Six Hundred and My World Has Changed

Look how it all started.

I was so young, nieve, and I just wanted to be something more. Although I had absolutely no idea who I was. I was impressionable, lost and yearning. I wanted to change, so badly. But I was short sighted, even shorter tempered and couldnt possibly imagine the future that is my life now.

For awhile I used dinosaur facts to express myself, this was the beginning of that. I wanted to be different. I wanted to stand out. For someone to notice me and to see something because I couldnt see what I wanted to. I couldnt see that that someone was there all along.

I wanted love. More than anything. So I began trying to understand relationships. This was one of my better breakthroughs. Although Veronica Mars inspired the follow up post that also reminded me of what an idiot love makes me. But then there were the days when I longed for what I had before, even if it wasnt anything great, in those moments it seemed like the best thing so I often felt like JD in Scrubs.

And then I hated love. It felt tarnished and unlasting. It began something I didnt want to feel because I became another child of divorce, and I thought it was going to destroy my world.  And one day each year I let myself feel that pain and it is painful.I wondered if I would end up happy. If I would always just date the wrong people. And I pretended I didnt care that I was alone, but I was lying. And one night I realized I just hadnt found the right person at the right time. And then eventually I became less jaded.

Sometimes I was philosophical, I looked at reality and questioned it. And other days I knew that reality was a creation of both our past and our present with future minglings entwined. But most days were like this.

Amidst all of this I moved to Australia, and my house flooded. And eventually I left Australia and went home.

And now it is now. Everything has changed. This is my life. I have what I always wanted most. I have that love that I dreamed of and wrote of so often. I am still insecure and worry about my body image and feeling beautiful and about job security and if I am enough. I still stress and cry and feel pain. But I no longer feel it alone. I have someone that loves me entirely for me and because of that I think the next 600 will be full of a lot less jading and substantially less posts of ex drama.

Religion on a Monday?

I expect things to happen. I dont trust people because I know that people always leave. Only sometimes do they come back. I know that so much is out of my control. So my mind gets spinning and I forget about what I can control. I get so focused on obligations and waiting games that I just let myself get overwhelmed and I cease to function as me. I dont know how this starts. Or even when. My mind is perpetually going. I just get lost in it. My thoughts become me. And then nothing becomes useful or productive.

So I am trying to change. Like usual. As if I havent said that a million times. But maybe I just am always reminding myself to try harder. I just want to be better. To be someone that other people can look up. To make a difference. To love myself. So I am trying harder. And I think the biggest part of this for me is religion.

I know I dont often write about my beliefs and it isnt because its a big secret cult. I am not into white supremacy  It is just because its sacred. What I believe is everything to me. But because of that I should want to share it more. So it is probably just the usual fear sort of thing. No one likes sharing something special and having dodgeballs thrown at it. But I think today I feel brave.

I am getting ready to take a bigger step in my life. No, there is not a ring involved. I am getting ready to go through the temple and in my church thats a something you prepare for your whole life. We sing songs as children about someday going to the temple. And like other churches, the temple is a sacred place. So in my preparation I am trying to draw closer to the Lord. To trust him more and believe in a plan. To not let my faith falter so much as I struggle to learn from my trials. I am becoming better because I am coming closer to our Saviour. I am recognizing that there is so much more than me but to see that I have to be able to accept who I am and to want to become the best I can be.

So I have been listening and reading more from what we call General Conference, is this thing that happens twice a year where we get to hear from the Prophet and the Apostles, if you havent heard of it you should check it out. Its pretty cool. But mostly it is inspiring. It gives me strength. And reminds me that I am not alone.

I want to be someone that means something. I want to make a difference, and I think I am finally realizing that will happen by becoming more Christlike. By getting a bit further out of my head and becoming a little more aware and tolerant of everything else.

The Not Monumental Kind of Achievements

I am not getting married. Or having a baby. Or buying a dog. Or going somewhere crazy. I am just living. And sometimes I think I forget that is enough.

Lately the world around me seems so overwhelmed with life events. I look around and I see others lives changing in those large monumental ways. And I question so much. I wonder why things in my life arent being monumentous. But I think they are, just in the Lauren way.

Let me explain. For me making friends and new situations are a struggle. I am awkward and shy and reserved and I get self conscious far too easily. So after one attempt at being friendly at my workplace gym went awry I reminded myself that I didnt need friends there. And then the world reminded me I was wrong. It wasnt my doing at all. Maybe I smiled once or something but she introduced herself and a week later we have all of our workouts sorted into who plans them and what we are doing. It is amazing. Not just because she destroys me with her exercises but because I feel like I have branched out. And it isnt one of those things where we are hello friends. We are real friends. The kind that bring chocolates when the other has a breakup. The ones that talk about love and life and kids.

So maybe there isnt a ring on my finger. And maybe I am not having a baby. Or starting a new career. Or travelling. Or doing anything that seems huge. But I am super stoked about my little accomplishment of leaving my own space and letting someone in.  Gold star for me.

Fragility

You dont know what you have til its gone.

At least that is was people tell me. I am the kind of girl that wants what I cant have. All the time. If you tell me I cant have something and I think its stupid before that, I will then think it is awesome. I just get antsy. I cant handle things being the same. I like progression and change, as much as I hate change I like it more than stagnant waters.

Lately I have just realized how we dont have guarantees. People leave. People die. We change and our lives move on and we never know how long we have something or someone. And I just want to start being more aware of that. Being more grateful for what I have today because I never know when things might change again.

Its been twenty nine months since I was last in Utah, a place I called home for four long years. And I often wonder why I didnt treasure it more, why I didnt see everything and everyone when I could. So I am going back. I am going to try and see all of those people that shaped my life there. To sit in Juice n Java and remember what life was like there. To remember who I was. I just dont want to keep taking advantage of things, I want to appreciate them.

I suppose loss has triggered this. I look around and its so easy to see people hurting. To realize how quickly it all changes and to recognize that I have so much that I will miss if I lose it. I am a really lucky girl. I dont always see it, especially when it comes to the everyday struggles like finances and careers and coordinating my life, but I am. I cant imagine what I would do without my mother, and my grandma and my lover. There is so much I take for granted.

So I have been trying to appreciate these things, mostly the people I have. I dont want to wait til something is gone before I realize how much it means. I want to change, to be better than that.

Stagnant Waters

It feels like the whole world is changing around me and yet my world, the small realm of me, is staying so exactly the same. And it is so painfully frustrating. I constantly feel surrounded by complaints of the exact things I wish I had. Here I am living the life I lived when I was 17. I could walk these halls with my eyes shut. I can book clinics and answer the phone in my sleep. I could be dead and still be able to make charts. It is a suffocating feeling especially when I realize that this is my best option at the moment. There isnt anything else I can find that pays as well as this mediocre wage without my certification being approved. I just want my life back. I never realized how much I was sacrificing by coming home. If I knew I might not have been able to do it. It was hard enough as it was. I just miss it so much that it literally hurts. I miss my freedom. Reading on the train. And Southbank. I loved that place. And my friends. Skyping and texts just dont cut it. And I could be doing what I love if I had stayed, I could be a physio making a difference instead of making charts.  I had such a great life there. And I so badly want to say I dont mind having given it all up because I knew I wouldnt find real love there. But my insecurity is blinding. I cant help but wonder if you love me. And if things dont end up working out I know I will feel angry that I gave up so much to come back to a place that had so little. I just want to feel like my life is going somewhere beyond watching everyone else's lives progress.I just want a small glimmer of something to appear to remind me that this will be worth it. The murkiness of the stagnant waters I am in is only clouding everything more. I just want to get out to open waters full of ebbs and flows.

Ankylosaurus

Fact. The Ankylosaurus' were known as the armored tanks of the dinosaur world. They had clubbed tails formed by bony plates that were fused together, this was their most formidable weapon.

The Ankylosaurus is my favourite dinosaur, it exudes beauty and strength and is known for its protective nature of its young; hence I feel it is an appropriate beginning to this epic journey of my writing.

I am nearing one of those checkpoints in life. Close your eyes and remember playing like Super Mario Brothers and when you have to reach certain points or when you die you go back to the beginning, don't act like you dont know what I mean, because I know you do. I am at one of those points. With graduation fast approaching I am reaching a spot I wont be going back before. I wont be going back to undergraduate studies, and its highly unlikely I will even be at BYU taking classes again. Checkpoint.

In the observance of this checkpoint reality is definitely hitting. For once I have to find my own path. I wont just be going to school and working. I will be looking for a job I want to do long term, and waiting to hear back from graduate programs and medical schools. Its kinda a huge change. I have gotten so used to just being a student and working in the summers I actually cant even imagine what it will be like to be in a different place. I mean I can sit here and imagine Unicorns and dinosaurs and when I hear stories I can draw them out in my mind, but its like trying to imagine my wedding, I just draw a blank. I would be the worst fortune teller ever, I have little vision of the future. Although that makes it sound like I don't have a future. Its not like that, not at all. I just don't know where the future is taking me, thats all. Oh, and surprisingly, I am okay with it. Initially the unknowingness was killing me, but I decided to take it all in. This is going to be such an epic adventure as I figure out my real future.

However, in all of the changing and growing up I have found myself more I think. I have learned that the only way I can deal with stress is to think it out logically and then to meditate. I am pretty sure knowing this will save me at some point. Or like every other week when I have 700 thousand exams. Or like how I realized how happy coffee shops make me. There is something therapeutic about sitting in a coffee shop with someone. Although there is a major stipulation, it has to be with someone you can really just open up and talk to. I find coffee shops bring out the real me more than most locations, its like they lure me in and their quaint atmosphere just opens me up. Perhaps I should live in one. That would actually be amazing..

The reality of all of this incessant word vomit is me realizing my life is changing. And it's as if I should be growing up, and I am, but I have decided to not lose myself in growing up. I will still play pokemon on my gameboy between classes, I will still read about dinosaurs, and imagine unicorns being real. And as ridiculous as I am, well I am happy. So I will take my longboard, and my plaid shirts, and meditating and coffee shops anyday and everyday, over conforming. I am happy with who I am, and I am pretty sure thats what is most important right now. Hm. Epiphany. And this is why I blog. It brings out how I feel in ways that I dont realize, until I start writing it.

Moral. The moral of this novel of thoughts is that life is changing. I mean the ankylosaurus was such a powerful and majestic creature but change brought about its extinction. No matter how in control we think we are we really have no idea what is around that dark corner, or whats underneath the water below. So instead of stressing about the future and finding yourself walking about with nightmares about the future, its best to just find what you like and stick with it. I am not saying avoid change, infact, EMBRACE it. But while you are on a path towards change don't forget who you are and what makes you unique. All those quirky things I like is what shapes me. So I am going to look for a jump rope and perhaps swing in a park, because it will be fun.

Thanks Ankylosaurus for your beauty, perhaps one day I will leave a legacy to inspire like the way dinosaurs inspire me. Peace.