So what? I'm still a rockstar...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_StaUBIsG64

Listen to that song and love it. Love it a lot, 'cause I sure do!

I'm a little tired, and a little heart-sick.

Today, I said goodbye to the best person I know. I will see her again, I know that, but the pain is still there. And it's very...painful (obviously)...and it's very real.

Thank the Lord above for best friends and for sunshine and for tender mercies. 

"No more a stranger nor a guest but like a child at home."

With utmost sincerity,
Kaitlin R.

...

I don't belong to this place. 

I don't feel a connection to this soil, these trees, the sidewalks. 

At home I knew where my feet would take me if I just walked. I knew what it felt like to stand in the grass in my front yard on summer evenings. 

Sometime I feel frozen. Sometimes I feel like those blasted trees will never blossom; never bloom. Some have started. But I don't look at the city from up on a hill and see green swaying. Sometimes I'm irrationally afraid I never will.

I want a thunderstorm. 

I want to go back to the days of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sometimes I miss ponytail Zuko. 

I want to feel connected to this place. I want it to not be a strangers land. 

I want to see mountains again, mountains...

Then I remember it's time to begin.

 It's not the place. It's perspective.

I don't always believe that though. There's a reason my roots are so close to a suburb sidewalk, to a quiet street, to the place where the mountain meets the valley. 

I won't get to see my home in Spring. It's rather nice when it's in Spring. 

Nicer in late summer and early Autumn. Thankfully I'll be home then. 

{I don't know what I did to deserve so much from you, Lord. I am thankful everyday, in every way I know how, and I know it's not enough. Please help me to be more thankful. Help me to endure my blessings.}

"Lord, grant me the patience to endure my blessings, and the courage to face them."

With utmost sincerity,
Kaitlin R.

Wilson!!!

{You know me like medicine companies know the flavor of fruit.

Which is to say, not at all.}

{But, you still do your job...so I suppose that makes up for it.}

{And I guess it's not your fault.}

Say hello to the week of Thanksgiving! It's weird that it's so soon...I feel like it should still be ages away.

But,

I'm thankful for monkey's and apple cider.

For blue jeans and grass.

For knowing looks and the orange glow of street lamps on wet sidewalks.

For my Savoir who's kind enough to keep reminding me, because I forget.

Way. Too. Often.

(Should that be 'to'?)

For my God who answers my prayers in ways I expect and ways I don't.

For mummy's and archeologists.

For Lemony Snicket and J.K. Rowling.

For C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

For faux leather boots and the word "fluffly" (which, technically isn't a real word, but whatever, right?).

For pears and pickles and parachutes.

For you.

With utmost sincerity, 

Kaitlin R.

 

I know it's gonna' be...

Whomever you are, there is a way back.

It does consist of going forward, and strangely enough, not turning back.

You will, of course, carry reminders. They're there for a very specific reason though.

To remember...

Still...it's better than carrying the real flesh wound with you for the whole journey.

The reminders get in the way sometimes. There are some who don't you to move on. They want you to fester and burn and break. They want you to think there is someplace like home; that it doesn't matter.

I'm sad to see you in a different place. You were getting there! Why did you go back?

{???}

But, remember what I said before?

There is a way back? And it consists of moving forward?

You know this. It's elementary...primary, really. *Cough, cough!*

So come home.

For your mother.

For your father.

For your Father.

For your Mother.

Come home for Him. He who knows the pains of permanence. He who know the hurt of hate. He who knows the details of doubt...

You may think I'm just saying this. You are wrong. I speak from experience.

There is a way back.

With utmost sincerity,

Kaitlin R.

Yes...

Yes.

I'm still here.

Sorry it's been so long.

 

{if lost, it can be found again, unless it's sunk into the sea.

if gone, it can come back again, though you never came to me.

if hurting, it can feel whole again, unless the time's too late.

if hating, you can love once more, because that is our fate. } 

It's sort of a depressing poem in some ways, but life's depressing in some ways.

On a brighter note, the church is true, the gospel is real, and our beloved prophet is truly a prophet of God.

Have grand adventures!

With utmost sincerity, 

Kaitlin R.

Too hard...

{"You tried too hard," he said.

"I know," she said. 

"But," he began, "it's okay, because you can begin again."}

I know my Savior Lives.

I love Him.

Yesterday I had the privilege to go to the Conference Center for the General Relief Society Broadcast.

While I was listening, a small hole in my heart seemed to fill. I found what I was missing, and I realized that I was foolish enough to believe that I had been missing something physical, something touchable.

I see now that I was wrong, because there is enough.

There is enough time, enough money, enough goodness to keep going.

There is enough love and hope and faith.

There is enough, because God never faileth.

Because God has steered this world since its existence, so why would He stop now?

With utmost sincerity,

Kaitlin R.

It's nice...

It's nice to know you exist.

To feel the breath going in and out of you.

To feel your heart beating.

Existence is excellent.

Like a cold breath of fresh clear air.

Existence is, of course, infinite.

We existed before, we will exist after, and we will exist always.

Read Gilead, a book by Marilynn Robinson. It's such a wonderful book. It talks about existence. It talks about life, and pain, and I guess in some ways they're the same thing. 

As The Man In Black said, "Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something."

And while I find that quote incredibly hilarious, I do not wholly  agree.

I mean, I agree that in life there is pain...lots of it...but that not the only reason why we're here. Yes, we have to know pain, but we have to know pain so we can know relief.

"She sat there then, looking out the window. Wondering why the world looked so gray. Life is more than just gray though. And in reality, there is no gray, there is only black and white...nevertheless, gray is such a lovely color." 

There is only black and white. Black and white in regards to the commandments of the Lord. There is no fence sitting. You are with Him or against Him. Living though, is meant to be so colorful. Why else would the Lord make so many colors. One of them gray, which happens to be one of my favorites.

Green and Gray...

One day I may write the rest of that sentence for you all to see.

But for now it is locked in my head and heart. And written many times in my journal.

I repeat it to myself every time there is a storm, and some days when there isn't one.

With utmost sincerity,

Kaitlin R.

 

Days uno and two...

The first two days of being 19 have been...interesting.

On Saturday I worked a booth at the "Utah Valley Women's Expo."

After two or three women getting annoyed and upset that we didn't have anything free to give out. I decided I didn't want to be there anymore. 

This morning I woke up with a stomach ache that I promptly tried to ignore, but was forced to acknowledge half way through Sacrament Meeting when it decided to be nauseous as well as incredibly painful. I stayed long enough to sing the choir song, then booked it home.

I am feeling quite better now after spending a good deal of time with a towel on my pillow, and at the bathroom across the hall.

The only thing I really hope is that these first two days aren't a precursor to the rest of my 19th year.

I was very blessed this week though. Blessed to have friends who care about me from miles and miles away. 

Blessed to get through pain and suffering.

Blessed to know my Savior.

Have a good Sabbath.

And please enjoy this picture.

With utmost sincerity, 

Kaitlin R. 

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Things to do:

1. Laugh every day.

2. Clean my room...then clean it again.

3. Make money so I can go to college. 

4. Actually get asked on a date instead of asking to be asked...

5. Figure out my visiting teaching situation.

6. Make money so I can go to college.

7. Remember that we can't go back because we were meant to go forward. 

8. Organize all the notebooks piled in haphazard skyscrapers around my room.

9. Make money so I can go to college.

10. "Serve God, love [others], and mend..." (Prize to the person who can tell me what that quote is from.)
 

Things to become:

1. Become a better laugher.

2. Become a better friend.

3. Become more loyal.

4. Start to learn how to learn to become a leader in my family. The one I have now and the one I will have.

5. Become a better writer.

6. Come to remember the knowledge that I am a Daughter of God. 

7. Become a better stayer-in-contacter...

8. Become a better woman.

9. Become a scholar.

10. Become to become.

Some of that was way random, but essential to my plan of focus and faith.

Cheers!
 

With utmost sincerity, 

Kaitlin R.