Thoughts from the road

i miss the days when i would stay home from school and mom would make me campbell's chicken noodle soup while i watched little bear on tv. or everyday after school when my sister courtney and i would argue about how many times the welch's juice commercial changed colors before watching arthur. (never did settle that one.) i also miss the days when mtv actually played music. when life was innocent and i was naive. when the worst thing that could happen was having to do my daily chores. 

i learned that i wasn't invincible when I was six years old and in the middle of my first grade year. i was in a bike reck resulting in a blown eye brow bone, concussion, messed up knee and some reconstructive surgery to boot. 

i learned the birds and the bees in third grade after i was kissed on the cheek behind the school and was sure i was now pregnant all the way home. 

i learned what evil was in fifth grade when i walked into our downstairs gym and watched as my mom quickly hopped off the treadmill watching the news. together we watched a second plane crash into a tower and watched them fall down. my world, or rather, our world, hasn't been the same since. 

i learned what death was in sixth grade when a young man in my ward committed suicide. it shook a lot people very close to me, and was my first viewing and funeral. 

i learned what it felt like freshman year to be held to a higher standard and to be an example to my siblings and peers. 

i learned that my family wasn't perfect junior year. 

i learned that i couldn't fix everything, that some things happen anyway when my parents divorced my senior year of high school. 

i learned how to live for something greater than myself after my freshman year of college. 

i learned to be brave, face my fears, and to do something extraordinary when i was nineteen and started a new life in wilmington, north carolina, away from family, friends, and everything i have ever known. 

[insert numerous life lessons here] 

i learned that i can do hard things, and once again be brave, to follow the lord's plan for me, even when it differs from my own when i again got in my car and drove alone back across the country; bringing all the experiences and growth from the last three years with me at nearly twenty-three years old. 

i'm back out west, and though it wasn't easy, and i am sure it won't be. (when is life ever really easy, anyway, right?) i know it was the right thing for me. and sometimes the hard thing and the right thing are the same. 
i'm so blessed in countless ways.
 i am excited to start this new chapter in my life 
and to continue learning and progressing through this crazy, unpredictable thing called life. 
bring it on!