To you, with love.

A letter

Dear…

I’m back! Did ya miss me!

I know I know it’s been forever. I apologize. I’ve avoided looking at this blog because I realized I had so much to say and didn’t know how I was going to say it.

I think I was afraid to put anything on here for fear of jinxing my life, and then I was too scared to write anything because I didn’t ever want to sound like a sad mess.

So now that I’ve hit a point of feeling almost back to my old, sassy, independent self it’s time to come back.

I’m also feeling very honest.

Cliff notes version?

I fell in love, for the first time, hard.

It was amazing, wonderful, everything it’s supposed to be.
Until it wasn’t anymore.

Until it ended.

Suddenly and without warning.

After a week of ugly crying I spent most of spring throwing myself into my job so I wouldn’t think about how unhappy I was, and then the school year ended.

I was smacked in the face with all this time and all my emotions.

I didn’t know how to deal with everything I was feeling, missing and regretting. So I did what any normal human would do I started making EVERYTHING (wait….is that not normal?). You name a craft or something on Pinterest and I probably made it. Quilts, skirts, paintings, crocheted blankets, doodles etc. I also went on a few too many shopping trips. I realized I was trying to soothe my soul with pretty things and keep my mind occupied.

Honestly, I don’t think any of these things are bad things. I think it’s just what I needed to do. I needed all of that stuff to keep me going.

I

 also spent a lot of time going to the temple.

One day I realized something that altered this spiral I was on.

“You can only control you. You can’t make him come back, you can’t make him say sorry, you can’t make someone new show up at your door.”

If you know me at all you know I am a control freak. I love to be in control of everything. I think it’s part of the reason I succeed at my job, but it’s also my biggest downfall. My need to control situations leads me to feeling so out of whack when things get turned up-si-down.

This was the point that I decided to make a list of everything in my life I could control, it looked something like this…

1.    My spiritual self. Am I reading the scriptures every day? Am I saying my morning and evening prayers? Am I becoming the person I want to be when I get married?

2.    My body. Am I working out every day? Do I look the way I want to look? Do I really need to eat that, does it make me feel any better? (Thank goodness for a fantastic personal trainer who is seriously changing my life)

3.    The efforts I put into my relationships with the people who love me and are always supporting my (even when I’m a hot mess, seriously though that’s when the true friends come out)

4.    My job. Will I give these new students 100% of me? My love, my time, my concern, my abilities, everything.

With this new outlook I looked forward to the new school year and what it could bring.

Now, don’t get me wrong, anyone who has loved and lost knows that there are always bad days, but it’s when the good days start to really outweigh the bad that you realize that life is finally moving forward.

Now you know, when you’re finally feeling kind of back on your feet, Heavenly Father decides it’s time for another curveball. Or three.

Seriously though, this summer has been my education in the Lord’s timing.

Cue August.

Almost had to switch grade levels right before school started, more than once.

Issues of the heart come back and smack me, again.

Unwelcome surprises with my family.

Stress of the new school year.

I literally would just pray at night to help me make it though another day because I sometimes didn’t know if my little body and mind could handle all of the things that were coming.

This was the point that I asked myself why in the world I had stayed in Utah this summer. When I started dating the boy and thinking he was my future I thought maybe it was because of him, it all made perfect sense. Then things ended, and I still felt I should stay, but why?

Why stay here and be alone when I could run home and hide from the world.

Why?

Because it’s running away from my life, and I’m too dang old to do that. I’m a grown woman (most days) I have a job, a career and a life here, I needed to stay.

But more importantly I needed to stay because  I needed to have one of the defining spiritual summers of my life. I needed to learn how to rely on spiritual strength and love to get me through and not the physical support of earthly family and friends. Basically, I needed to learn to put all my trust in the Lord and KNOW that he will provide for me, instead of putting all my trust and faith in myself and my mother and ignoring him.

“Faith in the Lord includes Faith in His timing”

That has been my motto this summer.

Every spiritual experience I’ve had in my life has always been “in the moment” come, made a huge impact, and then gone. This summer was definitely one of the refining fires of my life and I hope I’ve come out of it a little bit shinier.

This is something I’m still working on daily. I struggle and succeed, but my personal relationship with my Savior is something I would never trade, even though I had to wage through a lot of tears to get there.

This new school year has been interesting.
I have a class of 5 girls and15 boys who are a little immature and literally drain the life out of me everyday.

BUT they are, of course, the cutest. They make me laugh so hard while simultaneously stressing me out. It’s insanity. I’ve always said I just wanted girls, or at least a girl first, but maybe Heavenly Father is prepping me for life with a bunch of boys.  

They are a hoot. I’m sure my year will continue to be filled with great stories, come ask me if you want to hear about some of them.

Oh life.

Are there things I wish I could change, yes.

Are there things I wish were different, of course.

Do I still hope for the future, always.

Love,

j