I was thinking.....

I heard a song the other day that made me start thinking.  The line that sunk deep was "don't look inside too deep cuz thats where my demons like to hide."  I got to thinking about how truly crazy it is that no one in this life will truly know what you think inside the  darkest, most hidden places of your mind and soul.  Now this is neither good nor bad, or maybe it is good AND bad.  Either way, an observation that made me contemplate myself - and others.
My brother turned 40 this year.  FOURTY!  I am sure that is not lost on him either.  To me it wasn't that he was old, far from it actually.  It was that it made me realize I am just a few years behind him.  On his birthday while he was hopefully have an amazing celebration of his life (to which he earned and should be very proud of) I was being highly critical of myself all day.   All I kept saying is "What the hell?"  I mean, I'm almost 35.  Shouldn't I be sure of who I am, where I am going and what I want out of life at this point??  Why am I still loosing my way?  Loosing my center?  Changing my dreams?  Learning my faith?  Why do I not take things more seriously?  Why do I not enjoy every single day with my family, friends, kids?  Why do I sweat the small stuff?  Why do I care so much about how I look?  Why do I care what others think?  Why does the past bother me?  Why do I waste even a second on things that will not uplift me?
I could go on forever...... like I did that day.  But I won't.  You get the point.  Sometimes I feel like that 21 year old girl I use to be in my head.  Shy, self-conscious, not good enough, not smart enough.  Does anyone else have this same fight?  I wondered all day.  It can't just be me that feels like two people, almost constantly.  The one that I am - at least the weaker, easier side.  And then there is the one I want to be.  She almost always wins, for which I am incredibly grateful.  She is strong.  She knows what is right and wrong.  She knows that the most important thing in life is her husband, her family and her faith.  She KNOWS this.  She knows that the looks will fade, and the body will get weak, and life on this earth  will end.  She knows in the end all she wants is to be with her family forever.  She will do anything to get it.
So why is it that I fight this battle?  Every time I think of this, as cliche as it sounds, all I hear in my head is "This is that natural man I talk about."  Sounds crazy, but it really is all I need to slap my mind back to center.  Even though I don't think I know the full depth to that sentence, I know it's true.  I know that the easiest route would be the most devastating.
The truth is, kids are hard.  Marriage is hard.  Having rules is hard.  Having financial requirements placed upon you is hard.  But really, isn't that the point??  Almost everything I can think of that is good for you, takes time to be easy, but once you have worked at it, the rewards are breathtaking.  I have a family to come home to at night.  I have a husband that is truly my best friend.  And even though we argue sometimes, and drive each other crazy, I would never want anyone by my side but him.  Ever.
My kids drive me crazy, and they take up tons of time and tons of energy and tons of money.  But then you walk into there room at night and you look at their sleeping faces, and just for a second they open their eyes, and you seen them smile-  You see them open their arms to you and kiss you and hug you.  There is so much truth in it, it warms your soul till it burns.  It is worth it.
I feel as though the weight of responsibility will crush me sometimes, and it's all I can do to not scream out "Enough!", I can't be responsible for this little soul, or making all the right choices!!
But I am, and I will.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that we WILL make mistakes..... I mean that's the point right??  My kids will make mistakes.  It is all part of the process.
My body doesn't hold up like it use too.  I demand a lot from it, and it doesn't give back like it use to.  My skin doesn't look like a 21 year old anymore, and I have to live with that.  I can't eat a whole box of cookies anymore and not gain weight.   This life takes from us.  If you think about it, it can be depressing.   I am realizing, now that I see my age worming its way into my life more, that is why God gave us the gospel.  Why he gave us families.  We don't have to face any of it alone.  We all bounce around like crazy people, but the crazy people we surround ourselves with love us no matter what.  They help us keep a controlled bounce,  so that we never bounce too far. :)

Bucket List

Ok, so I know its a little late.  We started the year off a little behind because we were all sick.  No more!  We are back on our feet, feeling great and ready to make life even more amazing.
So, yes, I can mark something off my bucket list.  It's going to sound a little lame, so you need a tiny back story to really appreciate.  My husband and I always watch Top Chef together.  They make scallops on this show EVERY DANG EPISODE!! For years now I have been saying that they look so good and that I want to try one.  Now, anyone that knows me and is reading this must be thinking, "But Crystal hates seafood."  That is still mostly true, and I am getting much more adventurous the older I get and am all about trying new things.  I wouldn't say I hate all seafood anymore, but I am a true Seafood Snob.  Nothing but the best seafood if I am going to eat it.  Proud of it:)
Back to the scallops.  My husband took me on a date the other night to The Bonefish Grill in Boise.  It was great!!!  I finally got my scallops (and amazing crab cakes).  As silly as it sounds, it made me really happy to have finally done something I have said I wanted to do for such a long time:)
Cheers to that!

Terror makes the world go round.....

In the past few days I have been contemplating a lot, along with the entire nation I would guess.  I have tried to avoid most of the media on it, all pictures, and talking amongst friends about it.  The tragedy in Connecticut has made me question a lot of things.
Having a kindergartener myself, this hit really close to home for me.  I volunteer at her school once a week.  I walk in the front doors, sign a meaningless sheet of paper while noting that no one in the office even bothered to look up to see who I was.  I throw a "Volunteer" name badge over my head and walk to my daughters classroom.  This tiny piece of plastic now makes me valid, this tiny piece of plastic around my neck now makes everyone breathe easier that walks by me and never thinks to ask why I am there.  That use to bother me before, that no one seemed to take more of an interest in who this person was entering the building.  Now, it terrifies me.
I was thinking about what kind of person that boy had to be.  I will not give him more notoriety by talking about him in a personal sense.  What he did is done, and in my opinion, he should never be talked about again.  My thoughts have been more general.  People keep talking about how we should be able to catch these people sooner.  The warning signs if you will.   Gun control always comes up, profiling, mental illness, all these things might have been a factor.
What makes a killer a killer?  Lets talk about warning signs.
1.  Abuse or hurting of animals.  Couldn't agree more with this....but wait.  My brothers use to blow up water skippers with firecrackers on the fourth of July.  I'm sure ALL boys did something like that.  They thought it was hilarious.   There was a cat incident in my family too.  Do those signs make my brothers more likely to do something like that?
2.  My son loves to play like his GI Joes hurt or capture barbies or his dinosaurs eat my daughters Little Pet Shop animals.  He captures them, or "ties them up" in a prison.  Should I take that as an early warning sign that he may want to torture?
3.  I know a little girl who is painfully shy.  Is she thinking evil thoughts as she looks at other kids, just wondering how to get back at them?
I could go on.  I have thought of dozens of examples I have seen in just that past 4 days.  I bring these things up because I was hoping to find an answer.  Hoping of finding a way to calm my soul so that I could once again feel safe sending my children out into the world.  The truth is, I haven't found any.  I believe there are no answers as to why people do things like this.  There is no logically answer that could explain this, because what happened isn't logically.
My brothers are some of the most loving, stable people I know.   They wouldn't hurt anything.  My son, and that young girl are too little to know anything but happiness and love from their parents, which is their whole world right now.  Early warnings signs, to some degree, are a joke.  What happened is madness, and only the mad would understand how it could have been prevented.
I ache for those who lost, to the depths of my soul.  I feel anger and hatred boiling up every time I think about that boy who chose to think his troubles were owed some type of retribution.  How dare he.
All I can get from all this is that we have to trust God in everything.  That may seem to easy for some, but sometimes its all we have.
My first thought the morning of the shooting was how much it must of hurt God to watch one of his sons walking towards that building, knowing what he was about to do.  How much it must of hurt to watch him take the lives of so many of his precious children.  How much he must of wept, and still weeps,  for his grown sons and daughters who now have to live without a part of their soul.  He knows how much grief is erupting from our hearts.  A small comfort might be that those children understand the bigger picture now. They are no longer scared or lonely, they are with Him.
It hurts so much more for us, for those who lost.  We are yet to understand, and maybe never will in this lifetime.  What a comfort to know that you will see your little ones again.
All my prayers......

Dear Dad,

I think sometimes you must be glad you didn't have to watch me go through some of the things I did, or am still going through.  Being a parent now, it is agonizing to see your kids struggle or make the desicion you know is the tougher one.
Makenzie was told by her "friend" (that is a boy) at school that he was going to bring a pocket knife to school and cut all the girls.  Yep, that's right.  A 6 year old boy said that to my little girl.  I about drove the car off the rode when she told me.  Obviously my first reaction was to go find that boy and donkey punch him to the throat, but then my grown up side talked me out of it.  I mean really?  I don't get boys.  Frankly, I don't get men either.  They say one thing, and they mean another - or they expect us to know when they want us, and when they want us to leave them alone.  I know women get all the blame for being impossible to read, but I really think it has been labeled on the wrong gender.
I wonder how you were with mom.  All us kids think you were perfect and that you two never fought.  I always thought you were the perfect priesthood holder and always held family home evening, being super involved with us kids....etc.  Mom set me straight on that one a few months ago.  Not to say you weren't a great father, but she really spared Drew a bunch of heartache with holding him to an expectation that wasn't exactly spot on. :)
I'm just hanging on today Dad.   Tomorrow is church.  I'm really hopeful that my spirits will be lifted and I can be the mom and wife I hope to be.
C

Dear Dad

I wonder what you would say to me today.  I know you see that I haven't shaken off the failures of yesterday.  I just don't know how to do it today.
I wonder what you would say to me today.
Crystal

Dear Dad,

I failed her today.  Little Miss wanted to ride her bike again.  We haven't done it in over a week, so I was a little tense knowing how she reacts when her feet have to get wet again.  D is out of town.  He is always better at this stuff.  The being patience stuff.  The first fall she took wasn't a bad one.  It shook her confidence I could tell.  I gave her the pep talk about not giving up, and try try again - thinking that was what she needed to hear.  Off she went again.  It was obvious before she even picked her foot up that she was in her head, telling herself she couldn't do it.  Down she went.  This fall was a little worse, a minor bloody lip, stopped in just a few seconds.  I'm not even sure she knew she had one.  I so badly wanted her to realize that she had done this just a week before and rode all over the neighborhood!!  I wanted her to realize that she didn't have to wonder if she had it in her, she could KNOW it.  I started to get frustrated that she wasn't realizing her potential and she was missing out on all this fun she could be having.
The bike riding ended, her in tears and me frustrated and mad at myself for not knowing how to better handle this situation.  I'm her mom.  I should know what she needs, and how to give it to her.
At bedtime, I laid next to her and told her how much I loved her.  I told her I was sorry for not always knowing the right thing to say.  I snuggled her and kissed her and hopefully left her heart mended from the hurt I may have caused her today.
I sat on the couch tonight wondering why I couldn't get her to understand she was brave.  How could I get her to understand that believing in yourself is imperative to making it through school and life that she is being thrust into so quickly.  I thought about what you might say.  You might say being brave is exactly what Little Miss did in some ways.  She was brave enough to try, more times than she wanted to.  She didn't give up after the first fall, she tried 2 more times.  She didn't say she couldn't when she wanted to quit, she said she didn't feel up to it any more that night.  She was brave to tell me that she was scared.  She trusted me with her feelings.
Thats when the real sadness crept in.  The feeling that I failed her.  I showed her that her feelings weren't safe with me, and that I was disappointed in her for stopping.  How could I do that to her?   This was about more that just the bike ride tonight, it was about how I deal with her feelings.  She is such a tender spirit.  One that requires so much love because she is so vulnerable all the time.  I don't want that to change, ever.  I realized tonight how I need to change some things.  After the sadness, came the relief that I now know what I can do different tomorrow.  Tomorrow is a new day.
Love,
C

Demons

Last week I taught a lesson on how to find your personal testimony.  It was perfect for me, as I have struggled with this my entire life.  I am beginning to understand, with much regret, I will probably always have this cross to bear.  We all have our own. This is one of mine.
The lesson went better than I could have expected.  I prepared every day last week.  Studied my scriptures every night, prayed, I really felt like it was on my mind every step of the way.  All the time, this studying, was strengthening me.  The spirit was so strong that day in class.  The girls were engaged, I felt inspired on what to say, and when to say it.  It was such a great experience.
I came home refreshed, with a new found hope that I had been missing for too long.  I knew I had a testimony, and it felt so good to be grounded again.  I went into this last week with new direction, motivation and goals to do things better.  I was going to have the spirit with me, do things better by my family and by my Father in heaven.
Demons.  They know when to strike.  In my past, it is usually when I am feeling lost.  I didn't expect them this time.  I was not prepared for such an intrusion.  This week was one of the worst I have had in 10 years.  Things started off bad, and just got worse and worse until I was in a hole so deep and dark, I couldn't look up and see light.  My demons knew I was getting stronger.  They knew I was treading somewhere that terrifies them.
I read my Brothers blog today, questioning the intelligence of posting your journal online for the world to see.  To write your most personal thoughts in a place that has no beginning or end, no way to get them back once they are sent.  I loved his courage to do it anyways.  It gave me the nudge I needed to write more truthfully here.  I was always a little nervous to write about my journey through the gospel.  It is such a sacred, personal thing.  I believe the way for me to survive, to get through my dark times, to fight off the demons of my past and present - is to put them on blast.  I need to write about it, learn from it, and pick myself up again.  The times of joy are so easy to write about, and believe me, there are lots of those times.  I have found myself silenced by my own cowardliness when things get tough.  I have finally found no need to pretend there is no struggle.
What I have taken from this week is not that I have won.  No, that has not come yet.  It is that I am still here.  I have not given up hope.  I know that when my love of the Savior is growing, my trials seem to get harder, at least for now.  I am so very thankful for Sundays.  I need to be surrounded by the love that bolsters my testimony and gives me strength to rise up again, and do it better.