Home Sweet

I am home. Finally.

After an emotionally draining 2 weeks, 6 finals, 3 boxes of tissues, 20 hours in the car, and 5 loads of laundry later... I am in Flower Mound, Texas.

Finally.

It's been hard. No lies... I love being home, but there's so much empty time for my mind to wander into things that I shouldn't waste my time wondering about. Why? What did I do wrong? How do I get over this? What's next? I hate uncertainty, and I hate change. And these are the two things that I am weathering currently. It's storming now, we just heard the tornado sirens go off, so naturally I went outside. Somehow, it seemed like the safest place for me to go. Strange enough, the uncertainty in the air outside was calming to my own uncertain soul. Go figure. Whatever helps I guess, haha.

On my last day of my Family Finance class, my professor gave an outstanding... I don't know what you call it... presentation? talk? It was his final "words of wisdom" for us as we go off into the world to... budget! A story that he told us struck me as one of those "meant for me" stories. It was a story about this man whose wife had died, and he was miserable and depressed. He went to Dr. Frankl, a holocaust-survivor, now psychiatrist, and told him all the miserable things he was feeling. Dr. Frankl paused, then said, "How do you think this situation would be, if you had died before your wife?" The man stopped and just stared blankly for a few minutes, before saying, "I'm sure she would have felt just as sad, and depressed as I am." "Ahh," said Dr. Frankl, "Then you are sparing her from the misery that you are feeling, yes?" And the man walked away a new person. The quote is: “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” It makes me wonder about the meaning of this suffering. I know all trials are given to us for specific reasons, and to help us learn and to grow. Knowing that this suffering is for the purpose of shaping me into the person I need to be makes it easier. Sacrificing momentary happiness for eternal happiness, even. That's what I'm going for.

Anyway, I had forgotten some of the reasons why I love Texas so much, and I thought I'd reflect on a few of those reasons.

1. The air. The air is thick. Most people wouldn't like that, and sometimes I really don't... but it reminds me of my childhood. I drove down wichita trail yesterday, past the tree that is shaped like a dog and just let my arm hang out the window.
2. The thunderstorms. Like I said, some of the safest feeling times are the ones where I am out in a thunderstorm. I count to however many mississippi's to see how far away it is, like I was in elementary school or somethin. It's like watchin fireworks. And the rain is warm.
3. The fried chicken smell. On the intersection of long prarie & flower mound road is chick-fil-a! And I can smell the fried chicken as I drive past. Next to chick-fil-a is culver's, and their "butter burgers"- burgers that are sure to make you feel like you've just ingested a quart of grease, and it is now lining your stomach. but they're sooo good.
4. The trees. You'd think that there wouldn't be any trees, its texas right? nothing but flat, dry, grassy plains. Trees are everywhere. Big oak trees. We've got a couple in our backyard, but my favorite climbing tree is Isaac's tree in the front of the episcopalian church on wichita trail.
5. The people. Didya know texas is the friendship state? of course you did...
6. Time. Time moves slower here. I feel like I've sat on the back porch for hours just sitting and thinking, and still have time to spare.
7. The mexican radio stations. Yep. I even missed those, haha.
8. The warmth, oh the warmth! After 4 months of frigid provo, I am warm! The air doesn't go cold after dark, its always warm.
9. my family. Nothing could be better, happier, more healing. home sweet.


only one thing... i miss krista roy :(

Plans

Dear Readers,

For most of you, this is my first post you've read. In the future, I will be talking about what goes on in my life, but today I want to break from my usual format and talk to you about the subject of plans. Not so much my plan for this blog, but life plans, and how we all make them. And how we hope that we will make good, smart, safe plans on our own. But if we're really honest with ourselves, our plans usually don't work out as we had hoped. So instead of asking others "What are you plans? What do you plan to do with your life?" maybe we should tell them this: Plan to be surprised.