Tag: happy

Thank You, Next

 

Laughing at how funny we are
Cory and i
Facetime with Nat 🙂
Violet, Ruby and I
That jacket though
Yeah…
Bowling and being awkward
Cheese balls!
Ummm
Facetime with the big sis
Capitol Tour with the fam
Speaking on a panel in Moscow, Russia
Blue lights. Enough said.
Fries and Ranch with Liv

“I find it interesting that this has been one of the best years of my career and the worst of my life,” Grande said. “A lot of people would look at someone in my position right now as an artist that could be at her peak and think, ‘She’s really got her sh** together, she’s really on it. She’s got it all.’ And I do, but as far as my personal life goes, I really have no idea what[…]I’m doing[…]and as of late I’ve discovered that it’s the things I’ve always had and the people I’ve always had that still make me the happiest.”

A year ago, I graduated from college. I got a new job. I moved almost a thousand miles away. I learned how to be an adult. I experienced so much love counteracted by heartbreak, grief and loneliness. I went to a foreign country for the first time. I planned a global conference. I’ve helped different families in minor or significant ways in over 80 different countries.

It’s been a crazy year.

In the midst of all those changes and challenges were a lot of tears. I learned a lot about me, and yet still know nothing at all.

Tears fell as I sat in my room a couple nights before my graduation as I stared at the cap and gown waiting to be worn across a platform to accept my degree.

Tears were shed on the interstate from Iowa to Virginia in my car full of all my belongings.

Tears spilled in the hall as the background echoed cheers at the close of the last session in Moscow, Russia.

Tears fell on a plane bound home to Iowa for a couple of weeks – a girl who once believed that heartbreak was purely metaphorical, found out it was actually quite physical and yet could only be healed by time and patience.

2018 showed me I am a constant work in progress, but aren’t we all?

Most importantly – I have learned to forgive. I learned to forgive others, myself and to accept the forgiveness Christ so freely offers me.

I have learned so much this year about love and forgiveness through my broken experiences. As Matt Heard said “The worst kind of pain is wasted pain”. So will I use my brokenness to push me into the next stage of life and grow me spiritually, mentally and emotionally and make me wiser? Or will I waste the pain and have it hinder my growth? Will it harden or strengthen my heart? Can I trust God to redeem my pain?

I settle my heart down and let the pain in. I will cast all my anxieties upon Him because He cares for me. He will lead me beside the still waters. He will restore my soul. He will lead me down a path of righteousness, but also a path of joy and peace.

Psalms 34:18 says:

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit”

This year taught me love, patience and pain, but it also taught me how to understand and sympathize, it taught what it truly means to be selfless, but it also taught me how important it is to take care of myself – to take my God-sized needs to Christ, that in order to be a source of life, I need to have Jesus be my source of life first.

On the days that I couldn’t get out of bed, something so simple my sister said has stuck with me since “sometimes you have to do what is good for you, not what you want to do”.

I repeat these words on the many days I don’t want to work out. On the days I don’t want to leave my bed. On the days that I don’t want to eat a certain way. On the Sundays when I don’t feel like going to church. When I fall into my hermit-like tendencies. When praying is hard. When reading my Bible is about as unappealing as carrots (I greatly dislike carrots by the way).

In more ways than one I see how God interwove that theme into my life this year. Jesus saying “Sometimes I have to do what is good for you, not what you want me to.”

As Jeremiah 29:11 says:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

So thank you 2018; for all that you offered and took away; for all the people that came and went – and most importantly, to those I’ve always had and will never leave. 2018 made me realize that the people I have always had – are the ones that make me the happiest still and you can see some of them pictured above. I love these people. So much.

2019 is whispering on the threshold “it will be happier” as Tennyson says but I think I like T.S. Eliot’s quote better:

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”

So thank you 2018.

Thank you, next.

Retweeting Myself

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DISCLAIMER: I have been off twitter for a year and I just recently downloaded the app back onto my phone. My original intention for staying off twitter has become very clear in rereading my juvenile tweets.  I have decided to reply to my younger self…and also pick up tweeting again. 

This was on a day in which I wanted to fall into solidarity and never leave my bed. I also had an unhealthy obsession with royalty and thought I would marry Prince Harry one day. Curse you Megan.

Haha, now you WISH you didn’t relate to them all at. FYI: I Have Questions by Camila Cabelo is such a depressingly great song. Also Hell No by Ingrid Michaelson.

Trudi, no. You deal with whatever it was in a healthy way. If you have learned anything in life, whatever you bury will inevitable resurface. I don’t even know what I was burying…it was probably something to do with my cats.

Literally the ONE time in the past four years that I watched the Today Show. Poor Katie, she probably was just nervous but some insignificant 21 year old decided to bash her on twitter to her 50 followers. I have impact people! (not really…).

Still relevant to this day. I’m one of those people that will inhale all the breadsticks from Olive Garden and just as we are about ready for the check, I’ll ask for another basket to take home.

This was the worst exam of my life. I had 75% of my final grade riding on this one exam. This was also the same week I had four finals every single day at 7AM…in snowy negative degree weather. I did pass the class though…barely.

I tweeted this because I had deleted my Snapchat account. Literally a couple weeks later I downloaded it again. So much for that self established importance.

Why did you feel the need to tweet this? I actually remember sitting there thinking about how my thighs basically expand massively when I sit down and how I was surprised I could fit in my seat still.

Still relevant…but I probably was melting down over a test. Not relevant anymore. Ha. ha. #graduated #adult #whyamiusinghashtags

Going to a big University has it’s perks, but it also was incredibly lonely. I remember during my breaks between classes, I would buy a snack in the library cafeteria and go sit in my car playing sad music and thinking how pathetic my life was.

Some things never change. Pumpkin Spice is life.

I just want to know what I was wearing…

Can’t stop pretending. But the sad part is I’m poorer now than I was then.

Well…he did get married. But not to me. I had to unfollow…it still hurts honestly.

And honestly…it just keeps getting more painful as the tweets gets older, so I’m going to just spare us both.

It’s A Wonderful Life

I’m sorry for my absence these past couple of months. So much as happened since my last entry that I honestly don’t know where I should begin. At this moment, I am recuperating from all the exams I had to take during Finals Week, and now I am looking forward to a few weeks off that I know will go by far to quickly, and working to supply the funds for my classy lifestyle (note the sarcasm please) and just resting.

This entire year has been a crash course honestly and it’s left me in a state of tiredness that I have never known before. My anxiety has reached its peak. My comfort zone has been stretched and worn thin. I’ve tried so hard, faced my own failures, and looked at all my shortcomings and felt my confidence dwindle to nothing.

But my God, have I grown. Grown and yet still in need of so much more growing. I’ve taken root in my surroundings; invested in people; I have learned to care; to love deeper, and try harder. Because as long as I tried; put forth the effort and put myself out there…that was success in itself. The simple act of trying.

I wait on the cuffs of expectation for the next year, whispering “it will be better” but the fact is, the situations don’t make me, but how I handle them. So maybe instead I’ll work on myself, shouting “I will be better!” instead of waiting for the daunting “it” to change.

This coming year is going to be full of the same old relentless trying with an innumerable amount of inner pep talks; trying to talk myself out of how I feel because how I feel is not always fact and sometimes, most of the time, it holds me back, because I like my corner, as awkward as it is, it is quite comfortable. But I don’t want to be live the comfortable life as uncomfortable as it is breaking out of my comfort zone (if that makes sense).

This year I’m going to be more confident, and if that means faking confidence, then so be it. Maybe I’ll acquire the real thing along the way. I’m not going to let the fear hold me back anymore because I’m always going to be scared. I’m going to learn to love myself despite the tendency to see all my flaws and belittle myself. Because you can’t love others half as well if you don’t know how to love and care for your own self first. Along the way, I’m going to learn how to be selfless and more giving of my time and assets to others and work on making the relationships I have stronger.

Most importantly, grow closer to Jesus. Because honestly, if I just grow closer to Him, everything else will fall into place. I’ll have more confidence and more love to give because HE makes me better, stronger and more willing.

I’m on a journey of self betterment and my heart is yearning for adventure. I’m excited but I have no expectations. Because 365 days are wrapped up in a year. That’s a lot of hours/minutes/seconds to go through. My tendency to trace out my life plans with an innumerable amount of sticky notes on my desk makes me more anxious than prepared. If I just step away and put Jesus first where He rightly deserves to be, than my plans make more sense and I have a more sure step into the future.

The end of 2017 will spring me into another unknown world but I’m going to focus on the two semesters and one summer I have left of being a college student because it’s exciting. It’s not going to be all excitement but for the most part, it’s going to be a great year despite everything that may happen. You want to know why? Because I got butterflies and goosebumps and that could be a good or bad thing but it’s okay.

Because my philosophy is simple: if it scares you, if you feel butterflies, go for it and if it doesn’t work out, let yourself be disappointed because it’s okay to be disappointed, but then move on and try for something better, because it’s all in God’s plan.

2017 is my senior year and I’m ready.

2016, you were a bunch of things wrapped into one. But you held so much more than I ever could have imagined.

As I seem to look at life with a George Bailey perspective.

“I’m shakin’ the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world”

Someday I will. But at this moment it’s home. But my God I am loved. It’s lovely to be loved by people who know you at your worst and see you at your best. Who find joy in your joy and comfort you when you fail.

Thank you Jesus, for this truly wonderful life you have given me.

“No man is a failure who has friends”

The Two Decade Roommate.

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Now a month ago, I got rid of my acrylic paints and brushes that I had bought the same day I had taken out my first car loan. It was on a whim and I was 17 years old. I had high hopes of becoming an artist but lacked the talent, so alas! After almost 4 years of being cooped up in a box with my “stamp” collection (another failed attempt of me being “crafty”), I decided to say goodbye and blessed my Mom with a present of old textbooks, paints and brushes.

I’ve been feeling slightly sentimental of late, which is probably what has been stopping me from getting rid of more stuff that I have stowed away in boxes. All my old class notes, writings of mine (and Hope’s that I found on the wayside, meant for the trash can), and other sentimentalities, like a piece of a cracker jacks box and a rusty old penny, I keep hidden away. Sometimes I hate my memories and try desperately to forget something or some person existed, but I hold on for dear life to the insignificant and happy.

But then comes goodbye.

My roommate of 20 years is moving out. I caught myself looking forlornly across the room at her socks scattered on the floor and her messed up bed and chided myself.

She’s only moving how many minutes away.

I’m both happy and sad. Sad for me, happy for her. Happy for more space but scared to be alone. She’s my big sister, my best friend despite all that we have been through. I love her to pieces, and now goodbye is coming.

At times it felt like we would be stuck together forever. Now, no more fighting over who has to clean the bathroom. No more hounding you to clean up your side of the room and for heaven’s sake, throw your dirty socks in the laundry. No more spitefully dusting my half of the dresser and leaving your side untouched. No more inconsiderate moaning as I come in late from work or from a long night of studying. No more late night talks about life before we fall asleep.  I remember when we were little and all the ridiculous bedtimes stories you would tell me. We would laugh and laugh….but somewhere down the road we stopped being so silly. Even though we still have our good times. Somewhere between graduation and college, we found different interests, jobs and friends. We wanted to stop living in each others shadows, I guess. Which is understandable, but still hard nonetheless. I remember how many times I thought I had been replaced as we grew up. It seemed at times that you were always too far gone for me to reach, that you never wanted to hang out with me because I was just your little sister. You would then go find other “sisters” who were the same age as me, yet somehow more mature in your eyes. I have to admit, at times I would be jealous…and cared way too much about what you were doing.  But then one point came when I stopped living in comparison and stopped being jealous. I decided to be me, and let you be you.

But that just grew a wider gap between us.

But we always shared a room.

I could always count on you being there at the end of the day. We didn’t even have to talk or say one word to each other. There was just comfort in knowing that we couldn’t be entirely apart because our beds were only a few feet from each other.

But now there is nothing to keep us from growing apart. Now there will be more space for us both to stretch…but somehow I can’t quite picture room without you in it. How will it feel to come home and you not being there? I probably won’t notice at first. After all, we have gone a couple weeks apart. But after a month, and then the next…it will probably dawn on me that you really aren’t going to be my forever roommate, but that we will really did have a time limit and now I’m all alone with more space to put my things, but my heart will be overcrowded with lonesomeness.

Ah, look at me getting all sappy. It’s not like your moving a million miles away. Geez. Pull yourself together Trudi.

I’ll miss you Hope. I hope we grow closer and our sisterly love will only grow stronger. I just want you to know, contrary to your opinion, that I am impressed by you. I am so blessed to have you as my older sister. You may not like the first born status, but you’ve made my life easier by being so. You’ve showed me the ropes of college. You went through all the firsts and paved a path that I sometimes chose to follow. Heehee.  Even a few week you helped me find dress pants for my internship (what can I say, the only pants I have are in scrub form). I love it that you’re my older sister and my friend. You don’t know how highly I think of you, and often you think of me as judging you, but that’s only because I have these unrealistic high expectations of you that I shouldn’t have I guess. But I’m always going to expect the best of you, because you are the best.

Hope…just know that I’m always here. I’m always praying for you. I’m always loving you. I’m always wishing the best for you. I’m always happy for you in all your accomplishments.

So now your side of the closet is getting empty. Your books are packed away. I’ll act all tough, but you may get a wailing phone call a couple nights later.

Remember your first roommate and how awesome she was. Because she sure is going to miss you.

Love you Hopie.

Your little sister (and best friend forever…literally, forever. FOR.EV.ER.)

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