HURRY UP!!

If I have never admitted to this before, I will do so now... I am an EXTREMELY impatient girl.

+ I know that I am certainly not even close to being (nor would I be expected to be) ready to date again... but sometimes I actually get impatient with myself that I am not ready yet.

Please don't ask me to explain this because all I can come up with at this point is this: I have been in the land of heartbreak before, I know it very well, I hate being here, I'm tired of purging and processing and cleansing and reminiscing and all of it... I don't want to do this. EVER. AGAIN.

At this stage in my game of life I am certainly so very impatient with having to STILL be in the land of the single. I have to sometimes actually fight off the urge to roll my eyes and scoff when I get invited to go with a bunch of people from my ward to a haunted house-- oh golly gosh I sure do hope that one guy comes because maybe when he, and the ONLY OTHER DUDE that came, get finished flirting with all 10 of the other girls in the group-- maybe just maybe he will have time to pay attention to me!!

Please forgive the sarcasm, I guess this is just a yuck mood today. JUST SO IMPATIENT that this is still where I am after 30 years of living and breathing and serving and flirting and dating and churching and munch and mingling... sitting alone on a Friday night, posting my negative feelings on a blog meant for positivity, because I just didn't want to go out tonight!

This would be a good time for me to stop, because I don't want this rave to undermine everything I said (and still feel very strongly about) in my last post. Or how I feel in general.

Life Really Is Good-- I just want it to be even better-- Like Right NOW!

PLEASE-- someone tell me that I am not alone!

PEGGY's LIST

So I was doing research on a certain topic on the LDS WEBSITE and each time I typed the particular words into the search engine, to help me find the inspiration I was looking for, this same little story from The Friend Magazine kept coming up.

Harold's list, in it's own right, is so very profound yet it is oozing with sugary, gooey white bread and warm milk churchy goodness (wow, how many adjectives can I squeeze into one analogy!?) For a full read go HERE to check out the story, but if you'd rather not, I will give you the best darn Cliff Notes version I can.

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Everything BAD happens to Harold. Think "The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" type plot line. Finally when he thinks that it just can't get any worse, he slips and falls on his backpack, smushing his lunch and dousing his book report with the contents of his juice box. Mr Grumpy then walks into class in a huff and when approached by his teacher, lists all of the horrible things that ALWAYS happen to him. In her attempt to teach him a valuable lesson, she asks him to write a list of EVERYTHING that happens to him that day-- the good and the bad. AND... just like in every J-Lo Rom-Com movie, you can see right where this little story is headed. You guessed it, Harold becomes aware that good things DO happen- he just wasn't looking at it from that perspective. TA-DAH! End scene.

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Anyhoo, as you can tell by the fact that I am posting about this, our little story got me thinking about my own perspectives and whether they lead me to looking for the Amazing or the Crappy things in my life. Gotta be pretty honest, I can sometimes be a "down in the dumps" kind of girl. It's true. If I were to put my grumpy glasses on and look back at the past 3 years of my life, I would bore you to tears with all the bad things that have happened to me-- you may even think that I am making half of it up.

BUT

As I have been looking at my life these last few days, and let me tell you I have room to complain here, I have actually found myself being overwhelmed by how much I DO have. I can't stop looking at all my blessings. I can't stop seeing how lucky I am, how amazing my friends and family are, how truly spectacular my life is.

Yes, I don't have a job and I have been tirelessly looking for quite some time now. True, I no longer have a boyfriend (and I am missing him like crazy these days). Who knows how long it will be before I am finally a wife and mother. Yes, these things are stressful and rather painful and hard. But oh my holy heck and stuff... I HAVE SO MUCH.

Harold has inspired me. I haven't written down an actual list, but I have definitely been taking mental note of the many things in my life that make it so good to be alive. Just even by choosing to look at things this way I feel a million miles away from the trouble that seems to loom over my head. I feel empowered that my life is going to be great, that just around the corner are ALL the many blessings I have been praying and fasting for and they're going to smack me in the face.

And you know what? Between you, me and Harold, at the end of this life I'm going to have one MAJOR ROCKSTATIC LIST!

So Today's challenge is to sluff off the grumpy and make a list. Okay, okay I won't pretend to ask you to actually write it down, stick it on your mirror and do a morning mantra to it or anything, but for anyone that is out there, struggling with the world around them-- make your Harold list... DO IT! I defy you to not feel like One Million Dollars at the end of the day!

WHY?? IT'S JUST A COAT!!

When I was about 8 years old, our family dog Annie (whom we just loved to pieces, she really was the perfect dog) was hit by a car. I will never forget that moment. It was a hot summer's day and I was in the family room watching Full House as my mother was bustling in the kitchen making dinner. Out of nowhere my brother burst into the house with a tear streaked face screaming that Annie had gotten loose from his grasp, ran out onto the "big road" and gotten hit. This was one of my first encounters with something this tragic and the shock to my system is something I will never forget.

I have very muddled memories as to what happened next. We ran out to the scene where the very horrified driver was attempting to pick up the almost lifeless dog. My mother was crying and all I can really remember was the panic I felt and the chaos that seemed to whirl around me. By now most of the neighborhood children had gathered around and it was too much for me. I took off running back to the house and into my bedroom. How can this be happening? She can't die, she just can't.

Then I remembered that there were stories in the scriptures about Jesus healing the sick and afflicted. There were stories of people being near death, or very ill and because of prayers and blessings, had lived. I knew what I had to do.

I dropped to my knees, and will all the fervor of a very scared little girl conjured up all the faith I had in a Father in Heaven I believed was there and prayed for him to save Annie. I don't remember how long the prayer was, but when I stood up, I knew... just knew that she would live.

I walked outside to our front porch, where the crowd was now very large and saw the look on my brother's face. He looked at me and said "Annie's dead" and then broke down crying.

WHAT? How could this happen? I prayed so strongly and used every last bit of faith... WHY?

Why is such a hard question. We want and need answers for WHY things happen in our lives. Why the Lord doesn't just come and save us from heartache and pain and suffering. Why does he allow bad things in this world when he loves his children so much? Why didn't he heal my dog... I had the faith and I had gone to him in prayer. Why?

So many times the answers wouldn't even make sense to us if every WHY was answered. Just like my nephews who don't understand WHY they have to put a coat on to go outside and play when it's 30 degrees. They can't see the possible consequences for this decision. They don't have the reason and logic to fully understand the need. So when the demand is made to put their coat on their first response is a whiny WHY?? It's funny to watch them as the answer is given, in all reality they didn't really want the answer, they just wanted to complain and do what their little minds wanted to do in the first place-- go outside to play-- unrestricted by a silly coat. Gosh this would just be so much easier if they would just listen to their mother without the need to ask WHY all the time. She wouldn't ask it of them, if she didn't know how important it is.

Granted the pain we sometimes experience when life is hard and doesn't look like we wanted it to, feels so much more complicated than putting on a coat. But in reality, an eternal, loving parent, who can see the end from the beginning is there with the full perspective and He too wouldn't ask these trials of us if he didn't know how absolutely important it was for us.

My first response is always to call up to him in confusion, WHY? Sometimes I beg him to tell me, to explain to me, to help me see. He patiently waits for me to stop the temper tantrum, tire myself out and finally just come to him and ask for comfort and patience. For the smart girl, the next step is to wipe the tears, stand back up and keep her feet moving, putting on that coat, regardless of the pain and just trusting that by doing so she will find the peace and protection she needs.

And as one really amazing friend said to me just last night, by the time we are able to see the WHY, we don't care about it anymore. Well not that we don't care about it so much as we will be in a better position to see things from a larger perspective and the NEED for the WHY won't be as important as seeing the bigger picture.

My prayer today is for the strength to put my coat on without the whiny WHY?? and trust that there are more infinite details at work in my life right now. Details that I wouldn't fully be able to understand if I knew them right now anyway.

So I'm gonna go outside and play, wanna come?

From WE back to ME

There is something quite amazing about the word WE. You married people probably don't remember now because you are so used to saying it, but to a single person, when you have finally found someone that takes you out every week and says the L word to you-- you get to start saying WE and it feels grand!

"Oh, I'm sorry WE can't make it because WE already have plans."
"WE went out last night to this great restaurant."

It rolls off the tongue and just is the best word you can think of. You find yourself saying it all the time, whenever you can and become like a kid who just got his braces off that smiles extra big so that people will notice his sparkly new, unfettered grill.

Then, as with some relationships, things come to an end. Yes, amongst all the hurt and confusion and disappointment, is the realization that the word WE no longer belongs to you and you start to feel like Gollum after Bilbo Baggins just made off with your Precious Ring. You have to start answering questions like

"So what are you doing Thursday?" with, "I'M not sure I will have to check MY schedule."

No two ways about it... it plain sucks!

So this last break up has been hard. Okay, most break-ups are hard. But part of what was so hard about this one, was that this man was AWESOME, and took care of me better than any guy I have dated up to this point. No really. On top of that he had unofficially asked me to marry him, so most of our conversations sounded something like "When we are married..." or "When you move in, don't forget to bring..." I had already started to pick colors and had gone dress shopping with my mom and sisters... my dad even bought me a veil.

So here I sit, back in my ME world, trying as hard as I can to down-shift back to You're Single and Not Getting Married. It feels so out of body. On top of that, when one is over the age of 27, you begin to realize that your 20's slipped by ever so quickly and you are faced wondering how fast you are going to cross the 40 finish line. Will you be married by then? Will you still be swinging and missing every time you come to bat with a new guy? (man this post is just filled with analogies isn't it?)

I have decided that the two best artists to listen to when you are breaking up are Kelly Clarkson and India Arie. Kelly, because she gets all angry and just screams out your pain. And India because her words are soulful and are filled with truth and positivity.

The other day I was driving to my brother's house, surrounded by my self-pity and the music of India, when the following song came on and I was lifted by the words. I know that these words were from her experience, but they resonated with me and my experience too. They spoke pain and heartache and disappointment, but more importantly Hope.

This song is dedicated to all my single girls, whose silent tears fall at night, whose hopes of being wives and mothers still softly burn in pain in the center of their chests. Keep looking forward and having faith. This day too shall pass.

This Too Shall Pass Lyrics


I've achieved so much in life,
but I'm an amateur in love
My bank account is doing just fine
but my emotions are bankrupt


My body is nice and strong
but my heart is in a million pieces
When the sun is shining so am I
but when night falls, so do my tears


Sometimes the beat is so loud in my heart
that I can barely tell our voices apart
Sometimes the fear is so loud in my head
that I can barely hear what God says


but then I hear a whisper that this too shall pass
I hear the angels whisper that this too shall pass
my ancestors whisper that this day will one day be the past
so I walk in faith that this too shall pass


The one that loved me the most
turned around and hurt me the worst
Been doing my best to move on
but the pain just keeps singing me songs


My head and my heart are at war
cause love ain't happening the way I want it
Feel like I'm about to break down
can't hear the light at the end of the tunnel
is when I pray for healing in my heart
to be put back together what is torn apart
and I pray for quiet in my head
that I can hear clearly what GOD says
but then I hear a whisper that this too shall pass
I hear the angels whisper that this too shall pass
my ancestors whisper that this day will one day be the past
so I walk in faith that this too shall pass

All of a sudden I realized
that it only hurts worst to fight it
So I embrace my shadow and hold on to the morning light

this too shall pass...

I hear the angels whisper that trouble don't have to last always
I hear the angels whisper even the day after tomorrow will one day be yesterday
I hear my angels whisper
I hear my angels whisper
this too shall pass