time to time... but if we never take a step out of the past, if we stay there holding on so tightly to what WE think is best for us, to what we think is supposed to be our path than we will miss life. We will miss opportunities.
Yes, the past is safe, becuase we already know it. and the future is uncertain, scary, and unknown. But if we don't trust we will stay at a mediocre level of happiness instead of the eternal blissful happiness we have been promised. Trust God. Trust that as we pray and live the way we should our lives will unfold in the way that is best for us.

Letting go is hard. Moving forward can hurt. But there is happiness up ahead. We just need to jump out there and free fall into the future.

I know this is a good thing. I can feel it.
I am just so bound by a past that broke me...

Be patient. I can over come. I climb mountains... so this, this is nothing.
You are worth this.

Throwing away the letters that I am writing you, cause they would never do, I would never do.

The weather has been so beautiful lately. Hot, but beautiful.
I am keeping myself busy and surrounded by people. Time flies by.
I am in love with Viktor Frankl's philosophy.
Here are some quotes from him I Love :
When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor E. Frankl 


Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.
Viktor E. Frankl 


Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Viktor E. Frankl 



Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Viktor E. Frankl 






I have been reading his book Man's search for meaning.  I absolutely love it. I am not quite done, but when I finish I will have to read it again becuase its so deep and full of great insight that rereading it will help me to understand it even more. There is so much in it to be learned.


I feel like his idea's of "changing yourself and your attitude becuase we can't change our situation", is something I have heard all my life and yet never believed. Which is foolish on my part really. I thought telling someone to choose to be happy was unkind and unsympathetic. How can some one choose to be happy when sadness is all around you? Shouldn't you just submit to what obviously the universe wants you to be? Doesn't trials, hard times and difficulties mean that God, the universe and/or Life hate you?
 It seemed ridiculous to me. But that is my inner child speaking, the one who doesn't understand how to deal with herself. Our mind is a marvelous thing. We have so much power over our attitudes which then has so much control over who we are and what we make of our situations. 
Difficult times are not life's way of saying you suck, give up! Rather it is Life's way of saying what can you become? What can you do with this? It is a challenge not a condemnation. 
We are in control of who we are and who we want to be.
I never realized this until recently. I never realized how different life can be when you just choose to submit to the hard times and still be happy. 
Life is so much different when I think "what am I to learn, how will I gain from this" verses "what have I done to deserve this".


There are days where we all feel down, life seems so uphill and we don't know what exactly we are living for. There are days I still forget that i am in charge of my attitude and my perceptions. 
But my challenge to myself is to not let those thoughts last too long. I hope to never give up. and to find the happiness, the meaning in everything that seems to have none. 
Life is relative to our attitude. It is what we make of it. Why would we want to make it miserable? Change is constant, and the change we can have inside ourselves should be as well. 

Break the chains that bind you.

     Sometimes laughing with good friends will make all the difference in the world.
These past few weeks have been crazy. And honestly, the old me would have given up... thrown my hands in the air, screamed and hid under my blanket for a few days. Really and truely... that old me would have crawled in bed and called into work.
But I am the new me. I'm better wiser & a more stable me.
I did not throw up my hands and admit defeat.
     Lets be honest... I cannot control everything. This I know. I can't control lying boys, broken cars, angry guests, Broken phones, Certain people hating your existence, crazy family,  or tired aching (sore, possibly sprained) feet.
     I can't do anything to stop any of that. BUT I can control my attitude. Yes, I did just say that.
Its so true though. I have always laughed at the idiots who say that. My entire life I have mocked and heavily ridiculed those stupid people who have the audacity to say, "choose to be happy and you will be happy. Get over it and smile."
      I am in no way saying you can just tell your self to be happy and BAM you are. But I do think that the mind is powerful. And the way you react to your trials and misfortunes will determine the quality of your life.
     I have found peace and balance in my once crazy and dysfunctional life. I have found better ways to channel my hostile feelings and angst. I have a better perspective on life and where I am going.
I have come to know myself and know who I want to be. I know that this has helped me so that these past few weeks have not broken me.
I am actually more ok than I have been in.. well my entire life.
I like who I am and where I am.
     Its a way nice feeling, you should try it.

For any one who is interested here is a few highlights of my past few weeks...

     1) I had a "guest" argue with me about wanting to buy a bucket we had sitting on the floor collecting the rain water. It was filled with brown water and had a label on its bottom from 2008. Needless to say after much argument I gave in to the wench of a women and smiled watching her leave my store. I honestly Can't believe someone would fight a twenty one year old girl over a plastic bucket of brown rain water. I wonder what else she fights for.. Like does she go to Wal mart and fight for them to sell her their sanitary trash cans in the women's restroom stalls? I wouldn't put it past her.

     2) I was in winco, which is by far the most amazing place on earth. I was down an aisle with 3 of my girl friends. We were talking and laughing. I started to dance for them. I shook my hips in that way that girls do when they are showing how risqué they can be when no one is looking. We all giggled and went on our way.  As we were walking out, a man looking exactly like tiger woods (even his clothing) taps me on the shoulder. His deep voice paralyzes me as I realize what he is saying... "I saw you dancing." My eyes are the only thing  that moved at this point as I watch him walk away and then he looked back to smile. Needless to say I should not be allowed out in public.

     3) I went on a date. Yup. It was awesome in and of itself. My favorite parts included ME driving up to West Valley and then driving us on this "date".  We get up to the restaurant, and I am starving. As we get out he informs me that he does not have his wallet. I wanted to make him go get his wallet but I am too hungry and being in the car longer with him seems like a worse alternative. We sit down and he does not stop talking to save his life. If there is an odd silence He breaks it with a noise, little humming or random fact. There were no questions asked by him about me, just him talking/making noise.
     He was very nice and pleasant please don't get me wrong and YES I know... beggars can't be choosers, but there was something a bit strange about him. This was confirmed when as I was dropping him off he stayed seated in my car as long as possible going on about music or computers. Finally when it was time for him to get out he looks down the road and sees a kid on a bike, He then breaks out into an improvised song with lyrics like such, "there is a kid on a bike and he is coming towards us, kid on a bike and he is coming towards us. Kid on a bike. kid on a bike... kid on a bike. And he passed us."
 I don't think we will be going out again anytime soon.

4) My mom called me today to ask if I want her to buy me some of the contacts she found at the dollar store. Don't worry they are not a dollar. They are 15$. and they have 85 different colors to choose from. My mom recommends the bright green or aqua. She is contemplating the purple too. Though the zebra stripes are her favorite. I really should get some...
Not exactly sure what else to say about this... I don't know if I should question the fact that she is buying contacts from the dollar store or if I should bring up the fact that she should not be wasting her hard earned disability/retirement money on such fun and entertaining ( and probably hazardous) accessories.
But, as she put it, Don't you just really get sick of your eye color sometimes?


I have about a billion other awesome stories of fun but I think that is all for tonight.
I am grateful that I am alive. I am grateful that life is good.
Hard times, crazy times, and difficult times make the good stories that i can smile about and retell saying, "Heck yes... I survived."

Stop what you cannot control

I spent my day at rock canyon elementary school where I hung out in kindergarten for 3 hours and fourth grade for 2 and a half.
I went on a teddy bear picnic and learned that who ever made that horrible song (you tube the teddy bears picnic to be clued in for this one folks)... obviously knew how to write one heck of a song. I came home immediately and sang it to my roommate who probably now thinks I am crazy... ( I am).
Also... kindergartners in utah are very much more advanced than my classmates and I were at their age. They are reading books.. some even chapter books. I was so impressed.
Music class though was a little interesting. The kids ran around singing to each other as they played certain games... AND for five year olds they all sang pretty good... especially the brave ones that had to sing solos at times.
Fourth graders are also a lot of fun. I have a special place in my heart for the 4th grade. I loved my teacher in 4th grade, Mrs. Jacobs. 
The lady I observed today was awesome. Her kids put on puppet shows which were so amazing and well done... and some kids sang queen which made me smile.
I then watched as she taught them about ART! YES ART! and real artists. They painted a flower today just like who class? and they raised their little hands and squealed as they answered "Okeefe!". yes very good class. Remember we learned about her in AUGUST! And they had paintings on the wall after Chagall and writing on the board said they had discussed Picasso. I was so impressed and pleased.
Yes... today was an awesome day and I can't wait to be a teacher.



I am so happy to have a goal in life. A direction.




I hate to admit it but it needs to be done... my thoughts always come back to you. and I feel so stuck, in a place I don't want to be, holding on to nothing but dreams and disillusioned memories that I made up to be something that they never were.
You live a life in which I do not exist and never will.
I don't understand why Its not that easy for me.
I try so hard.
Everyone thinks I want to feel like this.

I live for myself, and for God.
Everything is good.
I like where I am at.
...for the most part.

definition of Irony.

I had my final today for my creative writing class. I chose to write a lot of pieces about my ex boyfriend, we will say his name is Steve. Steve left me 8 months ago and has never looked back. I have not heard a word from him and I have spent many a nights crying over how someone so close to you can simply leave. I have since been able to find closure. I owe a great deal of this closure to my writing for my class. i have been able to channel my feelings into words on paper and I feel they have turned out quite wonderful.

So today I arrived a bit behind schedule to the free parking lot at school. I saw the shuttle starting to leave the lot so I slammed the doors to my car and hauled my exceptionally heavy backpack over my shoulder, all the while carrying two awkward large boxes filled with pepperoni pizza. 

I caught up with the shuttle as it is at the stop sign preparing to turn on to oncoming traffic. I wave dramatically with my free hand and plea with the driver to open his doors.

He was very kind... and actually did. I stepped inside to see many faces staring at me. I felt pretty silly as I slid between two girls near the front of the bus. I was laughing. Trying to make conversation with someone... but everyone kept looking at me as if I was crazy. So I kept to myself tapping on my pizza boxes.

The shuttle stopped and a lot of people got off. I sighed, set down my pizzas and started to fumble through my back pack like a crazy.

I was still laughing and muttering under my breath to my self. I finally relaxed and started to look around the bus...

There at the back, averting his eyes, ignoring (like I would have excepted) my existence, was Steve.

I smiled to myself.

OF COARSE he is on the shuttle where I look like a maniac. OF COARSE the only time I see him this semester is here, now, with me looking ridiculous and while I am carrying a bunch of paper work in my back pack, revealing my feelings about him.

IRONY

I get off at the same stop as him, and I plow ahead trying not to look back.

I was still laughing at how hilarious God is sometimes as I walked in to my final.

Social. As. I. Get.

     I Love days like today. It is sunny and I am wearing a short sleeved shirt... My spirits are high and nothing can seem to get me down. Spring break starts tomorrow and my biology class is canceled due to that. So I am in the library at UVU waiting for my "study buddy" to get here to finish our test.
     I took a career placement test today and I meet with someone next week to talk about the results. I am pleased with that. I need to figure out some type of road map for my life.
     There is a big hill on campus that is quite steep. My theatre friends and myself took to sliding down it today after class. The bottom is very close to the street and some cars would slow down or stop becuase they were afraid of running our free falling flailing bodies over.
It was awesome and when I upload the pictures, maybe I will post some on here.
     Even with all the stress that the end of the semester is closer than I realize, I am genuinely happy and have a smile on my face. I am ready for the winter to end. I am ready for a new chapter in my life and for some reason spring seems to represent a new chapter, a new life, a new beginning for me.
     I have come so far from last year at this time. I am so much more comfortable with myself and pleased with where I am and where I am going.