I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out something cool and clever to do for February. I absolutely love Valentine’s Day, and all the heart decorations and the gushy mushy stuff. I have blogger friends who do guest posts all month which is so wonderful, I have blogger friends who tell their story during this month, I have blogger friends who do series about the history of love or the types of love, I’ve done different things I love in the past, just none of them stuck or jumped out at me this year.

Until last night, when in a moment of sadness and vulnerability, I learned an important lesson about love. I’ll be sharing more of that latter, but this year I want to do at least 14 days, if not a month, about all the lessons love has taught me, or people I love. It should be fantastic and I’m so excited.

I won’t officially start now, I’ll just say that some of the most valuable lessons about love that I’ve learned have come from my darling husband. He is everything.

Stay tuned for Lessons On Love!

We got a piano! Pictures to come soon but I had a BLAST on Friday rearranging some things, Randy is in heaven playing constantly, it’s a good thing. HUGE thanks to Caleb and Nannette for selling it to us for a steal!

Randy and I spent the weekend having a blast. Friday we went to dinner with our cute next-door neighbor before she moved away, then had a very chill night of talking and listening to music.

Saturday we woke up early and went up to Kaysville where we spent time with both of our families, did some photos and video for one of my clients which is always so fun, and saw my sister in the Davis High One Act Play Festival. Let me tell you, that girl can ACT. I am consistently blown away by her performances! That night we stopped by our friend’s house in SLC on the way home and played games and jammed, which is always a blast.

Sunday we taught Sunday School and had an extremely relaxed, but productive, afternoon. We then had Caleb and Nannette over for curry night, and watched a movie.

I have been bad at updating, so here we go!

Things Randy and I have done so far in 2017:

Lots of laundry
Visiting family and friends
A heart-breaking Jazz game with my family (we lost by ONE at the buzzer)
Cooked lots of yummy food
Gone to dinners and baked cookies and had birthday parties with friends
Tried The Baked Bear (delicious!)
Worked and worked and worked
Cleaned and cleaned and cleaned
Randy started at the U and LOVES IT (he is still a die-hard BYU fan though, don’t worry!)
Taught Sunday School
Randy has gone to lots of Presidency meetings
Done photo shoots and freelance work
Cozied up in our apartment during snowstorms

And more.

Basically January has been good to us so far, can’t wait to see what the rest of 2017 will bring!

I know many of you. You’re my good friends who I love to pieces. You’re my co-worker, my high school pal, my college classmate.

Some of you are doing everything you possibly can. And it’s painful and it’s so hard. And my heart feels so much for you. It’s not an easy road for anyone.

But others are in a limbo, stuck. Their hearts are stuck.

You’re the ones who are acting like you don’t care. Dating the wrong girl or the wrong guy. Looking for love and belonging and safety anywhere you can find it.

You can’t figure out why you can’t find the right person.

You want to be cool, recognized, independent, not tied down. But at the same moment you want the comfort and consistency of something else. Something deeper. But the deeper you go, the scarier it is.

You are always wondering if there’s someone better; better looking, better acting, better for you, better for your image.

You’re not willing to let go of the past sometimes. And sometimes you’re not willing to let go of a future “what if.”

You’re dating that guy or that girl, and they don’t treat you right. And you know it. But being needed and having someone is better than being alone. You wonder if anyone else would even want you anyway.

You’re in limbo. You’re waiting. But you’re not sure what’s worth the wait, or what you’re even waiting for.

Let me tell you what’s worth waiting for.

It’s worth waiting for someone who will not just be by your side, but will carry you when you stumble. Someone who sees the best in you, and who makes you want to live up to that every single day. Someone who loves the ugly parts of you. Someone who pushes you to improve, but accepts you for who you are at the exact same time.

There’s a moment, a feeling. It comes when you’re laying in bed, watching their outline in the moonlight. They’re playing guitar and singing softly and you can’t help but feel like you could burst. Because everything is beyond perfect.

It comes when you are driving and you look over and see them, and they’re just talking, and your heart smiles. Because this is what heaven looks like.

It comes when you watch them love your family, chat with your siblings and laugh with your parents, chase your nieces and nephews and cousins around. And your mom tears up when she tells you that they’re such a good person.

It comes as you hear them pray for you so sincerely and earnestly.

It comes when you realize that they will be an amazing mom or dad. And that you want to watch them be that.

It comes after a bad day of school or work when they support and help you and don’t let you give up when you want to.

It comes as you are so completely totally yourself, that you realize you truly weren’t yourself ever before. They make you, you.

It comes when your favorite thing about them isn’t their looks or their talents, but their goodness, and they way they make you feel.

It comes in notes and texts and phone calls filled with encouragement and strength.

The moments like these make every single second you spent without them bearable.

I wish someone had told me these things when I my heart was stuck. I wish someone had told me to stop it. Stop wasting time and energy on someone you know doesn’t treat you right. Stop being the person who is too shallow or impatient or caught up in being popular or cool. Stop selling yourself short. Stop thinking that you don’t need to look for the right person, stop thinking that all these things aren’t factors because you just want to have a good time.

This is for real now. This is for keeps. And every single person you be with may not be the right person, but they can make you better and stronger. And they are all leading up to the big finish.

I wish that I could explain to you how worth it it is. It’s worth it to give up some things. It’s worth it to be the “old married couple.” It’s worth it to not have “fun” by the standards of others. Because you have something that is personally perfect. It’s everything.

It’s worth it to choose right now that you are going to find them. And once you find them, it’s worth it to choose them every single solitary day.

Being in a serious relationship or being married isn’t always easy. And people make mistakes, no relationship is flawless.

My relationship now isn’t flawless. It never will be.

But it is beyond my wildest dreams.

Your heart doesn’t have to be stuck. It can be open to anyone regardless of what your first impression of them is. It can be open to someone you wouldn’t normally consider. It can be ready and waiting and loving and kind. It can look beyond the exterior. It can lead you in the right direction even if it means being hurt. It can help you get into good, healthy relationships.

And eventually the one, right, flawed but oh, so perfect relationship.

I feel inadequate to write today, because I don’t really know if I have anything to say. Normally I would write a piece of advice or a list of helpful topics, but I don’t think I’m qualified to do that right now. I feel like a whiner which I don’t want to be, but I need to let the thoughts of my head out. Oh if only that all made sense! Sometimes things just aren’t what you wanted or thought and you have to figure out how to be OK with that anyway. Sometimes you want to help and lift but you have to figure out how to get yourself off the ground too. And sometimes you want to be a better person but you can’t figure out how to even be a regular person, let alone a better one.

And sometimes words come pouring out of your fingertips that you didn’t expect, and you realize all over again the therapy that is writing.

The sound of the keyboard can be so soothing.

Lately life has thrown me all the curve balls.

I keep telling myself I’m getting an opportunity to be stronger, more sympathetic and empathetic, learning how to be vulnerable.

But I only believe that 44% of the time.

The rest of the time I can’t figure out why everything is throwing me for a loop, why things that a year ago would have been “whatever” are now large hurdles for me.

It’s not an easy thing to explain to myself, let alone to other people. It’s not even an easy thing for me to comprehend really.

So this is all that I know.

My heart couldn’t hold these words anymore so here they are spilling incoherently onto the keyboard. It’s helpful to feel it pouring out, but at the same time I know it doesn’t solve everything, or even anything.

But maybe things don’t need to be solved. Sometimes things are just things and life is just life and you wake up tomorrow and hope it’s a good day. And then you do it all over again.

If you’ve managed to stumble through this post, thank you. If you haven’t, that’s ok too. I don’t even know if it was meant for people to read since it’s a jumbled up mess, but hopefully I’ve emptied the load in my fingers and in my heart and something more sensible can take the space.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/molly-sprayregen/the-brain-on-23_b_6046888.html  

^That article is fantastic. Though I don’t relate to it on many levels, it gave me all the feels. I was just able to read it for the first time without sobbing, there’s a thing.

So maybe everything is getting better.

sigh of relief

During our whole time dating, Randy and I would play a game. We would say “Ok, four years from now, what does our life look like?” We picked 4 years randomly, but it also had something to do with the fact that Randy would probably be home from a mission by then. We talked about what our lives would maybe look like if things went according to plan.

We talked about if we would live in Provo or Salt Lake or Logan or somewhere else entirely, what would we be doing in school, where we would go for dinner, who we would hang out with on the weekends, things like that. It always involved us being together, and dreaming what else life would have in store for us.

This game holds some of my favorite memories from our entire time dating.

4 years ago today, I didn’t want to play the game. I didn’t know what was ahead, and it was so scary because for the first time I was playing by myself, and the 4 years seemed further away than ever.

I wish I could have caught a glimpse of what 4 years down the road was. It was me married to the love of my life, living in a cozy apartment, so happy to be together and in love. It’s turned out to be what I always dreamed and hoped, and so much more.

I’m so grateful that 4 years ago Randy and I said goodbye, so grateful that he spent an amazing 2 years serving in Japan, and so grateful for every single piece of our story.

New Year’s Eve was very relaxed and fun, Randy and I spent a lot of the break feeling sick, so it was awesome to spend the night eating delicious food, playing games and watching movies.

I’ve spent the last couple days thinking about what this new year means for me and for our family. I’ve thought about the past year, the person I was, and the person I want to be.

So I made a list of resolutions like I do most years, but this year I wanted there to be almost a theme to overlook who I want to be and how I want to live in 2017. It was as I was teaching Sunday School that it came to me: Don’t Be Adequate, Be Extraordinary.

I want to spend this year being kinder, attending the temple regularly, reading more books, and being happier. I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about how I’m adequate at a lot of things, and it’s time to be extraordinary. I want to be an extraordinary friend, an extraordinary wife, employee, coworker, teacher, daughter, sister, and more. It’s so easy to slip into adequacy. And from there it’s easy to slip into nothingness.

So for me this year, it’s about pushing past doing so-so, being OK, being content. I want to push myself to be the best I can possibly be.

Happy 2017 to you all, it’s going to be a great year!