Happy Birthday to ME!

Tuesday I celebrated my 21st birthday. It was perfect. I slept in, had breakfast in bed, went out to lunch, watched a movie with my mom, just hung out most of the day, doing whatever my heart desired. Tonight Caraline took me to Applebees with Limher. I do wish a few other friends had been in town, but I couldn't have asked for a better birthday. In past years I've had parties and while that was great, it was appropriate that I celebrated differently as this will be a different year for me...
For me birthdays are a time for "new year" resolutions. It is a day personal to me (even though I know several others that share my birthday). It is the day I went embryo to infant, infant to toddler, toddler to child, child to teenager, teenager to adult. It is a day that shows me how far I've come while reminding me where I have been.
I remember one at my grandma's house when the boys put my underwear on the front lawn in the sprinklers while the girls were swimming. I guess I could have let the boys go swimming too, but clearly we didn't get along very well. To think that now they are returned missionaries and Priesthood holders...
I remember my eighth birthday. It was special because I was baptized. I remember when the bishop interviewed me and he asked if I was getting baptized because I knew the church is true or because it was what I was supposed to do. I remember having to think about it for a minute, especially because I so often did what was expected of me whether or not I wanted to, but I thought back on my eight years of life. I remembered reading (I struggled to read, let alone study) the Book of Mormon while my brothers played outside, or late at night when I should have been sleeping, but I would rather read. I didn't understand all the words, I still don't, but I knew what I felt. I felt happy and peaceful. I knew I was choosing the right and that my Heavenly Father was proud of me. I thought about the time I was practicing a primary song on the piano (a simplified version on a keyboard with three octaves) and feeling "the Spirit of God, like a fire is burning". I was mystified by this feeling. Then I remembered a hymn that talked about this new emotion. When I thought back on these brief, but memorable experiences, I knew that I could truthfully answer that I was being baptized because I knew the Church was true and because I wanted to be a member of it. Today I think back on that simple testimony and I am thankful that Heavenly Father blessed me with knowledge of Him, His love, and His gospel. It prepared me for the difficult times ahead. I could not have done it without that gift of testimony.
I remember my 13th or 14th birthday. We decorated our own cupcakes with frosting we had made and tried to squirt out of Ziploc bags with a corner cut off. It didn't work very well, and was messy, but it was fun. I had friends around me that loved and supported me during that awkward time of life. During a difficult time to, I was newly a child of divorced parents. While my friends couldn't fully understand, my Heavenly Father and Savior could. While They couldn't physically put their arms around me, They gave me great friends that could.
I remember my 18th birthday. I had already graduated and was getting ready to head off to BYU in just a few weeks. I felt on top of the world, I was done with high school, my family life was going pretty good, step and all, and I was off to my dream school. I remember the great mix and 'supplies' Caraline had given me to send me off to school. I remember the pillow from Katie that all my friends signed with "Somebody in Gilbert Loves Me" on it. I remember the Jerry Seinfeld book that Rustin gave me. I remember how confused I was- Rustin, who doesn't give presents gave me one, let alone a thoughtful one, Rustin who a few months earlier basically said he wasn't interested, went out of his way to get me a gift. Talk about mixed signals. I remember the pictures from Dawnee to take with me, a sweet book mark from Ashley and a sweet book from Mariah. (Sorry if I can't remember what you gave me...) I remember feeling on top of the world and ready to conquer anything and everything.
I remember last year, my 20th birthday. I was at home, and not just for the summer. I had moved back home the August before. I say it was just because it felt like the right thing to do, and it did feel like the right thing, but there were other reasons, a big one being my depression. I crashed during my 18th year of life, and just limped along for quite sometime, but I'd limped for too long. I need to get more help, from my family, from professionals, and I needed to learn to rely on my Savior again. I thought I had dealt with my past, but I had just pushed it aside and thought that going away to BYU would make it all go away. It didn't. But at age 20 I had finally figured out how to not just live with my depression, but how to remain in control. I had started to forgive my father and see him for the child of God that he is. I was getting along with all my brothers. It was after the turning point, but to me it was a time to recognize that I had turned.
Now I'm 21. I am preparing to serve a mission. I am entering a new and exciting part of my life. It is an unpredictable and a little unnerving time of life. I don't know where I'll be going, when I'll be going, what language I'll be speaking, all I know is that I'll be serving the Lord where He wants me to be. It hasn't been easy. Satan has been working overtime with not only my depression, but car troubles, insurance companies, doctors offices, causing bumps wherever possible. I know that more will come, yet I know that I will continue on this path. I know that I can do this. I wasn't always sure I could get through some of the rougher parts of my life, but the Lord has prepared me and I am ready. Not necessarily ready to save the world, or change lives, but ready to accept whatever may be next, ready to face my challenges and look for the blessings and lessons. I'm ready.
Happy Birthday to me.

The Big 'D'

No, the big 'D' is not my step-brother Dallas, or the terror of divorce, or anything else you may be thinking. It is a little embarrassing, but when I came back home from BYU I started working with a therapist to conquer my depression once and for all! Well, at least to get the tools to remain in control. One of these tools was too come up with a name for my depression, so that it was a separate entity, a thing that tried to take me over, rather than a part of me. This really helped, and recently I've brought this tool out again. For me the big 'D' isn't just depression, but also the Devil, for it is he that wants me to feel this way, and all the like emotions: dispair, discouragement, detached, disinterested, doubt, down-trodden... You get the idea.
I'm not entirely sure why I've had this new spike in these emotions, but my guess would be that Satan is working extra hard on me as I work on my mission papers. His new favorite seems to be doubt. Doubt that I can make a difference, that I'm really healthy enough, that it is even what I'm supposed to be doing. Fortunately this is an area the Lord helped me resolve quickly. However, other things still await to be resolved.
This has really not been an easy road for me, not that I expected it to be, it has just been harder in ways that I didn't expect. Getting all my doctor's appointments has proven harder than expected. Normally I can get in within a few days, but I had to wait quit sometime, and now our insurance has changed, so I may have to cancel that and wait even longer. I also developed not one, but five warts on my left foot, four of which have taken over my pinkie toe. I had the two I new about frozen, but they came back with a vengeance and a friend. One of which was under the bed of my nail and has just made itself at home while evicting my nail. Gross! How is it that I can go nearly 20 years with out a single wart and then get 5? I guess it is good that it is happening now and not in 3 or 4 months when it would affect the work, but it is hard to keep that in perspective when every step is painful. I try to remember that there is a reason that my papers aren't done and I don't have my call. It is on the Lord's timing and not mine.
Because apparently trying me emotionally/mentally and physically wasn't enough, I get to be tried financially too. I was fired from Mountainside Fitness. It was partially because of things I couldn't control, miscommunications, and things I should have communicated more clearly. It was really hard. I felt like a failure, like I wasn't good enough, like the hard work and dedication that I had given them wasn't enough. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I did give that job my all, and that in a fair and right world that would be enough, but that isn't the world we live in and we weren't sent here so everything would be fair. I loved the kids there, the kids loved me, the parents loved me, I worked more hours than anyone else, and I was always willing to help when asked. (I feel a little better knowing that three or four kids only I could console and that they had to cover over 30 hours a week until they hired someone and they didn't even have enough people willing to work to cover when others were sick...) Anyways, I'm still a little more bitter and upset than I would like, but I'm working on it. I've learned from it and I'm back on the search for a job.
Still, not enough of a challenge, I've felt more lonely than I have in a long time. I've had a few days in the past when I wished I had a special someone, or I missed a friend, but this is a different kind of lonely. I've gone through a lot of things that my friends haven't, and that they couldn't even understand, but this is more. When I went through my parents divorce, my family was all dealing with it together, when I had all these health problems my mom and a few friends could at least relate, when I was depressed people were placed in my life that could help me, moving to BYU I did on my own but with friends doing similar things and I made friends there. I feel like I'm doing this alone. My friends are all dating, some even getting married. They are on summer vacation, working and playing. I'm not. I'm not dating, I'm not even getting to play much. I'm preparing for a mission. I'm doing this alone. While I know that I am never completely alone, that Christ is always there helping me as He has in the past, this is the first time I've been this physically alone. I'm the only girl in my mission prep class. I'm the only one of my friends doing this, and while they are great and support me all they can, I still feel alone. I feel like I haven't adequately described my feelings, so let me try another way. All my life I have felt different because of the things I've gone through and the ways that they have caused me to grow. I've been the first to do a lot of things in my group of friends, the first to start her period, the first to have wisdom teeth removed, the first to get braces, the first to decide her major (I think I've always known I'd teach), the first to go to BYU, the only to have parents divorced, the only to have a close family member completely fall away from the church, the only to have a disease, endometriosis, that threatens my ability to have children, my bone health, and has caused multiple side affects including hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain, and even lactation, the only one to have surgery, let alone four. In all of these things I didn't feel alone. Maybe this loneliness is just another attempt by Satan, maybe it is another trial to overcome, but right now it just feels like I'm just lonely. There is no purpose, there is no bigger picture, it is just the way it is. This is something I will do alone.
Despite all these road blocks, I know that I am doing the right thing for the right reasons. I can't wait to bring people to Christ, to be called and set apart as a witness of Him and His gospel. I know that only by living the gospel, can we be happy. I am anxious to share this truth with the people the Lord has prepared. I'm excited to be an instrument in His hand. I can't help but smile when I think about serving Him and doing nothing else for 18 months. I'm excited for all the new things I'll learn, the new ways I'll grow and be stretched. I'm ecstatic to go through the Temple, to make covenants with my Heavenly Father as I receive my endowments. This is an exciting time of life, full of new and wonderful things. Knowing the blessings I've received, the ones I'm receiving, and the ones the Lord has in store, I'll happily take all these trials and more.