Simply Real

This post inspired me today, and it makes me want to be simply real.

Like Bob, I want to battle the perfection disease, too. So here are six of my real & raw statements (well, this is about as real and raw as I'm able to be today):

1. I think I am incapable of committing when it comes to dating. I always choose to walk away from a potential relationship rather than giving myself or another person a chance. Mostly it's because I'm just not ready, even though I really wish I were.

2. I really like to help others feel happy, but this desire is often twisted into a people pleasing type of behavior. So often, I choose to live other people's dreams rather than my own in hopes of their acceptance.

3. I don't like to be called out on the little things. Mostly because I'm already acutely aware of my mistakes and blunders. However, I try really hard to recognize the importance of being able to laugh at my bloopers.

4. I overanalyze a lot, and my thought process throughout the day is all over the place! I have a lot on my mind and most of the time I just want to express it. I get frustrated when I can't articulate my thoughts, or when people don't understand what I'm thinking/feeling. Sometimes I wonder if people find me overly-intense or strange because of it.

5. I am easily stressed when the decisions I have to make involve the lives of other people (back to dating). In a lot of ways, it paralyzes me. I'm not very good at just going with the flow and letting things work themselves out.

6. I often wish I was thinner.

As mentioned in Bob's post, this isn't about complaining or saying how hard life is, because in truth, I'm quite blessed and I feel very grateful for the chance I have to be at BYU, to be the second child of seven kids, to be a roommate to three incredible girls, to be a student in the advertising program....and the list goes on! This also isn't about fishing for compliments. I'm really very happy with the lot I've been given in this life, and I know that things just keep getting better and better.

I just really want to be real. And I want you to know (in case I haven't emphasized it enough) that I have insecurities, too. And it's Okay!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of personal security. The term was first introduced to me in my marriage prep class over the summer. In short, personal security is our sense of self-worth, and in order to feel peaceful about who we are and where we're going, we need to ground our personal security on foundations of truth.

And that is my goal for this week. I will battle the perfection disease by focusing on the true and correct foundations of personal security while also being as real and honest as I  can be.

Wish me luck in my pursuit.

Sometimes a girl gets to be ridiculously emotional....

For those of you who have been around me the past two weeks, you could probably agree with me when I say  I've been a bit of an emotional CRAZY lady. Heaven bless my hometeachers. Those wonderful, awesome, amazing gentlemen witnessed the peak of my breakdown, and still stuck around to offer support.

I'm experiencing, what feels like to me, a sorta [big-deal] transition. What is it, you ask? Well, to most it's not life altering, but to me it feels poignant.

I'm moving out of my humble abode {AVE232} a week from Thursday. 

I know people move out of their apartments all the time. It's a fact of college life. Actually, it's an expected part of college life. 

But it's been 730 days since I fist stepped into AVE232 and called it home. And I've never  lived anywhere else in all my years in Provo (all my years=2). This whole transition has re-surfaced a lot of insecurities I haven't felt in a while, hence all the emotional outbreaks.

It's hard for me to feel excited about leaving because so much (to say the least) has happened in that apartment and in my ward. Lately, my mind has been flooded with memory after memory of times when I felt my life changing because of the influence of another person. This is the place where I learned how to serve, how to be myself, how to live and have fun. I can't even count the number of vital life lessons I've been taught in the past two years.

I'm diligently seeking for the strength and faith I need to feel excited about the inevitable change ahead. It's not easy though. Part of me doesn't want to let go of what I have now, doesn't want to believe that life always gets better as we grow, doesn't want to accept change as a natural process. For the past two weeks I have felt so strongly that life can't possibly improve from it's current state.

But I know that isn't true. Change is a good. Especially the change I'm about to experience. I'll be in a new home with new roommate dynamics and a new ward. I'll be starting Fall semester and trying to quickly adjust to my demanding schedule. I won't see a lot of familiar faces for the first few weeks, and I won't feel like I know what I'm doing. But imagine how many opportunities lie ahead. I need to look forward to potential friendships and service opportunities because they're going to be amazing! I now have the chance to prove just how much I've grown in the past two years. For this gift, I am grateful.

I believe God loves us too much to only give us one chance at true happiness.Yes, without a doubt, the past two years have been the best of my life. But I've learned that life just continues to get better. After all, the best is yet to be. (Robert Browning).  

Thank you, AVE232 and BYU121, for the many semesters of friendship, growth, and experience. The relationships formed therein were real and life changing. I am grateful for the time spent in productive development. But I must now leave and explore new opportunities. I will never forget the memories that shaped my life, for surely they are potent and irreplaceable.

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!
-Robert Browning