Dear Momma

This is a scary time to be pregnant, or a mom to a baby. There's a lot of scary things being said, and a lot of information to digest. Adding to this the overwhelming aspects of caring for a child you get no help. None. No one is allowed to come to your house and clean your bathroom so you can sleep/snuggle a baby. No one can fold your laundry, or cook a meal, or sweep and mop, or do the dishes. No one can come and sit with you and give you an adult connection. No one can come. But here's what I want you to know. YOU are capable. YOU can do this. Your house will not be clean for many years to come. You're floors will be dirty, your dishes may sit in the sink overnight, your clean laundry will pile high on the couch as you scootch it to one side so you can sit down. Your hair will not be perfectly done. Your dinners will be simple, and easy. You are ok. Life will not stop moving and you mustn't either. You must keep going. that little person is depending on you. Not me, not your mom, not your mother-in-law, not your dad, not your father-in-law, not your sister, brother, in-laws, outlaws, or that crazy neighbor down the street. You. Which means you are enough. Everything about you is enough. You were prepared for this moment LONG before you ever got here. Deep breath. Drop your shoulders, unclench your jaw. Exhale. Trust yourself. Your body is literally programed to deliver a baby. It'll deliver a baby even if you lose consciousness. So really all you have to do is use your intuition and not lick the door handles. You can do this. let the laundry pile up on the couch after the dryer so you can clean the surfaces you and the baby touch. it's ok to eat PB&J for dinner if it means you washed your hands after touching your face. Breathe. You've got this. Parenting will look different from now on. No one will be having the experiences you had as a child. Birthdays and play dates will look more like it did when we moved west across the American continent. A small gathering of family, and time spent with loved ones. There may not be as many parties celebrating the new life you brought into this world. There will be more time for you to sit and reflect on how miraculous this whole adventure is. There may not be a Pinterest Mom group date and Chick-fil-A every Thursday, but there will be moments you can journal to document how you feel about this child and the adventure parenting is. Forget the parties, and the big events. Who needs all those germs anyway? teach them to love people who are hard for them to love. Teach them to be kind to those they may be inclined to take for granted. Learning to love our siblings can be one of the hardest things we ever do; depending on the personalities involved. So lets enjoy this "little house on the prairies"moment in time. breathe. The air is actually clean enough you can do that right now. You're going to be just fine. You're ready.

Banana Squash, and People Pods

Eat worms. Eat dirt, and worms, and crickets (which they say are good covered in chocolate), and caramels, and that questionable looking piece of cheese. You shouldn't live in a bubble and the minute you try to eliminate all the germs from your life you become sick. It is in being alive that we develop strength. By under exposing our immune system we create a type of atrophy that creates a culture of sickness in our lives. To truly be Well we must dance in the mud puddles, and drink from the gutters. Not literally, but you get what I'm saying. Some day you will discover that you NEED the germs. Who knows! In this world of hand-sanitizer-everything perhaps the cure to cancer is in the germs. Maybe by over sanitizing our world we create a lack of variety so dangerous it breeds death. This of course does NOT apply to your spiritual life. That you should scrub down daily. With extra strength cleaner. And try not to expose it to germs. But for the rest of life… use that 20 second rule! God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt. Why? Because the people we build relationships with are far more important that the germs we are killing. Take your shoes off, and walk through the grass. Sink your toes deep into the mud and feel the very minerals of the cosmos squishing up between your toes. breathe the stardust fully into your lungs and taste them as you crunch the sand in your sandwich along with those potato chips. Enjoy it all, and know that you're alive.

You Ever Actually TRY Hot Sauce?

Some one is going to tell you that you're not good enough. They're not lying. Hear me out! You are NOT special, or more important than anyone else. You are unique. You're DNA, finger prints, etc. mean that we can quantifiably determine that you are unique. BUT you are not special. The world does not owe you a darn thing. If anything you owe it! You are a divine child of infinite worth. So is everyone else around you. Which means that the one thing you owe the universe is to suck it up and lead a miraculously beautiful life worthy of such awesomeness. You owe the world around you every act of kindness and service you give. You owe it to the others around you to lift them up and help them see that they too are wonderfully beautiful. You owe it to the universe to leave a mark that adds to the painting. You do not need to be, nor have you earned the right, to be the only brush stroke on the canvas. That's a boring way to live life anyway. Who wants to be all alone? Life becomes wonderful and worth living because we surround ourselves with the variety of humanity that lives on the face of this earth. We become significant because of the care we use towards each person who enters our circle of influence. Because you are not special you will not be handed any of these opportunities. You will have to work very hard and earn everything you've got. Nothing is free. Everything has a price; and that price is the choice you make to either work and become better, or lay down and wait for life to hand you something you haven't earned. You will think this ideal is a curse until you realize that you have learned something very few people understand, and fewer people are willing to use in their favor. Life is magnificent! In all it's shapes and colors and flavors, and sounds, and smells. The more of them we invite into our area of service the more we enrich ourselves. It is in the act of losing yourself to the service of others we are found. . . whole. . . alive . . . and most importantly happy. You will have people tell you that you are not good enough, and that is ok. You don't need to be good enough for that. You DO need to be good enough to serve. Find what you are good at and let that be your brush stroke on the canvas of life. Let your stroke sing in harmony with the other brush strokes around you to create the most glorious of images! You will not be good at everything, but you are good for something. Wear your shoes out in service, and feel your heart swell beyond it's capacity with love. Enjoy being horrible at something, and know that it's more than ok. You are good enough to be yourself. Own who you are and what you ARE good at. You will be pleased when you allow what you are not good at to slip away, and focus on the things you are good at. These things will be your service and legacy to the world. It will be all the work and sweat and tears that you poor into this service that will be your gift. Try all the things you are not good enough for. Try them at least once. Then you will know how to best serve those around you. Variety is the spice of life, and not being good at everything makes you a better person.

Nothing But This Moment Matters

You are here. You are where you will always be. This moment in time; the only one that will ever matter because it belongs to you. If you do not own this moment in time it will never come again. You need to shine like you have never shone in your entire life. Like the world could not survive without your brightness. This doesn't mean you are the only one shining. You need to light everyone around you on fire. There needs to be something inside you that recognizes that you will not always win, but that in losing gracefully you light the fire of the winners. Be that wonderful image of dignity that makes everyone around you want to share in the moments you exist. There is no other moment in your whole life that will shine like this one. Come win or lose. You may lose in love, but you will be the brightest light; inspiring everyone around you to be a hopeless romantic just one last time. You may lose in business, but you will be the light of inspiration for other entrepreneurs. You may lose in many things, but if you are willing to own the moment you are in, and embrace it. . . You will never be more happy than in that moment. You may also win in life. Be sure that when you win that you lift others around you. Bring everyone you are able to into this moment. Because nothing else is so important you must lift everyone around you into the beauty of the moment. Sad moments will happen, find the beauty in it. There is beauty in every moment; including the dark ones. Find that beauty no matter how hard it is to find. Bring it into the light of who you are and enjoy it. You will be lonely, and you will be confused. These are beautiful moments in time. The diverging of two roads and you get to pick one! How wonderful to be able to have no distractions as you conquer the moment you are in. No matter the outcome; when you belong in your moment you end the victor. You will be amazing, and you will be loved. Not everyone will see that, or feel the same. Everyone will envy your ability to be comfortable in your moment. Be, in this moment.

1 A.M. And Nobody Can Sleep

There will be people who upset you. They will hurt your feelings. It's going to make you mad, and sometimes you will be so offended you wish you could just destroy the person. No, not vaporize them. Destroy them. Show them for the fraud they really are. Or, more importantly, the fraud you think they are. You are not perfect. Neither am I. I take offense. I get my feelings hurt. Things bother me. It's called life! Finding an outlet for those things is what keeps us all sane. We can get up, go to work, and smile at the people who have wounded our feelings because they heal after we let them go. For some people they can run it off. Others need a touch of violence and shoot paper targets, or obliterate punching bags. Some of us write, or dance, or sing. I have a sister who would get upset and start baking bread. It was delicious! Kneading the bread burnt through the pain and frustration and allowed for a healthy release. Personally I have more than one outlet. Through my life I have used several. Sometimes I danced it off. My most beautiful choreography came from the pain of my abuse. My need to express the hurt, and my longing to be free. Other times I have written about it. Shedding the layers of distrust, and frustration through sentence after sentence of words. Occasionally I can get away with photography. The point is that these activities allow the emotion to be captured. Literally. It is a snap shot to everyone else. To me it is everything I do not wish to hold inside. All of those thoughts and feels wrapped into a cohesive, or not so cohesive, paragraph, pleá, or blurred image. I leave them there. Allowing that place to be the only place they exist. For a long time this will not make sense. But you will see the prudence in it as time goes. And it always goes. Without a healthy outlet the human body will absorb those emotions. Which by technical definition are nothing more than hormones, and electrochemical responses in the system. It's why there can often be a confusion between the emotion of a moment, and the spirit of the moment. They are not the same. Learn their differences. By allowing those chemicals and electric charges to be present for long periods affects the body. When allowing a negative charge, and chemicals to remain we break down the tissue on a very atomic level. It wears you out! Those are the moments when using the technique that releases them into a captive moment in time you trap them outside yourself. Away from you they can be seen for what they are. Things to be gotten over, and left in the past. Do not drag them forward to weigh down the very cells of your body. Let them stay contained in the moment of somato-emotional release. I'm not saying I'm perfect at this process, but I have learned its value and I make attempts to use it as often as possible; albeit at the expense of some relations yes. But I swear to you it is worth it! To be able to forgive both myself and anyone affected. To walk away clean, without any of those bad miserable chemicals running through my blood wreaking havoc. It feels lighter. Now, along with doing this yourself I implore you to recognize when others do it. Do not hang on to their container of hurt. Let it set where it lies. Do NOT over compensate, attempt to make amends endlessly, or throw yourself to their mercy. People get hurt. Though you shouldn't intentionally ignore their hurt, I wish you to not keep bringing it up. It's almost just as hurtful to continue to walk on eggshells around them as the initial injury. Granted not everyone can let go like I try to, but it's wasted energy. People will see the attempts and either abuse them, Mia-interpret them, or be annoyed by them. I have been guilty of intentionally avoiding people because they tried too hard to avoid offending me. Which inevitably offended me. I am a paradox, I don't like the confrontation of a used car salesman, but I can not abide a person who fawns over me with the desire to not offend! Having grown up in an opinionated family; I believe that everyone will be offended at some point. The important thing is to not intentionally offend. Accidents happen. And with proper outlets everything can be forgiven. If I can forgive the Major for what happened during those 6 years I can most certainly get over having my feelings hurt. It will not be the last time either! The world will not see things my way! I'm not perfect, so it bloody well shouldn't! Se le vie. So is life. In other words; put your smile on, saddle up, and get over it. Find a way to let it go. To leave it in the past where it belongs. There are too many things happening around you to be focused on that. So yes, I get my feelings hurt. You will too! I hope that it happens regularly so you can practice letting go of what hurts, and embracing what lifts you up. Find your outlet, make it a healthy one, and don't let anyone change it until you're ready for a new one. And when you hurt someone's feelings, apologize. Then help them let go of the hurt by moving forward WITH them. If they are ready to move past it, don't keep groveling! Walk beside them to a place where it has been healed. You will both be glad you did. And if the person can't let go and you are more than ready to move on.... Go without them. But know that they will never follow you. If you feel that someone who has offended you can't move past it, help them to walk with you into the future. Don't let them debase themselves by dwelling on what hurt they caused you. It diminishes your character and makes them look foolish and weak. Help make them strong. Life is full of disappointments. Deal with them, and let the scars heal. Scars create strength. If you keep moving the scar strengthens without binding. You retain movement and life, and build strength.

Puppy dogs, and Mud

There is a very simple concept that eludes most of humanity as a whole. The idea of exactness in obedience. I'm not talking about slave labor. I'm talking about following the rules that are set down by human decency and compassion, and charitable nature in life. The concept that by exact obedience to laws there are magnified opportunities for happiness. You can not expect another person to live so that YOU can have freedom of will. Your choices are your own. No one else should have to accept the out come. It's the old adage 'your freedom ends where my nose begins.'. Forcing someone else to accept your life choices and your consequences, purely for your own selfishness, is corrupting the most basic of all our human desires. Freedom. I will stand against anyone who forces their lifestyle on me. I will rebel openly against anything that tells me I MUST accept another persons choice as my own. I would hope that you will too. Do not be confused by the common confusion of teaching and enforcing correct principles with the forced opinions and choices. There are times in our young lives when it would seem that our parents are forcing their decisions, or lack thereof, on us. We feel the burden of their consequences and blame them for forcing us into things we do not believe. Some of that may be true. Whether you are a Prima Ballerina, or a star Quarterback, or a Musician will matter little in the long run. Those things make be the affects of their own choices, and you will most certainly feel the shadow of their hurt at not having tried hard enough, or having not had the opportunity. But in doing things that require discipline your parents are teaching you to wait. It is hard to wait. It is a good thing to learn to wait. It is also a good thing to learn to listen, and to say 'thank you', and to work hard, and to respect your body, and serve willingly, and be compassionate, and to be honest full of integrity. You will do many things that feel like your parents are controlling your life. If they have half a brain, and most of their heart they're "control" is merely a training exercise in these qualities and much more. You will be better people, and better human beings because of these things. Learning to do these things that you are asked with exactness in your obedience you will learn quickly to be a better person than your parents. That is the ultimate gift. Your work will become easier, the load lighter, and most importantly you will be happier. Exactness in obedience is hard. Yet there is nothing that will bring you sweeter joy, or more soothing peace than that. If I could hope for anything for you as my children it would be this; that you would be exact in your obedience.

You're An Idiot

Sometimes I sit and wonder at the type of children I will leave the world. I think about how they will behave, and how much of that behavior I will have a say in. I wonder if the things that I teach them will be who they become, or if they will run to the opposite end of things just to get away. I wonder at how I will screw them up in totally different ways from the way that My parents screwed me up. Every parent does the best they know how. Inevitably, and without exception, it screws their kids up in some small way. Who will the people I create be? How will they change the world we know? What will they think of me when they're old enough to sit on a laptop and blog about what rattles around in their head? I am the Youngest of 14 siblings. We are a blended family. We are strong, religious, and bonded. each of us has a role we play. We have a Diva, a Nerd, a Musician, a Teacher, a Passive Aggressive, a Blunt, a Cutie-Pie, a Jock, a Special, etc. You get the point. Me; I don't have a place. I've messed up a lot which you would think would make me the "screw-up". But I'm not. That role was taken before I got here. So all in all, I'm the LAST person most people in the family would come to for advice. I don't know anything. Here is what I know. It isn't enough to find a man who CAN take you to the temple. You must find a man who WILL take you. This world is falling apart, and it isn't going to get any better. Now I'm not saying it's all doom and gloom. I'm saying it can't. Literally. All those times you got told to go clean your room, and you didn't know where to start? you kinda look around, zero in on something cool. . . that's where you start. Suddenly the room is full of junk, and you're cleaning and sorting, and making SO much progress! . . . then you turn around and look at the room. It's a disaster! things get worse before they get better. So it's not getting any better! that means you must have, not only a companion who say's they're willing, but is actually worthy to take you to the temple. It wont make sense for a while. And you will spend MANY hours alone. you will feel like you are worthless because if you had value, or were worth marrying some one would've found you by now right? You'll look at the people who pay attention to you and long for their companionship. It's a trap. The right person is out there feeling just as lonely as you. But if they can't take you to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity than they were never the person God intended for you. It will be the most miserable time in your life. . . or so you think. I spent a very long time "looking" for Mr. Right. I married the wrong guy because I figured it had to be good enough, and he COULD take me to the temple ... eventually. It ended badly, and lets face it I wasted a lot of time being married to the wrong person. I spent 3 years crying myself to sleep trying to understand why I had to be alone. When all I had ever wanted was to be a mother, I was the one without a husband, or even a boyfriend to give me children! I watched nieces, and cousins, and siblings raise children and complain about the burden. I doted on a dog who had become my only release for my mothering instincts. I prayed harder than I had ever prayed in my life! I tried desperately to understand. I tried dating men who could've taken me to the temple if they wanted to change their lives. I kept trying to figure out how to "fix" them. I was lonely, I was depressed. I gave up. No really, I gave up. I had stopped researching how to have children. I started researching dog breeding, and the housing market. Talked to a Mortgage Broker in San Diego, Ca about buying a house. Looked at what I was going to need to start a life as a "forever alone" woman. The Crazy Dog lady. That would be my title. I would wear it proudly. I would treat my dogs like children, and let them swim with me, and sleep in my bed, and eat at my table. I was settled with the idea that I would be single. I'm not talking about just saying " ok Lord, you win... I'm ready to be single." and secretly hoping inside you still had a chance. I had given up to a point where I didn't even mention it to him anymore. I just stopped trying. I stopped looking, and I started planning for my life as a Single Woman. I was going to make it! About 2 years into my plan God dropped Kendall into my life. it took me 2 years of hard work to be a self-sufficient, independent woman for Him to believe I meant it. But because I had finally decided not to settle I ended up with a man who not only COULD take me to the temple, but WOULD. And would do so often. Kendall made it a point to go as often as we could. That was more than worth the wait. I can honestly say I would live through the heartache, and misery, and loneliness ( and there was more of that than I could ever fathom communicating), and depression just to have Kendall. I would do it all again, and only change one thing. I would be lonely, and miserable longer. I would forgo the wasted relationships that just prolonged the agony, and get straight into the loneliness and the giving up. Embrace it. Love it and enjoy it. Find comfort in the loneliness by building your relationship with you Father in Heaven. He will teach you what a real man feels like when he enters your home. You will begin to recognize His presence in your life and when the one who is supposed to be your eternal companion walks through your door. . . it'll hit you like a ton of bricks. You'll know him because he knows your Father in Heaven, and it is written on his soul.