Finding Hope: My Story

Many of you have heard that I started a new job on Monday.  However, many of you don't know why I felt I needed to find a new job. I spent this summer working at a wonderful residential treatment center with the most fantastic girls.  I was able to see a lot of growth in those girls and in myself.  It was so great to see the power of positivity in a person's life. Plus I the girls I had the blessing to be able to help were fantastic.  I have many different descriptions of these girls...they are like toasted marshmallows or tootsie pops or warm cookies...they are a little crusty and hard on the outside but their insides are gooey and wonderful. However, recently this job has been really hard for me.  I am still not sure if it is because I was going through something personally or what changed.  But I had been thinking more and more that it was time for a change in my life.  It was time to see what direction I was supposed to head next. And so, I...

Today made me realize just how much time I spend counting other people's blessings instead of my own.  How often do I sit and think "wow, i wish i was married" or "i wish i had a baby" or even "i wish i had a date". Why am I letting my life be consumed by wishes?  I finally have a job, one I think I could be really good at if I try hard enough.  I have so much good, and yet all I can see is what I think my life is lacking. No, I'm not married.  No, I'm not a mom.  No I don't have a boyfriend and no, I don't get asked out on dates.  And yet I have some amazing friends.  I have great opportunities, and I have the opportunity to enjoy my life. Have you ever seen White Christmas?  If not, it is time for you to crawl out from the rock you are living under and actually experience some culture.  Anyway, there is a song in White Christmas that talks about counting your blessings.  Just because I do not HAVE a blessing yet in my life, does...

Well congratulations to me, I graduated from college.  Now here I am, with a bachelor's degree I have no idea what to do with.  I have so many regrets now that I am graduated from college.  I regret not graduating with something that had a defined job path.  Instead, I majored in something that I loved studying but that I am sad to say I have no idea what I am going to do with.  I never had a college counselor meet with me and help me figure out what to do with my life.  I had some amazing professors and great opportunities to volunteer.  I just wish I knew what to do with myself now. So here I am, in the Awkward Inbetween, striking out into post-college adulthood and wishing I was 15 again, home with my parents and worried about friends and school.  Let's just all hope that one day soon I find a way into the Confident Future.

Do you ever have those days?  You know the ones that I am talking about, the days where you KNOW you should be doing something productive.  I SHOULD be catching up on my homework.  I SHOULD be looking for jobs for after graduation. And yet I can't.  I can only sit on this couch in this apartment where so much of my college life has happened.  This is the apartment I always ran to when I was having a hard time with my roommates.  This is the apartment where I lived with my dearest Lynette.  This is the apartment I came back to after my mission.  This is the apartment where I cried over boys, over my body, over my health, and over so many things.  This is the apartment where my college life happened.  Whenever I had to move out of this apartment, I always wanted to be back because it is the one place that truly felt like home during college. I have been so richly blessed.  I am so lucky to have had a place like this to feel the mo...

Do you ever have those days that just, for lack of a better word, suck? I have bronchitis this week.  Which will probably mean a month of bronchitis but you live and you learn, right? Anyway, this has been a stressful week in so many ways.  And then yesterday I was blessed with two amazing day changers. Day changer the first:  I was sitting in the HBLL just reading some book or other passing the time between classes.  I knew that I should be studying, or catching up in the classes i am oh so behind in, but i just couldn't.  It felt like such a feat to even be going to classes. Then a boy walked past me.  I am not sure if this blessed, choice Son of our Father in Heaven was dealing with some kind of autism, or just having a panic attack, but he was clearly and visibly troubled.  There was a part of me that thought "I should try to help him."  And then I got scared.  Why would this boy who didn't know me want my help.  And so I sa...

Today I am grateful for people who listen to inspiration.  There are so many people who have contacted me out of the blue.  They don't know how stressed I am today, or how little I think of myself in this moment.  And yet they reach out as a friend because they listen. So thank you, friends, for taking the time to listen to inspiration and let me know you are there and that you care.  I needed that today more than you will ever know. I always want to be that friend.  I want to be the one who listens to a prompting and helps someone else out.  But often I ignore it.  I thinki that someone else can help them and that I am probably not the person they need anyway.  It all stems from my horridly low self-esteem.  And I KNOW that.  But it doesn't make it any easier to overcome. I am grateful for people who accept me as I am.  I am grateful for those who aren't trying to fix me.  Trust me, I am doing enough of that for everyone...

I am sure you all have picked up on this, but lately I have felt like my life was going nowhere.  I have been in college for EVER and yet don't date, don't really do anything other than school and Divine Comedy. Well, my New Years Resolution is to "do what works for me".  I am going to take time every day to find the little things that make me happy.  I am going to have more gratitude for my small successes.  and I am going to celebrate the big ones. I don't know how much you know of my life story, but suffice it to say that since fall of 2010, my health has not been great.  It is really hard to feel good about life when you don't feel good about your body.  It is even worse when the things you are doing to "make things better" just end up making you feel worse about yourself. Well, I am done.  I stopped taking medicine to help my stomach function back before Thanksgiving.  I don't know what the next chapter of my health saga will hold, but...