Brain Dump

I’ve done a lot of learning, thinking, trying to improve myself. i’ve looked at many different perspectives, considered differing ideologies and perspectives. I’m trying to do my best. I’m overwhelmed being a mom to Mo and Q and Atti. I want to be ahead but never seem to make the right decisions.

WHY?

I’m starting to wonder if I really want to change, or if I’m just comfortable being frustrated, muddling through. Amy I scared to really take charge, to grow into what I purport to want to be? Am I afraid to commit to what I’m truly capable of? Am I afraid that, if I do actually go for it, I might find that I am, in the end, not actually capable of all of the things I have told myself I can actually do?

I have all of the information I need. Why is it so hard to step up and just DO IT??

I told myself…

Today was another REALLY awful day. Wonderfully enough, my students made it better. However, I’m absolutely exhausted. Emotionally, physically, spiritually.

You know, in the past, this has ALWAYS happened when I’ve been on the road to something I’m supposed to be doing with my life. When Father approves, Adversary gets nosy and steps right in.
It’s been a little while since it’s happened, and I do remember, several months ago, thinking audibly about waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Dangit, Adversary. You suck.

He really knows how to catch us off guard when things are feeling like they’re goign in the right direction.

Yesterday, it was SO wonderful to be in a classroom with actual string players again. Kids who were watching me, eager to learn. It was empowering, and it reminded me of my love for directing musical ensembles. I felt reinvigorated, ready.

Then this mornign happened. And it became VERY hard, today, to remember that energy, that excitement, that love.

I listened to a Conference talk by Peter Johnson called “Power to Overcome the Adversary”. It really helped to get knocked back to my senses…I realized what was going on. It didn’t help my mood or my exhaustion, but it did help me understand. And that’s the first step to remedying the situation.

Oh friends, how I wish I had the energy to snap myself out of this hard place.
At least I won’t let it push me any farther. Thanks for that, bro. Johnson.

Tonight, I need to get some singers together for Sunday. And find a piece to play. And one for Scott.
Here we go with life…

❤

K

I just don’t know

There’s a line from “Miss Saigon”–

“There are days. There are days where your life clouds over, and the world gets so dark that, all at once, you can’t tell night from day…”

I know, for sure, that some days will be awful, nearly unbearable, and some will seem ecstatically wonderful. That this life is an exercise in learning the tools of the Gospel so that we can meet each situation calmly, with security of heart, even if we don’t actually know how we’re going to get through it.

I know, for sure, that there is a force that works nonstop to make us feel that the good we do, and the good in our life, and our strengths and positive character traits, are minimal, are not useful, are moot, are defective, are less than the overbearing darkness of humanity, and of the world.

We’re constantly under attack, especially if our light shines the way for others.

Today was the worst day.
I couldn’t get my head to a better place.

Better days tomorrow.

Authority

For the second time, I went with the sister missionaries to teach a gentleman from Ghana.  He asks us to call him “Echo”.  He is in the beginning stages of his quest to find truth in a church, and in joining in his education over the past two days, I found myself wondering about authority.  One of his questions tonight was, why are there so many Christian churches if they tend to teach (essentially) the same thing?  Is there something different about the Latter-day Saints and what our church teaches?  Why does he need to be baptized again?  It’s a valid question, and one that, initially, I didn’t have an immediate answer to (which made me feel pretty foolish, honestly.  Why had I been baptized if I couldn’t call up the immediate reason for that baptism?  There are the obvious reasons–feeling at home in a church, loving the people who are there with you, comfort in the way that a pastor, priest or leader presents a message…but all of these things are human reasons, social comforts.  And I knew that those things were not the reasons that I, at 30 years old, had decided to be baptized for the last time.)  No, the reason that there are so many churches is because the original teachings that Christ brought to us were passed, en masse, in one complete, finished package to his apostles, and those pieces were eventually scattered, passed on in an incomplete manner, retaught and interpreted incorrectly, or lost entirely.
I think about my students.  There are only so many ways that they can be expected to retain the information I teach in a complete, unadulterated form–

Not love

I’ve had friends who really hurt people.  People they know, people they love.  People they know but don’t love.  In all of those situations, I can only imagine that it would have been nearly impossible for the injured parties to forgive, let alone see the good in, let alone love, the person who hurt them.  When we’ve been injured it’s sometimes REALLY hard to get back into a positive situation with the offending party.  Of course, that’s mostly and more often the fault of the offender, but it’s also our choice to make the effort to see the picture from the other person’s perspective.  We all make choices for a reason.  There is a series of events that leads each of us to the place where we are and compels us to choose one way or another, and sometimes, the way back from those choices is hard.  Sometimes, either because we’ve gotten in too deep or made too difficult a choice, we never come back.  Sometimes, we are changed forever (for the good or ill). Sometimes, we run out of time to be able to change.  Sometimes, we run out of time to be able to change ourselves to the point where we can forgive.

The friends who I have known who have seriously hurt others became friends with me after their choices had been made, but in almost all of the cases, I knew the offended party too, and could see the difficulty from both sides.  And, in not being on the receiving end of the hurt, it was much easier for me to look at them through loving eyes.  I really think this is one of the reasons why we are put on this planet with families, and with so many other, diverse personalities–when we are in close proximity with only one or two people, when we make mistakes, it becomes difficult to heal.  When we feel scrutinized or looked down upon, it often makes it hard to recover when the only person we can look to is the one who hurt us.    Or the one who we hurt.  We are here for each other, and often it takes someone who is outside of the picture to see us in a better light, to give us fresh perspective, and to offer a safe place where we can consider our situation, and perhaps, change.  Heal.  Help, grow.

There are, of course, people who are good enough to be able to offer that safe place, even after they’ve been hurt.  People who are truly good enough to be able to shoulder damage done to them and still love the offender without reservation.  I am not one of these folks.  Not yet.  I’m trying, and I WISH…I wish so much…that I had learned to appreciate that kind of forgiveness when I was younger.  I wish I had learned to see another person’s journey and perspective and be able to take that into account when I am hurt…but after almost 30 years of being critical of others, it has been a hard journey to another, better place.  I struggle every day.  I struggle most with the people who I am closest with.

It is so much easier to become this kind of forgiving soul when you are surrounded by people who are the image of what you want to be.  I love church so much because I get to spend a few hours in that kind of situation.  I love the temple because NOTHING invades that peace in the hour or two that I sit and listen.  I wish I were better.  I wish, for my son, that I could forgive the people that I know I love…but right now, I really feel like I don’t love them because I have not arrived at a place where I instinctively act with love.  And that makes me feel really…small.  Really imperfect.  I know I’m imperfect, and everyone else is too…but I hate it.  And I hate this fake not-love that I keep trying to put on because I haven’t yet arrived at the place where I can forgive or speak lovingly to a couple of the people that I should love.

I’m trying.  I wish I could get there faster.
But I can only work at the pace that my heart and mind can work.  I do, however, know that, if I honestly and earnestly go to Father and ask to be better, that he’ll teach me how.  I can be better.  We can all be better.
Today, I’m sad because I’m not a good family member.  I know someday I’ll be better, but well, one day at a time…

Excelsior.
“These things I have spoken to you that, in me, you might have peace.  In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer–I have overcome the world.”

Step one…

Cleaning is almost accomplished.  I have almost gone through and organized every box, crate, folder, and pile of stuff that I own.  The last step is, really, organizing the sheet music.  Ugh.  But then…it’s done.  Then I can move on to the bigger stuff…

❤
Excited.

One.

I have a lot to say and not enough time to say it.  So I’ll start with one thing…

My list of what I want to accomplish:

1.  Marry, blissfully
2.  Buy our own home
3.  Become debt-free
4.  Have two children
5.  Start a charity
6.  Get a Ph.D.
7.  Get my entire belongings organized, boxed, tagged
8.  Write a series
9.  Get my voice back
10.  Fix all of my physical ailments
11.  Do an extensive family history
12.  Learn to act
13.  Open a successful Etsy shop for my crafts/art/sugar work
14.  Do much music in my church
15.  Bring large bodies of segregated people with similar interests together to share in our communal bounties.
16.  Start one or more consistent blogs
17.  Work out, consistently.  Be buff and healthy.
18.  Learn to dance.  Really dance.
19.  Truly change, until it doesn’t take effort.

Step 1:  Clean.

❤

Five minutes.

I only have five minutes.
I just wanted to say (because I’m having a hard time with the world and self-image today)…
I have been thinking, today, about when women post pictures of themselves on social media…I almost never see them without makeup, flattering clothes, or without the more rotund or stigmatic parts of their anatomy carefully edited out of the photo.  And why?  I haven’t figured it out entirely…when people comment on your beauty in such a photo, they’re commenting on how well you put paint on your face, or how much they want to get you in bed.  If they really wanted to comment on your beauty, they’d ask for a picture of you in your everyday habitat, no makeup, freshly showered.  I have thought about it quite a bit, and I would be very happy if no one ever commented on how I look, ever again.  What do looks accomplish for us?  Does our beauty make us intelligent?  Does it help us solve problems?  Does it make us able to play an instrument or paint or draw or type or write well?  Does looking good in makeup allow us to teach our children well, or help us to budget our time or finances?  Does it make us better able to grow food, build a house, clothe our family?  Does being beautiful have any genetic link at all to having abilities, talents, spiritual/social/intellectual gifts?
No.

I think, really, that I would be absolutely in utopia if no one ever again commented on how others look…ever…but rather just quested after people who they can’t stop talking to…people who make them laugh all the time, people who are interesting, intelligent, curious, resourceful, helpful…

That would be an amazing world.

“8:35am Cynicis…

“8:35am
Cynicism and sarcasm have no place in a world of HOPE.
They restrict progress, perpetuating stereotype and chaining minds to bitter perspectives.
Abandon these easy mockeries of personal opinion for a freer mind, and a world full of possibility. Take advantage of your great worth and ability to change your world–leave cynicism and sarcasm behind.
Embrace HOPE.
Give people a light to follow.”

Thoughts from my little blonde head…#3

“10:31am Every …

“10:31am
Every day is an opportunity to create yourself anew.

Friends and family will doubt, they will say it won’t last. People who know you will be skeptical, if only because they aren’t sure they’d ever be strong enough to do it themselves. But you are.
You ARE.
And you will prove them all wrong, to their surprise and delight, by your utter commitment to yourself. Because you know that you can do better. And you will do better.

Don’t give up, loves. Don’t give in. And don’t accede to the doubts of the many who have not your heart, your perseverance…prove them all wrong. And be the happier and stronger for it. And be a proven light to others.”

Quotes from my little blonde head…#2