Current State of the Union

If I had to give one simple word for how life is going right now, it'd be "great!"

No lies, life is so SO good, and it makes me really happy to say that I've never ever been in a better place in my life. College especially has been rocky, but I'm doing so well. I'm so happy!

When I took a break from school a year and a half ago, it was really really hard. I honestly didn't want to, but I knew it was ultimately the best thing for me. I hadn't been doing well in school and I was dealing with a lot of anxiety around that as well. So getting out of that was good, but I was in limbo for a while with a job at JC Penney that didn't last long until I kind of got some steadiness with my job at the daycare.

Before all that, I'd been dealing with an eating disorder for some time, though I had recovered from that by the time the break from school happened. I was maybe going to start taking classes again last January, a year after I'd stopped, but in the end it didn't feel right, and I'm glad I didn't, because not too long after that I relapsed back into my eating disorder and it was pretty bad. I'm not gonna go into details about that right now, but I was able to get back into therapy and pull myself out of that relapse a few months later.

The point I'm trying to make is not that my life is horrible, because it's not! I love it so much and I've had so much good happen to me to that I'm just not mentioning right now, like fashion shows, great friends, fun activities, an amazing job, etc. I'm just trying to say that it's been such a long time since I have felt normal. With an eating disorder, depression, and anxiety coming in and out of my life, after a while, it feels like that's the way things are supposed to be, and you just deal with it because that's all you can do.

But right now, I feel none of that, and it's amazing and also really weird haha.

Sometimes I keep thinking that something must be wrong, because something has always been wrong, but alas, life is just good right now, and I'm beginning to realize that a good, and normal life is a real possibility. A happy one! Bad things will happen again, and I will hopefully be ready when they do, but for now, I'm enjoying just being happy and me. It's taken years of difficulties, and months of therapy and bajillion amounts of faith, but if that's what I had to do to get here, then I'm pretty good with that.

So yes, school is really good. I'm doing pretty well in my classes and going to all of them and enjoying them thoroughly. I'm just face painting for work right now, which is really fun and chill. I'm making good money but I only have to work a few hours a week. I'm dating no one right now and going on no dates, but I legitimately do not care, and I'm happy with that attitude. I have a fashion show coming up in less than TWO WEEKS and I'm so psyched. Things are going soooo well for it (and you should COME!).

But most importantly, I'm just in a good place in my life, and that's the best thing of all. :)

Why God Lets Bad Things Happen to Us

I think people wonder a lot--sometimes I wonder a lot--if God loves us, then why does he allow bad things to happen to us? If God loves me, then why am I not married or in a happy relationship? If God loves me, why didn't I get into that school or make that team? If God loves me, then why do I struggle with certain issues? If God loves me, then why did he take my mother, my father, my sister, or my brother away?

I hear people and I read articles and comments that say that if there truly were a God, then bad things wouldn't happen in this world. The Holocaust wouldn't have happened, 9/11 wouldn't have occurred; Lady Gaga wouldn't be popular and teachers would be rich. People say that life isn't fair, but the thing is that life isn't fair for anyone, so in a way it makes it fair for everyone.

We may never know until after this life why terrible, awful things like the Holocaust had to happen. We may never know why some children have to die so young and innocent, when they have beautiful lives ahead of them. There are many things we won't know for a long time, but I do know that our God is a just God and a loving God. I know that we are here on this earth not just to have a cushy happy life, but to learn and to grow. And in order to do that, we have to experience things that won't always be very happy.

I believe that everything happens for a reason, even when it all seems to be going terribly. I've seen it so many times in my life. One of these times happened when I was in high school. Since I was five years-old, I'd always been a ballet dancer. It was my love of my life, and while I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to turn it into a career, I wanted to keep dancing for as long as I could. In ninth grade, I remember seeing the high school dance company perform at our school and when I watched them dance I had a dream in my head that I wanted to be on the dance company. It was a small and simple dream, but I would have given anything for it. So when the end of ninth grade and dance company auditions came around, I was so excited to try out. Unfortunately, I didn't make it, and I went home sad and cried myself to sleep. A few days to weeks later, I got over it. I'd try again the next year. I figured it was harder to make it as a sophomore anyways. Auditions came around again the next year, I auditioned, but it wasn't meant to be and I didn't make it again. I was devastated. I remember looking at the list and seeing names of my friends from ballet class who'd made it. I got back to the car with my mom and we both cried together. She knew how much I wanted it and how badly it hurt not to make it. It hurt a lot more the second time around. I never understood why, and I'd pray to my Heavenly Father and ask him why, over and over again. I would have given up anything just to be on dance company.

It hurt when the year started again and I saw all my friends performing on stage in the welcome assembly while I sat in the audience. It hurt to see so many of them come to dance class with their brown sweats and gold duffel bags that I so badly wished I could have. At the end of my junior year, I tried out for dance company one more time. I think deep down I might have known that I wasn't going to make it, but I wanted it so much in my heart, and I couldn't let myself think "what if" for the rest of my life if I hadn't tried out. So try out I did, and I didn't make it. It was probably the hardest the third time around to once again look for my name but not see it on the list. I cried more and I wondered more of why I couldn't just have this one dream, the only thing I really had ever wanted. It was a little bit after around that time that I decided to try and get my Associate's degree from WSU by the time I graduated. Since I wasn't going to be on dance company, my parents could afford it and I had time for it. I took a lot of college credits that summer and actually really liked it and then enrolled in as many AP and Concurrent Enrollment classes I could to get college credit. One of the CE courses I took was fashion merchandising, coincidentally at the same time as dance company. Up to that point, I had never cared much about fashion, beside enjoying reading my subscription of Seventeen magazine and going shopping at the mall every once in a while. I wasn't expecting much out of the class, but after my first day, I was already in love. Every day I had the class I gush to my friends about how excited I was for it and everything I was learning from it. It was amazing how much I enjoyed something I'd never really cared about before. I ended up dropping another class to take Advanced Fashion Merch the next semester because I loved it so much. Needless to say, that class basically changed my life. I dabbled in some fashion design, eventually learned how to sew, and realized that I really did want to be a fashion designer. And now in a week and a half I'm showing a collection at a BYU fashion show. :)

I now know why I didn't make dance company, why I couldn't make dance company. God had different plans for me, and if he had given me what I wanted so badly in the moment, I wouldn't have what I want and love right now. I know what it's like to struggle...and not with just the above story. I wonder today why I'm not dating anyone and I wonder why I've had such a hard time with school lately. I wonder why I had to go through some of the things I did when they hurt me so so badly.

Everything happens for a reason, and I know that God usually has really good reasons. We have to remember that when God says yes to our prayer, he might have to say no to someone else's. Life has it's course, and even when everything seems to be going terribly wrong, it is actually going right. It's always going right.

So when people ask, why God lets bad things happen to us, he lets them happen to us because he loves us. He wants us to feel the pain to relate to other human beings in the world and he wants to make us stronger so that we can handle hard things the next time they come around and so that we can help other who were once in our position.

God is a just God and he is a fair God, and he is also a loving God. Whenever we are struggling or asking God why, let us remember that everything He does is for us, and in the end, we will all be grateful that he let it happen the way He did. :)

This Is Just to Say

Goodness. I am just pretty happy in life right now. Don't get me wrong...it's still hard, it's still life. But it's a pretty darn good one. Heavenly Father loves me. And so many other people really truly do love me. I'm really just so happy. I had a really great weekend. Seriously, moving here was the best decision I ever made.

Remember last semester? I cried pretty much every day. I spent every day alone and stayed on campus until really late so I didn't have to go to my apartment. I went home as many weekends as I could. I was so sad and so lonely. It makes me want to cry thinking about it, because it was so hard. Probably the hardest time of my life. I was lonely, homesick, confused, and just plain sad.

And now? I love my classes. I come home when I'm done with classes and study here. I hang out with my roommates on the weekends and at night. I still cry (I'm a girl), but it's more of on a weekly or every other weekly basis instead. I cook a lot. I sew and my blog posts are happy. I'm still doing my fashion blog and I'm just becoming more and more obsessed with fashion every day. I'm happy. So very happy.

And although last semester was sooooo hard and still makes my heart ache, I'm grateful for it. Because I learned a lot. And now I can be super grateful for the good times. And I'm so proud of myself for sticking it through that semester. I tried hard to be positive by listing things that made me happy, trying to look at things in a positive light, and finding the days that were happy.

I think one of my proudest moments was when I was driving home for Christmas break and I suddenly realized the semester was over and that I had made it. And then I just started crying because I was so happy it was done and I realized that I did make it through and that it did come to an end. It made me incredibly happy and proud of myself and I learned that hard times really do come to an end--that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that Heavenly Father doesn't give us more than we can handle. Because guess what? I thought so many times that I just couldn't handle life anymore. But I survived. Heavenly Father's a pretty smart guy. :)

Thanks to the people that love me and that took care of me and are taking care of me now. You know who you are and I couldn't have done it without you.

I'm so happy these days.

I love my roommates.

I love life. :)