The truth is, everyone out there is hurting just a little bit. I think we all have things that keep us up at night. Somehow, there is a peace in knowing that wherever you are, you are really always in good company.

Maybe simply because it seems so welcoming, Memory Lane is a dangerous place; a place always haunted with things that once were and things that might have been.

In one of those instances where pretty words mask an ugly truth, Soren Kierkegaard wrote, "life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." One day at a time, step-by-step, life must be lived forwards.

It's funny sometimes, the things that can jog a memory, and how fast feelings that have been hidden for a long time can flit in your face as if they never left. Fear. Uncertainty. Living one day at a time is an act of bravery. It is not easy. It is to surrender to the immutable force that is time, and to understand how limited understanding can be.

Every day is a move forward, away from what once was and toward what is. What is behind is behind, and it moves forward, too. At times we find love, and love carries us and holds us. But if it should grow weary and strained, it leaves behind memory alone. And memory, without love's certainty and security, is an empty skeleton.

We embark upon a forward march, driven by the impossibility of returning to what we once knew; we are, with every morning, as new as every day. Toward making history instead of dwelling in it:

TBF

How to Cope With Winter

Dear Mr. Frost, 

I'm pretty sure the world is ending now...

ice won out.

 

 
 

I'm so sad of winter!!!!!!!!! 

Provo's winter has been one of the longest and coldest on record. I have started going a little batty! I've learned that it's much easier to get through the (freezing) days if I've got fun things to look forward to.

 

First of all... My roommates celebrated Mardi Gras with me!!

 

And I got a new puppy... 

 

And went on a little tiny shopping therapy trip...

 

 

And had some yummy barbecue...

 

And have had lots of fun adventures with a pretty cute boy...

So. Winter has been bearable.

But, really... I'M READY FOR SPRING. 

February Song...

It's been quite a time here lately. As usual, school is keeping me pretty busy! Rather than posting on my blog, I really should be working on a paper. (Paper 3 of 8... gulp.) I am liking my classes this semester, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little incompetent about once every class period... phew. Working hard for sure.

I'm excited about a research project I wiggled my way into. The L. Tom Perry Special Collections here at BYU has recently acquired a set of letters passed between a West Virginia family during the Civil War. Brothers Burgess, Albert, George, and Gavin write to a sister, Mary, about their experiences on both sides of the war. (Two are Confederates, two are Unionists.) They keep the letters in "the vault" (I don't really know what "the vault" is, but that's what they keep telling me) so I can only access them at certain times on certain days...but it's rather exciting. I'm going to be doing a little bit of transcription and trying to fit this family into the larger scene of divided Civil War families as a case study.

ANYWAY, other than that I'm spending my days outside of the testing center (thank goodness) and inside of my apartment, huddling from the cold and type-type-typing away at many papers.

Which reminds me. It's been a record-breaking cold winter and I am going to SCREAM if it lasts any longer! Groundhog day came with great anticipation and I was happy enough with Punxatawnie Phil to kiss him. And when you're desperate enough for sunshine to kiss a rodent...well. 'Nuff said. (I'm trying not to think about the fact that he lives in Punxatawnie and not Provo...)

Life goes on.

Sleep is for sheep

I'd probably be more elaborate if it wasn't so late. It's a night wherein sleepiness is not really counteracting not being able to fall asleep. If you are anything of a regular visitor, you know by now that it is in these middle-of-the-night hours that I do my best thinkin'. And such have I been doing in the past hour or so.

Last October, I got herded onto a roller coaster that was much bigger and badder than any that I was prepared for; like being pushed into the wrong line, I found myself and my life living in a context that wasn't any more familiar than it was planned. In the last three months, there has been fear; intense fear. For some time, I saw a loop coming that looked like it was going to hurt me, and yet I couldn't run away from it; I was strapped in. I tried to hang on to the handlebars--to anything--but the handles moved with me and with a swiftness and scariness unlike anything I've ever really felt before, the loop came. I felt scared, and even sick for days at a time, and after a month or two, I woke up and my clothes didn't fit anymore.

Alongside the fear, there has been a parallel excitement; anticipation and the realization that new can be good, even though different can be hard. There is sage wisdom in looking forward. We are the products of our pasts but the potentials of our futures.

I keep telling my roommates: it's amazing how drastically life can change, in such short amounts of time. And it is. But I'm looking forward and opening my heart to new things, and growing because of it.

#Flight.
TBF