I am back to blogging.  It is official!  I have missed this.  I miss writing every week and expressing how I am feeling and what is going on in my life.  I am in a good place today.  I woke up and felt that everything was at peace.  I was breathing and just being.  I would love to be one of those hipster granola people that buy cool colorful yoga mats and wear cute headbands and hit the yoga studio everyday but I am too ADD for that, so I just imagine I am there.  I just wear the yoga clothes to look cool and so people think I am in control of my stress and hard times.  I like the idea of yoga and what it teaches you.  I like how focused and centered you can become in my life.  I want to get there.  I want to JUST BE.  Why is it so hard to do that...??  I wake up everyday wondering what tomorrow will bring me.  Sometimes when I am talking to a person, and as they are telling me deep things about their life, I realize I am thinking about the next person I am going to talk to.  I travel to a different cool exotic place and as I am taking artsy instagram/facebook pictures, I am already planning in my head what my next destination is and how cool that will be.  I cry in the moments that I am not completely happy.  I feel bad for myself when I am home alone.  I wonder where I will be and who I will be with in a week, a month, or 2 years from now.  I dream and I imagine, which I do not think is necessarily a bad thing, but I do not always LIVE and BREATH and experience the moment and the N O W as much as I should.  I want to just enjoy, and love, and live, and appreciate the NOW and not just wonder about tomorrow or the next day.  Why is this so difficult...?  I am not even sure what the answer is, and I am trying to figure it all out.  I am reading a lot of interesting books right now that are really helping me with this idea.  There is one I really like called the "Power of Patience" written by M.J. Ryan.  Go buy it and read it!  It changed my life on a plane flying back from D.C. to Utah about a week ago.  I was crying out loud as I read it... haha how embarrassing.  I tend to do that a lot I guess but it was just a brilliant little book that came into my life at the perfect time (thanks to Mare Pond!) and I keep reading it to take me back to those enlightening and inspirational moments.  A part that I really loved is when it says that patience is a decision we make.  There are not really patient or impatient people but people that choose to be patient over and over again in their lives, and in certain times and situations that can be hard, difficult, and challenging.  I also love this quote from the book that says,

"Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait."

The other day just straight up sucked!  I woke up so early to do homework and was super stressed with tests and work and school and just everything.  I kept thinking about the mission and missing it a lot and it didn't help that I volunteered at the MTC the day before.  Being back there was really hard for me.  It made me miss it all, and really made me realize that it is all over.  I felt really alone and I felt like no one here really cared about me or loved me.  A lot has changed since I got back and it seems like everyone was gone.  I was sitting in my last class of the day.  I had been pretty quiet up until then and didn't feel like doing anything or talking to anyone.  My last class of course had to be group psychotherapy where I was going to have to sit in a huge circle and talk about feelings for like 2 hours.  I tried not to show my emotions but it's too hard to hide them.  There was something in the conversation with the group that triggered even more sadness and emotion, and I almost lost it.

I just sat there and stared at a broken clock for about 20 minutes.  I could not look away...... you see, ever since the first day of this class I have been avoiding looking at this broken clock because it drives me nuts, so I will not even look at it.  It would just go in circles with the pointer all shaky and it would stop on every fifteen minute mark for just like 3 seconds and then just keep going spastic again.  It gave me anxiety normally and just made me angry that no one had fixed it, but that day, for some reason, I just couldn't keep my eyes off that crazy frickin broken clock.  I focused my eyes on the pointer and watched it shake around the clock and stop every so often.  I felt annoyed, impatient, and antsy when it was shaking but I realized that every fifteen minute mark I would have a second or two to just watch it stop and seem normal and I would feel peace.  It was all good, and even if it was just for a few seconds, I decided I was fine with this clock.  I thought after about 20 minutes of staring into this messed up clock that no matter what, it was going to keep on going and doing that.  It would go in the circle every time and it would always be that same pattern.  It was never ending and I accepted it for what it was.  Maybe it did piss me off and the shakiness was annoying at times, but at times the stillness and peace did occur, and would always come as the pointer made its way around the circle of the clock.

I looked away and tuned into the conversation and realized the focus was now on me.  One girl had noticed that I had been crying since the class started and all she had to say was "Are you alright?"

I cracked.  I opened up to my whole class and told them everything.  As they listened, I felt love and acceptance and got advice and feedback.  It took one girl and one question.  It all came out and I felt better.  I didn't fix my situation but I felt love and that is all that mattered.  I left the class feeling lighter.  I no longer felt that shakiness and stress but I was feeling that peace.  The pointer was finally on one of those fifteen minute marks and still.  I was okay and I was going to be okay.  I left class and went to go volunteer and help this guy named Victor from Peru learn English.  Instead of going and being all quiet and sad and mad like I was before, I was so happy and really enjoyed tutoring this precious man.  It was a positive experience and I felt really useful and needed and I really enjoyed serving and loving this man.  He as well, was in a hard place, like I had been abut 15 minutes before, and because I had been filled with so much love and help, I was able to send that love to him and he was appreciating it and accepting it.  We had just met, but we learned to love and be loved.  This is how things work.  This is how we get through those annoying and spastic shaking times on the clock. The hard moments will come around, and will probably never stop, but we can indeed be still and can love and be loved.  We are not meant to be stressed or upset or unhappy but we are meant to really feel love and just live.  We can do it, and all it really takes is time and patience.  We choose to be patient and we choose to let love in or seek moments to share love.  Everything is our choice.

It feels good to be back.  It feels good to open up and share.  It feels good to feel LOVE.  I am excited to just be and to love.  Now go find your own love, its out there!

Yours truly,        
Jami Alison Pond