hi...I'm back (emotionally heavier post)

So it's been not quite two weeks. I must say it's better than I have been in the past. Sometimes I need to remember that people still read my blog (thanks, Kendra!:D). I mean, I know you do...but still... It's not like I'm like, hey I have a super exciting life. Let's post *every* day. Some days it's all I can do to post a Facebook status update. With all the technology our society currently enjoys, that would bring a 'wow' from some of y'all. No, I'm kidding.

These past two weeks have seen me fall more into a dazed slump and eventual breakdown. Not that there haven't been a few highlights here and there: I had a lunch date with my dear friend Erin on Tuesday. She and her darling baby boy David were out from Atlanta, visiting her parents (who live in my neighborhood). So that was fun :). I also had a kick awesome Relief Society campout last weekend up Maple Canyon. It was just an overnighter, but it was tons of fun. Sorry I don't have any pics, my camera decided it didn't want to come along. I guess I'll have to borrow some of the pics from friends on Facebook. About a week and a half ago, we had a YSA activity where one of the bishopric members flooded his yard from the irrigation ditch at the back of his property and our ward played in it. I got soaked and covered in cut grass. It was awesome. I also went to a Wacky Black and White themed party last Saturday at my friend Melissa's house. That was fun too. Man, I forgot how much fun I had.

Here's where the serious dazed slump and eventual breakdown comes in. My thoughts are scattered, so forgive me if this is all over the place. The beginning erosions occurred last Wednesday when I got a call back from Mountainland Headstart Preschools about coming in for an interview on that Friday for the position of a teacher. Sounds awesome right? Why would *this* be considered an erosion?!? I was fine until Friday. After the interview, I was bombarded by every thought under the sun about why I didn't deserve this job or why I wasn't going to get this job. Yet, there was nothing done during the interview that indicated what they thought of me as a candidate. I was treated fairly and kindly. Alone with my thoughts, the feelings of the past flooded over me. I guess I just shoved them in the back of my mind and they were never ultimately personally resolved. Lack of success. Inadequacy. Incompentecy. Guilt. Shame. I'd say that was a fun killer right there. My once care-free, chill, hakuna matata disposition, which I'd been absolutely loving, was gone in 5 seconds flat. In my mind I was blaming Mountainland for something they hadn't even done to me. I was depersonalizing this institution as people who were already seeing me as an inadequate, unqualified teacher when that wasn't true and they really had no idea about my past history. My personal demons were having a Mardi Gras in my head and it was terrible. It's ironicly funny that all this would be going through my head when I didn't even know whether I had a job yet. However, coming to this conclusion of reality helped me with my perspective.

I was thinking while showering this morning and I discovered that I'd gotten into the habit of going through the motions. That my real MO (modus operandi) was "Be Cool. Be Chill. Don't Think About It and you won't worry." This MO was formed because I was sick of worrying about things in my life. It led to becoming apathetic about the things I could change and more concerned about the things I couldn't change. Sounds backwards, doesn't it?

I've always struggled with change. My whole life. Elder Bednar's CES Fireside talk a couple of months ago was a home run. The concept that hit me the most being: See things as they really are. The true reality of situations instead of the skewed virtual personal ones that we can create. In these virtual realities, I am blocked from seeing the actual truth. The importance of discerning truth from error is absolutely vital. That is why it is a favorite tactic of the Father of Lies to use against us; to cloud our vision and distort our realities (The Screwtape Letters have surprising insight on this). Unfortunately, he's got my number. I should be screening my calls (heh, bad joke).

My emotional dam broke this morning, as my mother astutely observed that I didn't seem very happy about the prospect of this job and that it was looking like I'd felt I'd been pushed into it. That's very well what my body language could've been saying. I had enjoyed my summer, takin' it easy. Now it was time for me to grow up again and be an adult. I was more concerned with entertaining myself than working out a plan for my future. Because, you gotta have a plan. That's what life's about. If you don't have a specific plan, then you've pretty much wasted time and now what are you going to do with your life? That's what my interpretation of my mother's body language was at the time. I know she's concerned for me, sometimes it just sounds more like criticism than concern. I couldn't handle the rapid-fire this morning and it didn't help that I was already emotionally thin. Luckily, time and food heal most emotional wounds and I had my breakfast and sometime to express myself on my blog, so my feelings toward my mother are resolved. They usually are.

The possibilities of a job that carries a lot of baggage with it, business politics being one of my least favorite things, is a tough thing for me to wrap my head around. I just needed to get it out on e-paper. If I were to count how many personal revivals I've had in the past 12 years, I think I'd have to borrow other peoples' fingers and toes to do so. I'm feeling a need to get back into a book I bought several months ago by Ardeth Greene Kapp. It's appropriately titled, Better Than You Think You Are. Regardless of whether I get the job or not, I'm hoping the book will improve my spirits and motivation enough to make the mental transition back to adulthood a little easier.

I'm glad I could end on a positive note. I feel much better about life now, knowing I can move forward with a smile and determination to do better.