Hotline Bek

Right when life is seemingly perfect, Satan knocks everybody down while they're caught off guard. Luckily, I've been able to recover quite well after having those car accidents. Satan's made it abundantly clear that he wants me and my friends away from each other and more importantly, the church. As much as he's pulling and pulling, I won't let him take me away. I've seen what letting go does to people and I won't let that happen to me.

If this post offends anyone, I'm truly sorry but I just feel the need to convey my feelings on how worried I really am for those around me. It's sad when I'm feeling cheerful and everyone else around me is miserable because they've got Satan on their backs begging them to be sad. I don't know what else I can do to help my friends. It's like I offer my sincere help but it just gets refused. I'm not sure what else I can do.

In the past, this has been the Lord's way of telling me to break off friendships before I get pulled down a wrong path. However, this is nearly all of my closest friends. The friends that I've gotten to really know and understand and love amidst their trials and hardships. As I said in the post just before this, friends are there for it all. But if they won't let you be there for them, there's no way to even help them.

There's a fine line between complaining about how much your life sucks to somebody and asking for help. If I can help in any way, I'd love to. Everybody seems to be going through rough times. Everybody seems to be losing sleep over their own stress. The most I can say to all my readers is to lose yourself in serving others and forgetting your own problems.

Once Upon A Time, They Were Best Friends

My mom has been giving me the same bit of relationship advice ever since she got engaged to my step-dad: "Marry your best friend."

Now I'm not saying that I'm getting married right now, but yeah. I'm looking forward to that future. Everybody needs a friend though and who better to marry once all the young-adult hormones have gone away? A best friend is the ideal person to grow older with because if you can never get tired of each other and you can continue to make each other laugh, it sounds like a great relationship to be in.

You always see stuff like this in the movies too. Usually the best guy friend that's always there for the girl in the movie, ends up getting her by the end of the film by this same idea: marry your best friend.

Many times throughout the lifespan of this blog, I've defined what a best friend is. Well, I'm about to do it again. A best friend is somebody that you won't tire of (at least not easily) and is somebody that you can make up with easily and joke around with. Best friends should be there through it all rather than just talking about themselves and nothing else.

I'm not trying to make this post a show-off of me and my boyfriend and how we fell in love when we were originally just friends, but we're actually a pretty good example of this concept. We've rarely had problems for the 4 months that we've been together and out of those problems, we can't remember any and if we've been hurt, we make it a point to fix it immediately so that we don't have to see our best friend suffer. It's fun being in a relationship like this because you can mess with each other, hang out, and talk about things that boyfriend and girlfriend don't typically talk about.

Basically, I love the relationship that I'm in and I'm excited for the future that may come as a result of the choices we've made now. We'll see what happens when all's said and done. Typically, my best-friendships don't last forever but I'm hoping this guy sticks around regardless of if we stay in a relationship or not. So much so that we've agreed to always be there for each other even if things don't work out the way that we expect. I intend to keep that promise because that's what best friends do.

Temporary Benefits Don't Last Forever

Sometimes it's easy to push our friends aside for goals that we're trying to accomplish. But most of the times the people that want to help you accomplish the goals that are really that important to you are the ones that you're pushing aside. I'm sad to say that I've been one to push other people aside when something is going on in my life that I need to accomplish when those who are trying to help are getting pushed away. Anyway, you shouldn't do that.

Even though we're in the stage where we'll all moving on with our lives, it's still important to keep some close friends around through this transition. You don't exactly have to be going in the same directions, but it's always important to feel like somebody's got your back. Have you ever been unfairly pushed away by somebody that was in a transition phase with their own life? How many times have those people come back to talk to you later in life? Not very often right? It's very easy to lose touch after high school from what I've heard.

Keeping your friends around may increase your stress levels because now you're not only carrying your decisions on your shoulders, but you're also trying to comfort your friends in their decision making. Maybe it's just me that has this problem, but I've felt that at times it might be easier to just sit back and not deal with anybody. But then again... it's nice to keep those friends around because real friends help and support you. If you're not supporting anybody, who'll support you? In the long run, it's great to keep your friends around because having friends decreases your stress levels.

Long story short, it's never okay to abandon a friend unless you're both going to be better off with each other and that's a mutual agreement. It may benefit you right now to do that, but it won't be any good for your future. Friends care. If you don't care, then you're not a friend.

Get A Grip, Future Girl

It's that time. It's the time that I need to move on. To grow up. To spread my wings and fly flat on my face!

As you can probably guess from the picture on this post, I recently got accepted to Brigham Young University-Idaho. A few months ago, I also got accepted to Idaho State University. Now's the time that I need to buckle down and choose. Where do I want to spend my college life? BYU-I or ISU?

In the end, it doesn't really matter where I get my degree. As long as I get a degree, that's all that actually matters. However, I'm spending years at whatever college I go to. This decision should count for something. And it will.

But wow. My life will be flipped upside down once May comes around and I graduate. I'll be spending life somewhere other than here in little Rigby. Growing up is hard, but I know that I'll get a grip on it sometime an come to terms with my inevitable future.

The important part of this all is that the people who actually care will stick with me through all of these transitions and hardships. The people who don't care will eventually fade out, like they always do.

Life is a constant cycle of people coming in and out of your life. Nobody is guaranteed to stay inside your life. The tide of fate could pull them away at any point. Life could pull them in a different direction than they thought they were going. For example, I have this really good friend: Krista. She thought she was going to go to BYU-I and then become a nurse. You want to know what she's going to do now? She's a future sailor for the US Navy! Her field? Electronics... See? Complete opposite direction. Unexpected, too.

Even though now we may say that we love something dearly and that we'll never let go, have we in the past? Think back five years. Where did you think that you'd be now back in 2011? Are those same people that you said you wouldn't let go of still around? For me, those people are gone. It was all a part of life though. I chose the direction my waves would roll, and those people around me that I thought were so important have been washed out of my life. Others are still there, but just not as close as they were five years ago.

Nothing is permanent. It's really hard to determine where you'll be five years from now. Especially when you're out of school. You're basically thinking through all of the possible decisions that you're making within the next five years and predicting the outcome. That's easily over a million decisions. A lot of those decisions could affect you greatly on where you'll end up.

So think... Where do you really see yourself in five years? Will your friends that you have now continue to be there by your side or can you see them fading away? What can you do to be better now so that your life in five years is even better?

Let Down Your Anchor

It's another new year. And with that, everything's going to change again. I'll lose more people. A lot more people, now that I'll be graduating this Spring. It's amazing seeing myself grow up though. It's especially easy to see through this blog. I'm so glad that I got inspired to start this thing up because it's helped me to see my growth and to grow even more than I have. Not only does it help me, I've heard that it's helped out some of my friends and they've heard something that they've needed to because of my blog.

2016 is going to be the biggest turning point in this blog's lifespan. The transition from high school to college will be recorded right here. It could be hard. It could be exciting. We'll see. But there are certain things and people in my life that I can rely on to be consistent through it all. If I anchor my life in those areas, I'm sure that I can't go wrong and that this can be another good year full of growth and accomplishments.

So what's happening this year in my life? Well, I'm going to participate in the Mixed All-State Choir this February, my brother's getting married this April, I'm graduating from high school, and my best friend (boyfriend) leaves on his mission. I'm super excited and well.. scared for it all, but I'm sure that everything will turn out fantastically this year and that I'll be going in the direction that the Lord want's me to.

My New Year's Resolutions: 

Scripture Study Every Day: to keep me anchored in the gospel to keep me steady through these transitions.
Talk to a Family Member Every Day: to keep me anchored in my family and keep me steady and involved with the people who care through these transitions.
Be More Considerate: to my friends, family, and fellow students because sometimes you don't know what somebody might be going through.
Come to Terms With Growing Up: to basically be okay with moving out and going to college and getting a job and other adult-stuff.