Little Victory

Little Victory

Yesterday marked an insignificant and yet monumental victory for myself. But first some back story.

This weekend my mom came up and she smiled with nostalgia as she talked about me when I was a little girl.  She said that I didn’t really ever play with dolls or even toys. “You played outside” she said, her voice rising as though she thought we didn’t believe her. “You played with rocks and sticks—you didn’t need toys because you had such a wild imagination.”

I have always been a dreamer. I started reading before most kids and my dreams reflected the books I read. I was a hopeless romantic. I wanted to grow up and fall in love. Wear beautiful dresses. Live in a castle somewhere.  I wanted to be an elf ( learned elvish). I wanted to live in the woods and go on important quests, maybe marry the King of Men. Always, I wanted to live in a little house on the prairie with a quiet but knowing husband who would conquer the plains with me. Our world would be small but it would be ours.

Throughout Jr. High and high school I fell in love with dark haired boys. I was enchanted by brown eyes looking up through thick lashes. But my princes never looked back. I was young, too young to be worried about it but being the worrier that I am I became convinced that I would never get married, never find love. I did find love. Sweet, innocent high school love. I knew it wasn’t going to be forever though, and I still fretted about finding my prince/Ranger/farmer.

I found him. Now I have bound myself to him in every way. He is mine. We are one. Except that now I tend to cling onto him tightly. Sometimes I even forget to keep dreaming.

Yesterday I won a small battle though. See yesterday, Justin and I both had the day off. Usually when these days come along we spend every minute together. Justin comes up with a plan for an adventure and I follow him—lovingly, happily, yeah it can get pretty sappy. In any case , yesterday was different because yesterday Justin had to fix a pipe in the side yard. This was an adventure I just couldn’t follow him on. I tried. I went with him to Lowe’s and tried to help find the part, tried to listen to what the guy said as he explained how to fix what was broken, but my dreams were calling me and I decided to listen.

So I spent the day in the dirt. I hefted a bag of soil on my shoulder and hoed and raked away at the raised bed Justin made for me. I added potting soil and did it again. I even went out to the desert and dug up some clay-like stuff and added that. It was hard work and time flew. Soon I had a bed that was ready for planting. So I asked Alonzo…hemhem Justin to help me place the seeds in the ground. It was really special. Sure it was just one teeny tiny garden and sure I am totally over exaggerating the epic-ness. But the point is that I got out there and did something I wanted to do. Learned something and applied it and I am proud. I have the sweetest husband in all the world but I don’t need him to plant a garden for me. That I did for myself. And he loves me all the more for it.

 P.S. Justin has the most beautiful brown eyes and the thickest lashes in all the land.

Who am I?

Hello Blogging world, sorry it’s been a while.

I know that everyone has their own opinions about Les Mis but I loved this version. I was particularly touched by this song, and have had the tendency to sing it the shower lately.

I’ve been thinking alot about identity. Justin and I are in a bit of a transition period of late, and it is wearing on me. It often feels like the majority of my life is being shelved away for the future, like a box of summer clothes left in a closet somewhere, put off until an undetermined date. We are waiting to hear back from the schools Justin applied to, and it feels like somehow I have been left behind somewhere.

It’s partly my own fault, for deciding not to pursue journalism right away. I think I was sort of depending on that , like I saw myself as a news writer...as though somehow writing news would anchor me firmly in place. Keep me the same. Make me who I am. I thought that’s what I wanted; saw myself reporting , wearing pencil skirts and nerdy-cool glasses…I don’t even wear glasses. It was a dream brought about by chick flicks and a decision made by a 15 year old me. I loved working at the school newspaper, but somehow I just can’t make that jump…don’t want to.

I’ll tell you what I really want to be. I really want to be a mom, a well educated Mom who raises her children up between the grass and the stars. A mom who teaches her kids how to get what they need without depending on anyone but their family and their Father in Heaven. I want to be a poet. The kind who lives out in the middle of nowhere and is inspired by the things around her. I want to be a painter. I want to go walking and discover the world as it was made for us. Not as we made it. I want to be a life-long runner. I want to be a coach. I want to be a good friend. I want to work for the city like I do now. I want to be a leader in my Church and in my community. I want too much. I don’t want enough.

Can one person really want all those things, be all those things? I think we all know the answer is yes. People are multi-faceted, complicated beings after all. I’ve learned that as I’ve listened to grandparents and great grandparents ( my own and others ) tell their stories. When it’s all said and done none of us will just have been an accountant or an artist or a Grandma. We are all those things.

Despite my meandering thoughts on the subject, I still feel like I am losing myself. My life is hinged upon Justin’s application status. I don’t know where I’ll be working, or in what field. I don’t know if my baby will have to wait another year to come into this world. I’m waiting, nervously, to see where life will take me.

That is as it should be, I guess. Life rarely lets us take the wheel. However much control you think you have will have changed by tomorrow. You’ll panic, you’ll stress out, and then you will add another title to the ever increasing list that makes up who you are.

I am a writer. A runner. A Mormon.  A video editor. A wife. A friend. A blogger. A daughter. An animal lover. Everything I was, everything I am , and everything I will be makes up a seemingly arbitrary scribble. Trace the pathway of my life and you will find only one common denominator. Me.

Embrace who you were. Love who you are. Strive everyday to be better.

Watch Les Miserable. Write blog posts about it.

And then smile, and know that you’ve found yourself again.

Me, lately.