Unexpected

I have been thinking about two things a great deal lately: Life is wildly unexpected, and God looks out for us ALWAYS. Even when we are doing our best to make it on our own, a loving Heavenly Father is ready at any moment to catch us when we look up and say “Please? I have no idea what to do!”
If you had told me four months ago (the first week after V broke up with me) that I would not only be completely healed from that experience, but also just starting a relationship with someone I barely even knew at that point, I would have scowled at you and said that nothing was going to happen between myself and guys until after my mission (3 years in the future). Yet here I am, in that position. After moving through the stages of grief (some of them multiple times) and then throughout the phases of healing, I realized that I am whole again. The power of the Atonement took away a heartache I thought would take me many months to recover from.
This new relationship is very different from the last one I had. They are both good men, and I am incredibly grateful that I have had them both in my life. I have learned SO much! My first relationship (with V) was exactly what I needed at that point in my life. I grew immensely because of it, and I found out more of what I do and do not want as I look for an eternal companion. Heavenly Father watched over me through that experience, the breakup, recovery, and now my blossoming relationship with M.
M has been completely unexpected. We met a week before my breakup, got to know each other a little bit in January and February, and by the first week in March had full-blown hardcore crushes on each other. I FREAKED OUT. I like things to move slowly, and this certainly didn’t. I tried to put the brakes on, and that didn’t work. I got an answer to prayer, essentially in the form of “Calm down. This is a good experience you need to have. M is a good, worthy man. Enjoy it!” So I have. And I fell hard and fast for him. We mesh on some of the craziest, most bizarre levels. Like both being born at home and homeschooled all the way through to college. Or not wanting a TV when we find our respective own places. The list really goes on and on, but I won’t. We also mesh on the more basic, essential levels, like religion, goals, and respect. Basically, we make each other happy. It’s a wonderful thing. Life may go FOOMP in the near future (it usually does!), but that is no reason not to enjoy the moment. Life is unexpected, but God always has our best interests at heart.

Weddings!

My weekend can pretty much be summed up with the word “weddings.” LOTS of weddings. I was a backstage person, guest, planner, and strawboss in the course of 36 hours. I was able to help set up and decorate for H&B’s reception on Saturday morning. Then I was a guest at L&B’s reception. Then a guest/punch bowl attendant/tear down person at H&B’s. Sunday afternoon, I helped plan a wedding reception for M&J, where I was promoted to strawboss (wedding speak for the person in charge behind the scenes, so the bride is not all stressed out about centerpieces and other unimportant details). It will be the second wedding I have been “in charge” of, and the seventh or eighth I have helped with. Weddings run big in my family, with more than 25 years of accumulated knowledge and experience. You need wedding know-how? I gots connections.

Musings on food

Food is incredibly important to me. Not just to keep me alive, but to make it more worthwhile. I love being a good cook (there is a time for modesty in talent, and now is not it) because it makes other people happy. It is fun to cook for yourself, and find out what sorts of tastes and textures you prefer, but it is more fun to make someone else’s favorite dish and watch their eyes light up. I have fond memories of making chocolate chip cookies with a dear friend and watching him eat half the dough while we talked with a batch in the oven. Happiness and people are synonymous with food in my life. No celebration is complete without comestibles! Birthday cakes of various types of awesome (including, but not limited to: beach party scenes, castle sieges, sea monsters, and one particularly memorable pangolin), Dad’s mashed potatoes, apple pie for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving, and the first tomatoes out of the summer garden. Different, but all carrying some kind of wonderful memory.

Rambling about life

I realize that everyone is busy. The craziness in my life is no less or more important than anyone elses. It just happens to be what I am closest to. One of my common phrases is “My life just went Foomp!” This is what I use to describe those times when you have just gotten used to life as it is, and something new and crazy comes up. Case in point: I was called to be in my branch Relief Society presidency almost two months ago. This came one month after I started a new and crazy quarter at school, and two months after the breakup I was still healing from. I still have the “Foomp!” feeling. A lot of that has to do with my age; I feel like 20 means that I am still a little girl masquerading as a responsible adult. However, I know that I wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t where I needed to be right now. Isn’t that why we have experiences like this? To help us grow? Sometimes I feel like I could SEE myself growing and changing, like you can almost watch teenage boys grow out of their clothes overnight. When I think that it has been almost two years since I moved to Indy, I am amazed. In the last year alone, I have been through experiences ranging from incredible to stressful in the extreme. Life as normal, I suppose.

What's in a name?

This is a writing practice I did for my Com 1050 class last week. It is the only piece of writing I have ever gotten lost in.

“What’s in a name?” I remember very distinctly disliking my name when I was five years old. I asked my mother why my parents had named me Rachael, and if I could change my name to Amy Rose. My mother’s reply was that she and my dad thought my name was beautiful, and that I would be welcome to ask her about changing my name when I got older. I have no desire to change my name now, knowing as I do that she was right: I have a beautiful name. Names bring to mind images of many things. The name of a dear friend helps me see her face and memories that we have together. Names of places, foods, activities, all these make me think of times in my life and things I have done.
The name “Florence” takes me back to the spring of 2008, when I was traveling in Italy. It reminds me of the admiration I felt when I saw the David statue. I recall strolling over the Ponte Vecchio and admiring the jewelry with my older brother. Buying coconut gelato and listening to street musicians in the plaza as we ate it. Climbing a hill and seeing the entire city spread out beneath us in the misty twilight of an April night. Florence makes me think of roast boar and bread with no salt; of beautiful brown eyes and looking down on a tiny street from our third story room.
The season name “spring” always makes me smile. No matter where I am, I can close my eyes and see the patch of crocuses in my parent’s back yard, always the first herald of my favorite season. I hear the trickle of melting snow, smell the dirt as my father shovels up the garden beds in preparation for our summer garden. I feel the anticipation of my aunt’s annual trip out to see us; the laughter and conversation that follow her arrival. Most of all, spring brings to mind the immortal joy of reawakening from winter as the sun brings warmth and life back. What is in a name? All of life is contained in names."

Sociality, side effect of.

What odd things human dynamics are. In the last week, I have been pondering the effects of logic, emotion, hormones, and communication. This is mostly because I attend a young single adult branch, which is a lot like chess, the stock market, and NASCAR. I liken it to chess because each time you make a move in any direction, it affects the other players and you all have to rethink your strategies. The stock market gets a mention because everyone has “stocks” that go up and down in rapid succession. Finally, it’s like NASCAR in that it all moves VERY fast! One weekend away from the branch can put you very behind the times.
In the course of one 3 hour dance on Saturday, I experienced probably five different types of human dynamics: Friends (male and female getting their own categories), various stages of infatuation, disinterest, and mutual attraction/flirting. Brought into play were logic, emotion, hormones, and communication. It was fantastically interesting, exciting, and exhausting. There are times when I feel like I live in a Regency novel. Regardless, I have to say I LOVE MY LIFE!

There are days when I realize that being a people person is one of the best aspects of my life. This point was brought home to me after last weekend’s sleep deprived marathon of social activities. Starting off on Friday morning at 6:45 (a wakeup time that is almost unheard of in my world) and continuing through dinner with a friend on Sunday afternoon, I realized once again how much people enrich my life every day. My activities were many and varied, from offering service in the form of free chair massages at Go Red for Women to the spa “sleep” over (all four hours we got) to the Chicago temple trip and all of its awesomeness. I still have not recovered from this weekend. I am not sure I ever will, sleep wise. But it was worth every minute of lost sleep, and I will grin for a very long time over certain memories made.