2019 Newsletter

This is not really a newsletter in the traditional sense (sorry for the misleading title). I'm not going to give you a detailed list of everything that happened this year. Mostly, it's just me rambling on philosophically like I usually do about life and relationships and growing up and figuring out what kind of person you'd like to be.

I've always been the kind of person that likes to dwell on the past. Growing up, I loved reminiscing about good times and looking forward to even better times. I was forever an optimist, certain that since things had always gone so well for me they would surely only continue to improve.

Volumes 1-7 of my personal musings about life. This is the bookshelf section I peruse when
I'm feeling particularly nostalgic, or need to remind myself all the reasons why high school
is not an era I particularly want to relive.

I'm really not trying to brag, but it seemed that things that were difficult for other people usually came easily to me. That is not to say I was not a hard worker, only that I did not necessarily find it difficult to work hard, and the work I put in always resulted in the outcome I wanted. Even those few dismal years in middle school and the beginning of high school (that I've talked about in previous posts) didn't impede my ability to accomplish anything I put my mind to or to have the kind of life I wanted to have.

I told my mom I would PR at this race. She didn't believe me. So, I ran as fast as I could
and PR'd at this race. Hard work=expected outcome.

The first time that I ever sincerely felt that the past had been brighter than the future could ever be ironically happened in what should have been the happiest time of my life: right after I married the perfect man for me. I had a hard hard time adjusting to marriage, and I felt so lost and confused. I didn't understand why I wasn't happy. I adored my husband. I liked my job. I was doing well in school. We saw our families regularly. We spent our days camping in the mountains and having fun with our friends. We lived six blocks from the temple and I ran by it most days. But I spent a lot of time, more than I should have, thinking about the past. Missing the camaraderie I'd had with my cross-country teammates, missing the late night chats and giggles I'd shared with my roommates, wondering what wonderful experiences all my missionary friends were having that I was missing out on.

I mean, how could living with one man ever compare to living with
these fun girls and an entire wall full of men??

I allowed myself to become overall discontented with my life. I sorely missed the person I'd been before I met Jason. That isn't to say that Jason was responsible for changing me into someone I didn't like; what I mean is that dating Jason was just one of several significant changes in my life that all happened at relatively the same time, all of which contributed to my leaving my old self behind and becoming the person I am now.

I'd moved out on my own just two months before. I was extremely independent and goal-oriented. I knew exactly what I wanted from my life and I was doggedly determined that things would work out in exactly the way I had planned. I liked the person that I was, and I had no intention of changing. I was confident in myself and my abilities, and the last two years had been the best, happiest years of my life. I saw no reason why that should change if I kept living the way I was.

About to embark on the greatest journey of my life to date: college

But I couldn't keep living the way I was. Heavenly Father had a different plan for me, something that would force me out of my comfort zone but ultimately result in more happiness than I'd previously experienced. So when I met Jason, and when I started dating him, and when we got engaged and married, I had a lot of fun, but I was also acutely uncomfortable. It was hard for me to include him in my plans and in the decisions I made. It made me uneasy that I'd relinquished so much control over my life to another person, even one who I loved and trusted and respected as much as him. I wasn't used to feeling like I needed someone else in my life, and I really wasn't used to being needed. All of a sudden I felt like I was responsible for someone's happiness other than my own and that scared me. A lot. Getting married was not necessarily convenient for me, nor was it easy.

It became harder when I started blaming everything I was feeling on my marriage. At times I wondered if I'd made a mistake, if maybe I wasn't cut out for this whole wife and mother thing. I felt that I was too self centered, too independent, to really be able to make another person happy. It wasn't that I thought Jason was the wrong man for me--in all the time I'd known him he'd been nothing but patient and loving and thoughtful and understanding with me, even though I'm sure I said and thought many things that were extremely hurtful to him. The problem, I felt, was with me. I was not meant to be a wife.

This was not a new feeling either. Growing up, I had two plans for my life. The first was to go to college, serve a mission, marry a nice boy and have cute babies and live happily ever after. But then I got to high school and discovered I had a knack for being a really good third or fifth or even seventh wheel. Not only was I good at it, but I really didn't mind it all that much. So I made a Plan B for my life, and somewhere along the line Plan B really became Plan A. I'd graduate high school, spend a summer working at Brighton, go to college, serve my mission, come home and finish my education, whether that meant getting a Masters or a PhD even, and have a successful career for myself, have lots of good friends and overall live out my days independently and contentedly. Even if I did end up getting married, I was sure it wouldn't happen soon, and I could still finish all the things I wanted to before having to figure out the whole wife and mom thing.

I met this man a month before meeting Jason. At the time,
I thought he was the perfect man for me. I could do whatever
I wanted with my life and he'd have nothing to say about it!

These feelings I had of inadequacy and discontentment lasted and lasted. They would not go away. We moved to Sandy to live with my great-grandparents, which was immensely better than Provo. Still, I wasn't really happy. I finished another year of college, leaving me with only one year left to accomplish one of my lifelong goals. Still, not really happy. We went to Hawaii to visit Jason's mission, and I loved it there. I loved the people, who are filled with what they call "the Aloha spirit". I bought my very first car, a junker that only drives when it feels like it, but I love it. We went on camping trips, we celebrated our first anniversary, and while things were somewhat improving I could not shake the feeling that I was not living the life I was meant to live.

I had a short-lived career as a photographer while we were in Hawaii. 

And then Jason fell off the ladder.

And I've been so humbled these last five months. They've been some of the hardest, yet some of the very best, times of my life. I've started to learn how to be grateful for the blessings that I have now, not dwell on the blessings that are past. I've learned that whether I like it or not, life goes on. Days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years, and at the end of my years I want to look back and say that I chose happiness, that I did not live my life yearning for days gone by. I've learned how to focus on the things that really matter, to really put some effort into showing my husband how much I love and care for him. I often glance at him, going about his day and I'm overwhelmed with thankfulness that I get to live this life with him. I'd follow him to the ends of the earth. I don't care so much what happens with our future any more. However it turns out, (in the words of a song my uncle Jordan wrote), I am thankful to have lived with him. Thankful that he's still here with me, and that we get to embark on this miraculous journey of new parenthood together, and I'm thankful for the hard times we've had this year, and I'm thankful that he's stuck by my side through it all, that he so willingly forgives and forgets my mistakes as we learn the ins and outs of marriage.

Jason and I have a feeling we're going to look at this picture for many years to come
and laugh at how little we knew about what we're getting ourselves into.

A meme my aunt Katie lovingly sent me to help prepare me for motherhood.

If I were to try to describe what the year 2019 meant for me, I would say that it was, at times, the worst of times. But in the end it was also the best of times because I'm finally at a point where I'm ready to leave the past in the past, to remember it fondly but not longingly. I've accepted that life is not always good, or easy, but I know that eventually all things work together for good, and hard times do not mean that my life is not worth living. I'm ready to choose happiness despite the obstacles in my way, ready to experience the joy and wonder the next few years will bring us, ready to create my own joy when the world doesn't see fit to provide it. That's my 2020 vision.