i'm just tired.

i haven't written a post like this in a really long time. somewhere along the way in growing my blog, i quit being vulnerable. even though i told you all yesterday that my most vulnerable posts are the ones i love the most, i somehow let those posts become rare. but this post is long overdue.....

this whole last year has been really hard. not the kind of hard that comes in the form of huge trials spaced close together. i haven't had to fight severe disease or tragic death or anything like that. not that kind of hard. but this last year has been the kind of hard that leaves me with an overall sense of......tiredness. of loneliness. of homesickness. of feeling like i'm doing everything i can and i'm not seeing any rewards.

it's more like a dull ache than a stinging pain.

now i'll admit, i've had some really great days and made some awesome memories. i've had the best roommates ever, and they make me laugh about 11 times out of 10. but over all i just feel so exhausted. i am so sick of constantly trying to make friends outside of this apartment. i feel like i've been trying to get used to this "new" home and this "new" ward for the last 10 months that i've been here. more and more frequently i find myself thinking "i just want to go home." only i don't even know where home is anymore, because shouldn't this place that i've been living for 10 months feel like home by now?

i've shared my favorite quote in the world here before, but i have to share it again:
"miraculously i have found that i have untold abundant sources of energy to be myself. but the moment i indulge in imitation of my neighbor i feel fractured and fatigued and find myself forever swimming upstream.....we will always have enough resources to be who we are and what we can become." -patricia holland

only here's the problem--i've run out of energy. i'm sick of being outgoing. i'm sick of going out of my comfort zone. i'm sick of being the person to instigate plans and sit with crossed fingers the whole time just hoping that people actually want to hang out with us. i'm sick of canceled plans and snapchat being the only form of communication. making friends here has felt like pulling teeth for 10 months now, and my energy is finally all used up.

you can't go back. i know that. i'm usually really good at living in the moment. but all i can think about is how badly i long for the days at CT when all the friends i ever needed lived just across the courtyard. we saw them, talked to them, hung out with them multiple times a week. it was so easy.

so i think i'm going to go back to being a recluse. sitting at home alone with a book or netflix sounds much more appealing to me than extending a thousand invitations that very few people accept. i have no energy left to make friends unless they're willing (and excited) to come to me. come join my comfort zone, maybe. then maybe if someone else puts in the effort i'll have more energy to leave the cave*. otherwise i'm just too tired.
*no, literally. my blanket is named "the cave".

read my most recent post for byu wsr here

barefoot.

it was 68° today. 

i walked to and from work and classes slowly, to soak up as much sunshine as possible. i had to dress up for a job interview, but i think i would have worn a skirt anyways, because the skin on my legs needed to feel the sun. 

i think i might photosynthesize happiness.

i had to walk to the byu conference center for my interview, and since it was quite the trek, i decided to take off my shoes and let my feet get me there on their own. the feel of my bare toes in the grass was a trigger for memories of last year at this time. i was the happiest that i've ever been in my life. i'd made these amazing friends that i now call my roommates. i was learning so much in my personal gospel study. and i was in the midst of my first (albeit short) romance. my apartment complex had hills and grass between each building, and i walked freely between buildings barefoot, despite the oddity. my spirit felt free then, and walking barefoot underneath the pink blossoming trees made me feel free too.

i didn't feel quite as free today. 

i was walking more on cement than on green grass. the pink blossoms haven't come out yet. and instead of my first young, and innocent romance, i'm nursing my first real heartbreak. 

but i felt strong out there in that world with no shoes on. i felt independent. i remembered what it was like to think for myself and only myself. to be in the silence of my own thought. to have dinner plans for no one but me. 

i felt both empowered and lonely.  

i could have gone home after my interview, but my current apartment complex has no grass to sit on outside, and to stay indoors would have been to strangle my spirit. so i sat down in the grass outside the library, all alone, ate an apple, and read a novel. a novel about a girl looking for love and finding herself instead. 

and i realized, i think that's where i'm at right now. finding myself instead. i'll be the first to admit that it's a lonely place to be. i miss coming home early to cook dinner for both of us and whoever else would let me feed them. i miss sitting at the living room desk doing puzzles. i miss always having plans. 

but in the past week and a half, i've done more for myself than in the last three months combined. and my quiet, healing heart is grateful for that. it's grateful for a barefoot walk across campus all alone. it's grateful for the good kind of lonely.

because sometimes you have to be alone to remember just who you are. 

sometimes being lonely makes you the strongest.

we are hardy stock.

thought i'd given up on blogging for good, didn't you?

so did i.

first off, an explanation: my first semester of college sure looks fun from the viewpoint of my blog, but in reality, it was a pretty miserable experience for me. i struggled A LOT with my self-confidence, not making friends, and feeling like i had no one to talk to. i spent way too many nights crying alone in my room, because i just wanted to go home to arizona. kind of dark days, people.

but.

i went home over winter break, figured out who i was again, prayed a whole lot, and knew that i had to make my second semester at byu better than the first. even though i wanted nothing more than to transfer to asu and stay in az forever, i knew that God had sent me to byu for a reason, and i needed to find that reason. so i went back.

and oh my gosh, you guys.

the middle of march found me crying myself to sleep again, but this time it was because my heart was so full of joy and love. there was absolutely no room for sadness in my life. with complete reliance on the Lord, somehow i had turned my life around. i made friends that are going to last a lifetime. i did better in school. i made room in my life for the perpetual smile that i had been missing for so long. and when it came time to come home to my beloved zona for the summer......i didn't want to leave.

the quote above, written over the beautiful spring blossoms of utah that i still can't look at without smiling, came to me at the best time possible.

you guys, sometimes you have to burn to the ground. sometimes things have to really, really suck. sometimes you have to be at absolute rock bottom, with just a sliver of hope left, to be able to appreciate the all-consuming love that can and will follow.

to be continued....