Asking For a Favor

Hello hello friends. I'm actually quite surprised at myself for posting again so soon, but I've been thinking a lot about this. And 1,000 apologies in advance, because it's going to be a long one.

And it's one of those posts. I'm just asking you to bear with me, because I'm going to be totally and completely, 100% honest. 

I don't always share these thoughts with people, because on the occasion that I do,  I am usually told "Don't worry, things will work out someday" or "You're so lucky to have all this time and money and no commitments" or (my personal favorite) "You're such a catch, I'm sure you'll find a guy."

Before I proceed with the rest of this post, I just want to give a disclaimer...in no way do I mean to offend anyone by my comments. That is not my intention at all. Because I know that these comments mentioned in the previous paragraph are given out of love, encouragement, and all well-meaning things.

BUT...I just feel like I need to share how I'm really feeling. And not because anyone needs to know, but for my own validation really.

This is not to say that words of encouragement and advice and well-wishes and hope are not appreciated. I am probably the last person on this earth who really has her act together. I am so grateful for - and often need - support and advice from friends and family who have a greater perspective than I do.

However. With that being said, please keep the following thoughts in mind. And like I said, in no way do I mean to offend or seem ungrateful. I'm just taking a stab at being vulnerable - because I'm not very good at it - and being brutally honest.

It all started with this song. Well, not the song itself, but William Fitzsimmons perfectly penned the story of my life...the words from someone who used to be a dear friend. Please listen to it before going on, just because it's beautiful. And short.

Coupled with this quote, we have the perfect background for my story.

No, this post is not about this past dear friend...there are plenty of other posts about that. We don't speak anymore, and I finally came to terms with the fact that it always meant more to me than it did to him (though I can't blame him for that, sometimes that's just the way it works).

It is, however, about how that relationship has affected so much (see this post).

Sometimes I can be really good at faking being hopeful and realizing there are better things ahead. But to be honest...those days are very far and few between.

Most days, I really don't see how it will work out. For those who have been blessed with wonderful relationships and marriages and children, it might be easy to promise that it will happen for me too.

But your experience has not been mine. There are so many uncertainties and doubts I face not only about myself, but also about my future because of what I experienced with this relationship.

I'm not asking for pity, because I've still had a lot of fun. I've had a lot of great social experiences and a lot of great guy friends that I've learned lots from. But I am saying that unless you're in that situation too...please don't judge me when I say I'm never going to get married, or encourage me otherwise, because honestly...I don't have the best track record. 

Having guys pretend like they cared when they really didn't hasn't exactly done much to boost my confidence that anybody really will care. The song I posted above pretty well covers my experience in that field.

Like I said, I'm not trying to complain. I'm trying to deal with it the best I can. 

To be honest, I'm not sure if I will ever find someone else who will also make me feel that deep fire again. I want to hope I will, but if I don't -- do I really want to settle for less when I know that it was possible for someone to make me feel that way? I know I've still got years ahead of me, but like I said...my history has not done much to build my hope.

That is why I am making plans for my life. I just started applying for nurse practitioner programs. I've jumped back and forth for a while about what to do with my career and with grad school, and I finally feel like this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm not a superstar nurse or a clinical encyclopedia, but I think I'm good at what I do and have been given special gifts to help my patients when they are feeling really vulnerable. I want to use these gifts to help people. 

And it would be nice sometimes to just get encouragement and support for taking that route without any mention of potential relationships or spouses or families. Believe me, I want all those things that you have too...I ache for it and I often feel guilty for pursuing my career because what if I'm missing out on those opportunities? Me pursuing my career has nothing to do with not wanting those things, but everything to do with still trying to bless the lives of other people if I don't get married and have children. 

I know that being a wife and mother is the ultimate calling and our crowning glory and "the best thing that's ever happened to me" according to all those Facebook moms on my newsfeed. And I think it's wonderful, and I am so happy for you. And I think you should share that happiness and joy with others. I am more than happy to hear it, honestly and truly. It makes my heart happy to see others so happy. 

I guess the bottom line of this post is...I am just asking for a little support of my decisions and my future without mention of dating or relationships or any of that, because even if I don't get to have "the ultimate calling" it would be nice to know that what I'm doing is good and supported just because it is a good thing to want to help people, and has nothing to do with me being single.  There is so much more to me than my relationship status and I don't feel like it defines any part of me. 

And if I make jokes about being a nun, just laugh with me and roll with it. 

Now that I've reached the end, 1,000 apologies again. I really, really don't mean to come across as complaining, ungrateful, attacking or any synonym of those things. I only needed to be honest about something that I am struggling with right now and thought it might be helpful for those closest to me to understand a little better what I'm going through. I'm not asking for pity or sympathy. I just need a little time to figure hope out for myself. I still have some baggage to work through from my past before I can feel confident enough to not feel terrified to even flirt with somebody. (But let's be real, I'm terrible at flirting anyway! haha). 

THANK YOU, thank you all for the amazing friends and family you have been throughout my life. I would definitely not have come this far without you, and all the best things in my life are because of you. I wouldn't trade you for the world. Like I mentioned earlier in the post, it's not that these words of encouragement and hope are not appreciated - it's just that at least right now, given my own situation, I don't see how hoping for those things will cause anything but disappointment. I'm sure that will change at some point in the future (hopefully the near future) but right now I just need time. 

Hopefully you'll come back to read again. I promise I'll have more uplifting content next time ;). Thanks for letting me vent. 

LOVE YOU ALL, do good things :). 

It's Time to Trust in the Lord

I have been struggling with this for a long time. Lots of pockets of empty holes and "what ifs" and "why nots" and many other challenges we all encounter in our lives. Lots of wondering why it still hurts so much after so much time.

My specific experience comes from heartbreak. Yours may be the same, or it may be something else: sickness, infertility, loneliness, lack of direction for your future, maybe even sorrow from transgression.

We're all on this road together, but our individual steps tread heavy and feel awfully alone.

We search for all sorts of therapies to numb the grief...shopping, music, movies, food, hobbies, travel,  maybe even work or time spent with friends and families. But for me those never fill the ache, they only postpone the inevitable.

This first deep, true love that I had...what an experience. What beauty and good there was, what a truly magical thing. But it was even more than that. I would not attempt to forget or erase it for the world, or try to sell it for less than it was because it really was everything deeply beautiful and good and sacred and passionate I could ever hope for. It awakened a "me" in myself that I never knew and opened up channels of desire to love and serve and bless that I didn't know existed in my poor little heart. It was sweet and tender and gentle and touched somewhere so deep inside that I know I will forever be changed. I also know that at least for me, not a single minute of it was wasted. I cherish those memories as mine and could never degrade them or be bitter about them.

But I have been bitter about why they had to stop. Bitter about why I seemed to have no control and that things changed without any real honest communication before it was already too late. Bitterness about unanswered questions.

But I have finally come to understand something. Just because there's a giant crater of hurt and pain does not mean that there is no hope. Having faith and hope does not automatically negate that hurt and pain, and that's okay. We have hope through the pain, not instead of it. What is it that we are taught to have hope for?

"Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ" (Moroni 7:41)

I have found that the biggest blessing in my trial has been to choose peace over understanding. Peace that is promised by God in so many different places, peace that is borne of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and everything that that entails. 

"The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and your minds" (Philippians 4:7)

There are so many things that I don't understand and many unanswered questions, but I have come to learn that peace can still be had in the midst of confusion and hurt. Letting go of my preconceptions of what I have planned for my life and accepting the path God leads me in will put me in the right place at the right time, even if it's not what I want. And if I allow it, I believe that the Spirit can guide my desires and my heart to the things that God has planned for me.

The question has been though, will I allow it? Am I ready to really let go once and for all?

I like to think I am, but it's hard because the sorrow is familiar and comfortable. After over a year, I am coming to know it is time to trust in the Lord.

Will I still have worries and pain? You bet. But at some point it doesn't have to be debilitating anymore. The beauty of the atonement of Jesus Christ is that it is an enabling power, allowing me to grow and become better. It doesn't cheat me of the mortal experience, but rather enriches it. And what a beautiful moment when understanding of the Savior's enabling power finally comes to fruition.

Things don't always work out, and that's so hard. But I have to remember... "in the gift of his Son hath God prepared a more excellent way; and it is by faith that it hath been fulfilled" (Ether 12:11).

Elder Scott speaks on this more eloquently than I ever could. Take a listen, and I challenge you to share his words of counsel with any who may need them at this time.



Love to you all.

Confession Time

Friends, it’s time for a confession. Only a few of you will know what I’m referring to in this post so I guess this is really for you, and I hope I don't come across as attacking or ungrateful for your attempts to try and help me. I’m hoping that writing it will somehow be therapeutic or cathartic for me and help me piece things together. Apologies in advance for my jumbled and repetitive thoughts.

I try to avoid this song like the plague, but tonight I caved in for just a little bit. Please take a listen, it's beautiful!

It’s been a hard week. Work was long and stressful and more than ever before I just feel like a really inadequate nurse.

More than that I have some emotional wounds that still somehow cannot manage to produce scar tissue even after a year of time. Most times I can't believe it's been a year, last October doesn't seem like it's 12 months into my past. 

I cried and cried tonight. I don’t know why I can still burst into tears over my poor heart. It’s probably because I made the mistake of watching part of “P.S. I Love You” tonight…the theme song (posted above) has been my “song” for a special time in my life that I know I need to lock in the cupboard and never bring back out.

But for some reason I can’t let go. I have tried and tried. Some tell me to just get over it and I’m trying, but it’s not so easy. Perhaps if I didn’t talk about it or think about it so much it would happen, but that’s just it. I can’t get it out of my head. It’s everywhere. In my friends, my favorite star constellations, reading my books, enjoying a day at the park, my piano music, my favorite cookie recipe, every road trip with scenic and historical byways, every documentary, my scriptures, my wool socks, even my detested Metformin…every piece of me. No part of me or my life is untouched. It doesn’t matter what job I have or what I’m doing or who my friends are. I can’t escape. I could drive for five hours somewhere to get away from my memories, then step outside and see Polaris in the sky and be stuck all over again in a brand new place.

But hurting reminds me what it feels like to be alive. And perhaps that’s some cynical masochist behavior coming out in me, but I crave the memory that taught me what it feels like to really be alive on this Earth. And as much as I try and explain that to my closest friends I don’t know if they will be able to really comprehend and appreciate the magnitude of my experience, even if they do try.

Because something like that is something that you don’t just “move on” from. You can’t. I used to believe I could, but the more I try the more I have failed.

I have been encouraged to continue to just try and let it go, move on, try new things and places in my life. And I have been trying new things. I was promised that it would be hard, but that it’s the right decision and I would feel better. I’m still waiting to feel better, because trying to forget the beauty that was brought into my life and introduced a new way of living is perhaps one of the most miserable things I have felt in my entire life…ten months and counting. Because there is still beauty in that pain, more beauty and appreciation than there is without it.

And perhaps that is one of the reasons I can’t let it go.

To that, some might advise me that it’s time to find beauty in new things. And that might be true.  But I would also suggest that they don’t really understand.

It’s not the things I enjoy or find beauty in that conjures painful memories. It’s the beauty itself, regardless of the medium. And I refuse to strip my life of that.

I will be okay, and I know that. I am okay, even though I’m going through an extraordinary tough patch right now.

And perhaps someday I will be able to appreciate the beauty and no longer feel pain from those memories. I believe that someday that will happen.

I am also saying that I refuse to be in a situation like that ever again because I want this memory untarnished in its full beauty. And if that means that I choose to never fall in love again, so be it. Old love never can or will be revisited by me, but new love is not something I am interested in.

Maybe I seem a little dramatic. But I just want you to know that I am so grateful for my experiences. Please don’t ask me to move past them or abandon them. And thank you for being there for me when I have needed it the most.

Second Chances

Well friends, I'm pretty sure I share some gem of a song in every blog post, but it's just because I love music so much. Here's the listen this time.



I love that. It is a song for quiet days.

But anyway… this week has been an interesting one. I wasn't expecting it to turn out how it did, and the week isn't even over yet. This thought is what I have been wrestling with the last 24 hours:

I have been trying to figure out how to make things end up right. Not necessarily the way I initially imagined things would end up, but right. With better understanding, more clarity, not as much hurt. With better timing and more time. With more honest forgiveness and acceptance for things the way they are, without expectations of something that can't be given. I want it to end right. 

I wasn't sure that this opportunity to "end things right" was ever going to come, but at least for me it seems it is. And for that I am extremely grateful. Heavenly Father is good to me. Resolution is hard for me to come by these days. 

This all probably seems rather cryptic, and for that I apologize. But for now, the important thing is what I have learned about forgiveness and trust in the Lord. 

President Hinckley taught this, and I believe it with all my heart.

"Somehow forgiveness, with love and tolerance, accomplishes miracles that can happen in no other way."

I believe that. I know that. Maybe not the miracles we were expecting. But learning to wait on the Lord enlarges our capacity to receive. And I can't help but believe that we are meant for greater things than where we are at right now.

One of the greatest blessings that I have in my life is my job as a nurse. It might also be one of the biggest drains in my life at the moment, but it only takes one or two special experiences to make it worth it. The other night I was rocking one of the babies because they were having a problem with excess secretions and I didn't want them to choke while sleeping in their bassinet. What a miracle that I held in my hands. What a perfectly formed human being that was breathing and moving with a heart that I could feel beating when I put my hand on its chest. A little human being that was in its mother's tummy not even five hours earlier, and was now exposed to a completely different world where it would have to breathe and express its needs for itself. It is totally helpless and dependent. And yet that baby is enough. More than enough. And if that baby had problems or special needs, it would still be more than enough. That heart I could feel beating, the lungs I watched rise and fall…that taught me about purpose.

We all have purpose, including those in our lives that we need to really forgive and just let things go. We are all children of God and we should treat each other as such. Sometimes that requires courage and bravery. Sometimes it takes time and lots of prayers and humility. But blessings and sweetness will flow into your life that you wouldn't otherwise have if you held on to those grudges and justification of your own pride. God will give you the strength to do the things that He has asked you to do, and He will always provide the way. I believe that the greater strength is in being able to forgive and not in maintaining the pride of our offenses. It is much easier to be prideful than to forgive. And you will reap the efforts of what you sow.

So when second chances come, I hope you too will use it as an opportunity to forgive, trust in the Savior, and make things right. You'll get your happy ending whether it's now or later. But build and lift while you can. Focus on what God wants for you and not what you want for yourself. True happiness is found in His way.

The Answer is More Love

Well. So the New Year begins.

Not quite how I was expecting it to, but who expects a broken heart with the new year?

Even in this short week that it has been since I moved back into my apartment, I have learned some things about myself and about my life and where I want it to go. When I was listening to my iPod while at the gym the other day, one of the songs had a line that really caught my attention. In all honesty, if the song didn't have a good beat for running I would die at the sappiness of it. But this line stood out to me…"All you need is love."

I hear that a lot in songs, in the media, in literature…all we need is love and then life will be great. I used to hate that. What about those who don't find their true love? What about those who have their hearts shattered? What about those who are broken by those who should have built them up? Perhaps these people of all should receive the most love, yet in the secret holes of their heart they struggle to make it through every day because of the pain. According to this song, all they need is to find someone to love them. But we all know it's not as easy as that.

As I listened, I thought of something that I had never really thought of before. I did need love, and I do need love. I think that is part of our nature, and I think it was meant for us to be loved - both by friends and family. But I realized also that I have that love. I do not have to be loved by others to be filled with love, even when others hurt me. I decide how much love is in my heart, and whether or not I will share that love with those around me. No matter what, independent of any other person, I can always have love in my life. Because I choose to love others.

I realize that this is sensitive for some and there may be exceptions for those who have been abused or in other harmful relationships with friends and family, but that is not really the issue I wish to address.

I have been listening to the soundtrack from the movie "Little Women" and it's been healing for me. I have always thought that that music was the soundtrack of my life - it captures the stories of family dynamics, love, learning from mistakes, trying to find the balance between adventure and decorum, the pain from growing up, shattered dreams, and loss of loved ones, and really just learning to love yourself. What a beautiful story it is. I see so much of myself in each of the March sisters. Take a listen at the genius of Thomas Newman's creation :).



I am starting to understand that I will be okay and life will be okay. As I grow older I become more and more confident in who I am, and though I may be rejected at times I know it will be okay because in my heart I still have the capacity to serve and love others, and that can fill the holes. Ultimately, the peace and love in my life comes from my Savior Jesus Christ. He will supply all my need if I allow Him to. I have had times in my life both when I have allowed it and when I have not, and I am telling you there is a difference. He will be there and lift you and teach you if you will allow Him to. That doesn't always mean that everything will be okay right now, and I can't promise you it will be. But I can promise you that God loves you and He knows you and that His plan is perfect, and in the end everything will be okay. Sometimes that requires faith, but that's what faith is for. Faith replaces our fear.

My faith in the Savior and God's plan for me has allowed me to choose to be happy and love others despite pain. It's not easy, and I'm not saying that it should be easy for others to do the same. It is an extremely personal process. What I am saying is what President Eyring taught; "No one is destined to fail." And we do not fail because we are rejected by others. We are not failures because we make mistakes now and then. The answer is in the love that God has for each of His children, the love that He has asked each of us to share with each other. His love is light, and it can heal our souls. Trust that, believe that, have hope in that.

"And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the Atonement of Christ and the power of His resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise."  (Moroni 7:41)

I feel like this song really kind of describes how I have been feeling lately. My trials don't define me, and I am not defined by how others treat me. My joy and ability to love despite pain comes from the Savior. The answer for my healing has been more love. God is love. And I want you to know that.