What was, has now changed...

I woke up this morning hoping to sleep in. But instead my mind was bombarded with thoughts of my past life and future. You see, when growing up I was a classic girl who dreamt of getting married and having a family. I always felt it was what I wanted to do. College came and I dropped a long relationship from high school that wasn't going anywhere. But the naivety of it all was that deep down I wanted to marry to make certain things we had done together "right." I only wish now that I would have had the courage to listen to what my parents had said. I used the word "courage" because it means acting in one's beliefs in the midst of fear and danger.

Often as teenagers we want to defy our parents, to prove them wrong because for some reason we think that they just don't understand. Who cares if they endured teenage years... right? They don't know anything! Yet as a teenager, we have the time to find out who we are and what we believe in because once you are out, there is no more free meal ticket. I had values and things I believed in, but went against them only because my parents agreed with some of them. It was to blatantly say "No, I'm going to show you you're wrong." So I guess if I could write myself a letter back to when I was 14 years old This is how it would go:

1. Do not worry about not being "cute" enough to have a boyfriend. The time will come, just be patient and enjoy being young (boys aren't all their cracked up to be).
2. Attempt to listen to what parents have to say and realize they have many more years on than you do.
3.Appreciate time spent with family, always include them in your endeavors even if they get on your nerves.
4. Don't try so hard to be anyone else but you, friends will respect it.
5. Always have goals to pursue and take schoolwork a little more seriously.
6. Pray often and always, because God does answer prayers.
7. Follow your heart in what makes you happy and brings forth joy (and it's not boys), it is singing, laughing, dancing, and living life.
8. Never take your relationship with God for granted, because in the end He will ALWAYS be there. Friends and family will come and go, but God truly is the only forever. We are tainted, and no one else can fill the void but God. It is not in things of this world, but in the relationships we make and the lives we impact.

A poem for people that changed my life

Take That – laura vanbuskirk

They say that the past cannot hurt

It reminds me of the sorrows,

The pain felt, and broken choices

The small town places and ghostly faces

Putting people down behind closed doors

Being in confined spaces that created traces

Keeping up tabs, remembering scores

As I would walk by, naïve to the “T”

You’d pretend to smile behind clenched teeth

It used to unsheathe sharp bitterness

But now I disagree, so thank you for the memories

For I would not be me, you see?

You can’t hurt me anymore, I’m happy.

Pondering on Photos

Instead of doing my usual nothingness, I chose to go downstairs and peruse old pictures from family scrapbooks. It brought to mind how blessed I have been and even though my family has been cracked, broken, and pieced back together, our parents did the best they could. I have two brothers, two sisters, a stepbrother and stepsister, along with two half-brothers that are almost three years old. Both parents re-married and my dad's wife brought in her two kids and my mom had twins later on with her husband. I was the second oldest of them all and was in 8th grade at the time. Complicated was an understatement for our family. Yet, while flipping through pages of pictures, I saw smile upon smile of happy, silly, goofy kids. Venyce (my stepmom) looked over and said "that's a nice picture of you and Brooke", and I thought yeah but I hated her at the time. I was too young to understand the trials and tribulations my parents went through and I was not able to comprehend many situations in a logical mature manner because I was a teenager! I see so many young adults now and it scares me, it scares me to have kids because I do not want to be treated the way many parents are, like stupid dirt that is thrown and manipulated to whatever shape they want.

I guess all I wanted to say is love and appreciate your parents and do not take them for granted. The day will come when you find out who your true friends are and your family will still be standing at the doorway waiting. But family relationships are not easy to uphold, you need to put your heart into each and every one. Just communicate and be honest. As a teenager, we are supposed to rebel a little and get grounded a few times, thats normal, but remeber everything you do follows you into adulthood>>> good and bad habits. I might feel so strongly about this issue because I moved away for college to a completely new world. No family was nearby and distance truly made my heart grow fonder for my siblings. I remember crying one day because I had called to talk to a sister (Anna) but she was too busy hanging out with high school friends, she didn't realize how much I looked forward to our conversations. Years later Anna had finally graduated from high school, was attending college full-time and working full-time. She called me crying and apologized for the way she had previously treated me because she finally realized how I had felt. Make the best with what time you have now, who nows where you will end up tomorrow or ten years from now.

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."   ~Anthony Brandt

Hello World

It's Sunday and I should be going to church but I just found out how to make a blog and I think this is going to be fun. Right now it is freezing cold and I don't like that because I still haven't gotten used to the cooler weather in Farmington as opposed to Las Cruces, NM. There is a positive though, I do not have to drive down I-10 everyday to smell the feculent dairy farms. I never was able to get accustomed to that and moving back with my parents was a blow to my pride, but I was not moving forward in life down in Cruces. Sometimes God puts obstacles in your life to get you onto the right direction.

This weather brings to mind a fonder memory, the last time spent with my Grandpa Thompson up in Medicine Hat. He died about 7 years ago from cancer that began in the bladder and entered into his lymphatic system. When I visited that winter break he was tiny and thin, not the strong Grandpa I had remembered, but his face said it all! He was happy to see me and though he did not have long, his love and attitude displayed to me a kind of power that was far beyond the shadows of death.

When times become hard and I let my emotions and anger get the best of me, I think back on how my Grandpa approached life and that instead of a frown and down-on-luck view, I should be counting my blessings and loving the moments shared with family and friends.