Charity...

Charity is the pure love of Christ. It is the love that Christ has for the children of men and that the children of men should have for one another. It is the highest, noblest, and strongest kind of love and the most joyous to the soul. (see 1 Nephi 11:23)

Lately I've been trying to feel more of this kind of love. I want to feel this "strongest kind of love".

In this holiday season, there are many things that I could worry about. But instead, I'm going choose to absorb the feeling that this season brings. I choose peace over anxiety, love over hate, giving over receiving, and charity over judgment.

Because if it charity is the pure love of Christ, then I should strive for nothing less.

Love

I got criticized the other day for never talking about my "love" life. It was a surreal experience for me...... This lady went on and one about how she's starting to think I'm a lesbian because I never talk about guys I'm dating, or guys I like, or anything that has anything to do with that part of my life. I didn't really respond to her in the way that I would have liked to because I'm really trying to watch what I say, and how I say it (I talk too much). And I just couldn't, for the life of me, have opened my mouth without having some seriously not-nice things come out of it. I was so mad I started to see red, so I believe I said something like "well, thanks for caring" and then turned around and walked away.

SERIOUSLY, lady, SERIOUSLY??? Here's the thing:

I don't talk about those things because I'm a huge believer in keeping that part of your life private. I told maybe 8 people about the guy I dated last and that was because it slipped out in the middle of a conversation with 3 of them. I didn't even tell my family, or most of my really good friends.

I NEED to have something that I feel like I have control over, because right now a lot of my life feels out of control. Keeping stuff like that quiet gives me the chance to have an escape from work, and school, and stage managing, which is something that I desperately need.

AND just because I don't talk about this stuff, does not BY ANY MEANS make me weird, inconsiderate, or thoughtless.

IF I meet a guy, and decide to date him, it is MY CHOICE when I will tell everyone. And honestly, some people probably aren't going to find out until we're engaged. Because that's how I want to do it. I like keeping things in my life separate.

And finally: Your opinion was not asked for, not wanted, and certainly not within any bounds of anything that could be considered nice. No, I do not think that what you said was "tough love". No, I don't think that you, someone that I've known for less than 3 months, should be let in on my private life. And no, I do not like the fact that you've "made it your mission to figure me out".

I don't need to be figured out, changed, or set up on dates so we can "dish about guys we both know".

End of story. And end of any chance that you will ever know anything about my life, lady.

(Taking deep breaths, calming down, stepping off of soapbox.)

"For it is not needful that a man run faster than he has strength."

Sometimes I forget that the title of this post applies to me.

The Lord loves me, and he cares about me. He will not try me beyond what I can handle.

I forget that this saying also applies to how I handle my life. I even take pride in how busy I am sometimes, thinking that it's a measure of how capable I am. Then when I don't measure up, I beat myself up, sure that someone else could have handled everything just fine.

That's such a stupid thing to do! Because, let's face it everyone...... I'm kind of awesome.

And I think it's perfectly okay to admit that.

Someday......

I will make enough money that overspending on groceries won't stress me out.

I will have someone who makes me as happy as my dad makes my mom.

I will have the freedom to take a day off.

I will gain the wisdom to discern between when I should speak, and when I shouldn't.

I won't have braces.... Or rubber bands.... Or plastic splints that make me drool.

I am someone.

I just don't know who yet.

I feel that there are too many pieces of me right now.

I have to gather them up and figure out how they all fit together.

I'm like a puzzle with no edges.

How am I supposed to put myself together when I don't yet know what I'm supposed to look like?

Will I ever get the confidence to try?

Christmas, saving money, jeans that fit!

So, there are three things that I would like to talk about in this post. Take a look at the title if you want to know what they are.

1. CHRISTMAS!!! I love this holiday. You may think "well, duh, Lindsi you get presents!" and I will fully admit that that is part of the reason this holiday is great. However, I REALLY love the holiday because of the spiritually of the season. This time of year we focus on giving, on the birth of our Savior, and on loving everyone. The peace that this holiday generates is so great that even wars stop on Christmas. Plus, decorating for Christmas is awesome.

My top five things about Christmas:

1. The peaceful, joyous feeling that celebrating the birth of Jesus brings

2. Giving presents to people! (I actually like giving presents more than getting them. True that!)

3. Muppet Christmas Carol (totally worth the #3 spot, best Christmas movie ever)

4. Decorating while listening to Christmas music

5. Laying underneath the tree and watching the lights.


2. Saving money. I've been trying to save more money since I'll be shortly leaving Provo after I graduate, and will need something to sustain me for a few weeks until I can find a job. It's been hard, but it's surprisingly satisfying.

3. I've lost about 15 pounds since my surgery. This means that all of my clothes either a. Don't fit anymore, or b. just barely fit. I need to buy a new belt, because my old one doesn't fit anymore. Those jeans that I got for Christmas two years ago? Now fit when they didn't a week ago. I'm not going to lie, this is a good feeling!

Random Facts

I don't really talk about myself to people. I always feel really awkward when I do, and I get this overwhelming feeling that I'm just not that interesting. Anyway, I've read a lot of blogs like this from my friends, and thought that maybe (just this once) it would be okay to reveal some interesting facts about myself that you may not know. (and by you, I mean the 4 of you that I know read this)

1. I had brain surgery when I was 7 to correct an abnormal bone growth called Arnold Chiari One Malformation. This kind of bone growth was pressing on my brain stem, and would have been fatal if it had gone another month of so without detection. As it was, during the 7 months I showed symptoms, I was really uncoordinated, had shooting pains in my arms and legs, and (because if anything hit the back of my neck I would die) I wasn't allowed to ride my bike, play at recess, or even ride in the car unless absolutely necessary. I remember three things about that part of my life: being in pain, being bored, and always running into things.

2. My lip and chin are now numb, and may stay that way for awhile. And the first thing I thought about when I found out was "I wonder what kissing will feel like now....." . I've got great priorities.

3. I'm in love with TV. I watch like, 14 TV shows because it's the way I unwind at the end of the day. My favorites are: Supernatural, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, 30 Rock, Parenthood, Glee, and Mike and Molly. Oh! And Chuck.

4. I can't shower when my shower is dirty. I deep clean it about once a week, and rinse it down before I take a shower.

5. I can't live without my ipod. My old one was stolen and I couldn't believe how annoying it was. It don't use it just for listening to music either. I use the stopwatch, the calender, I take notes on it, and I keep a running to do list on there. (Organized by show and class :)

6. I'm graduating in April!!! And I'm kind of planning on moving to LA after I do. I'm so FREAKING excited.

7. I really like being alone when I have free time. I think it's because I spend so much of my time around big groups of people while I'm stage managing. It's so relaxing to not have to worry about anyone else once rehearsal is over.

8. I'm secretly in love with fashion. I wish I had the time and money to dress the way I want to. My room mate is amazing, she's got such a great sense of fashion! Almost all of her clothes are fantastically vintage.

9. Hair grosses me out. The worst part about living in an apartment full of girls is all the hairballs floating around. I gag every time I see one.

10. I love sleep. My room mate teases me every time I lay down because no matter what I start out doing, I always end up sleeping. I'm such a night person, and I love sleeping during the day. I'm definitely working in the right field. :)

(Jaw update: I'm doing much better now that I can eat. I'm still losing weight, but I'm not perpetually hungry, which makes the whole world seem better. I'm really sore tonight because I've talked more and took my rubber bands of to eat and stretch the muscles in my jaw out. It feels good, but rubber banding them back up is painful. Enter the codeine.)

I'm off to bed now folks. Talking (or writing) about myself is exhausting.

I can use a spoon!

Holy cow, I never thought I would miss eating so much. Here are some things I've learned about having your mouth shut for 2 weeks.

1. You can never get full on a liquid diet. Ever. No matter how much blended cream of mushroom soup you drink.

2. Not brushing your teeth is just about the grossest thing ever.

3. The only thing that beats not brushing your teeth in grossness, is the little dissolvable stitches that the doctor put in my mouth to close the incisions. They are not gross until they actually start to dissolve and you get little bits of stitches running down your throat. (shudder).... ew.

4. Not talking sucks almost as much as not eating. Though, given a choice, I would choose eating over talking.

5. Sneezing, coughing, and yawning are extraordinarily uncomfortable when you can't move your mouth.

6. Patience is a virtue I do not possess when it comes to hunger.

I feel as though I've grown from this experience. Many good life lessons learned.

I also feel that now that the rubber bands are off the front of my teeth, and I can eat actual food again (granted, nothing harder than scrambled eggs, but still...), and brush my teeth (THANK YOU!!!) things will get better.

And now, I'm off to eat. And brush all of my pearly whites.

Post-Surgery

I feel really good right now. Of course, I've got 5mL of codeine running through my system right now...... That's probably part of it.

It may not be the best idea to write a blog when I'm hovering somewhere between the stratosphere and outer space, but what the hey.....

My surgery went very well. There was a little bit of nerve damage, which means my bottom lip and most of my chin is numb, and will be for awhile. Other than that I'm doing good.

I was really nauseous for the first few days, but am doing much better now. The doctor prescribed me some anti-nausea stuff and things got much better once I was able to keep a bit of food down.

The biggest thing is that I miss eating. SO MUCH. I will never take chewing for granted again. Oh man, as soon as I can eat again I'm having an entire day where all I do is eat my favorite foods. I miss eating more than I miss talking, which is saying something because not talking is a pain in the you-know-what.

Anyway, that's an update for whoever is reading this. I'm going to get up and about a little bit tomorrow to satisfy my mom that I'll be ok when she leaves (I will miss her though, she's wonderful. It's been so good to have her here this week. I don't know what I would do without her.)

Much love to all you all out there.

Update

I feel like half of the posts I write are just updates on my life. I know that at least one extended family member reads this, so I figure it's ok.

I closed Hairspray, and started rehearsals for Peter Pan. I feel like my whole life is stage managing right now. I need to graduate!

I'm having jaw surgery in one week. I'm nervous, but I'm so ready for this to happen. It's been canceled twice so I don't think I'll believe this is actually happening until they are pumping me full of the sweet, sweet sleepy drugs. I read this article about people who are awake during their surgeries, and they can't move because of the anesthetic, so all they can do is lay there and mentally scream until the drugs wear off. I know this won't happen to me...... And yet, there's the lovely irrational fear that won't go away. It doesn't help that, apparently, jaw surgery is one of the most painful kinds of surgery. Ye-a-ah.

A midterm tomorrow, two week's worth of homework that needs to be done on Monday, rehearsal on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, going to St George on Wednesday to get surgical hooks put in my mouth. I'm working triple-y (??) hard this week to cover everything so that I can take a week off to recover.

I have such a bad case of senioritis. I just want to graduate, move out of Utah, make more than 200 dollars every two weeks.

7 months.

Sometimes/Always

Sometimes, I really don't like stage managing. When a cast member tells me to "stop talking" is one of those times. When I say something really stupid to another cast member is another one.

The One In Which I Rant and Rave

Soooo, my ipod was stolen. The one I saved up for over a year to buy.

And then they threw away my leatherman at the airport.

Within a week two of the most expensive things I owned are gone.

And now my landlords are trying to kick me out of my apartment.

So. Much. Fun.

My boss at work asked me what was wrong the other day. I told him that I just had a lot going on, and he told me to put "my game face on".

I told my parents I was really upset about my leatherman and they told me that I shouldn't get upset over something that wasn't going to change.

I got on my knees and prayed and I felt a peace wash over me. Life is good. Bad stuff happens, but that's just a moment in your entire life. The key to this life is to learn from those moments. Experiencing trials is not the hard part of life. Coming out of those trials as a better person? That's the hard part.

I thank God that He's with me to help me with the challenge.

Sometimes

Sometimes, I wish there was a slow motion button on my life.

Let me explain.

I wish there was a slow motion button for one reason.

So I could put as many blankets and pillows on my bed as I could find,

climb a ladder to the top rung

push the button

and fall.......

For a really looooooong time.

Stage Managing

Everyone, it's time we had a talk about something.

I'm graduating soon. In approximately 9 months I will be the holder of a bachelor's degree of Theatre Arts.

After that, I will move away to work as a stage manager in the real world.

WHAT?! Where the heck did the time go?!

My Conscience

I have some wonderful people in my life. One of these people is someone whom I will refer to as My Conscience. This may seem like a strange name for someone, so I will give a bit of background info to explain:

One day, after starting training for a new job at my work my phone disappeared for several minutes. After looking for it everywhere I finally found it a few minutes later, right where I had left it. Hmmm, this seemed a bit strange considering it wasn't there before but I shook it off, chalked it up to office shenanigans, and went on my way.

A few hours later, the texts started. I believe the first text said something like "Have you said thank you today?" which wasn't all that strange until I noticed who it was from. The caller ID said it was from My Conscience. I remember looking at my phone in confusion. My Conscience? Who the heck was that? I quickly scanned through my contact list, looking for the culprit but no one seemed to be missing. I was perplexed for days, and as more and more texts came my confusion rose higher and higher.

Until one day, when a conversation between My Conscience and me took a turn, and suddenly a light turned on in my head. Suddenly, I know who it was!

Even as this knowledge was suddenly available to me, and the person was confronted, the texts continued and for that I was grateful. :) She's very good at keeping me on the straight and narrow.

So, that is the story of how I gained a texting conscience and how someone I worked with became one of my favorite people (she was great before don't get me wrong, but this pushed her right to the top :)

To My Conscience (you know who you are!):
Miss you. Come back soon! The office is boring without you. Blueberry and Leaf miss you too.

The words in my head seem to fall out of my ears.

While up and about I often times run into situations that I believe would make a good blog post. I then usually think to myself "Hey self! Remember to blog about this later!"..... This is normally followed by me forgetting that anything had ever happened, or that I wanted to blog about the thing I'd forgotten, and sometimes that I even have a blog. Consequently this has led to a decline in the amount of blog posts recently.

I would apologize, but as I average .45 comments a post I don't think I made too many people unhappy.

I have words in my head. They are there, I swear it! The problem is that whenever I try to get them out of my head, and onto anywhere else they don't seem good enough. I have a story that I've been trying to copy down for years now, but every time I start it I hit a roadblock and give up. Ugh, story of my life.

Recently a friend of mine asked me if I was lonely, and I believe I said something along the lines of "I don't really get lonely".

In thinking back on that later, I realized that must have sounded a bit strange. I mean, who doesn't get lonely? But truth be told, I don't. That doesn't mean I don't like hanging out with people (because I do), it just means that I am really perfectly content to be alone. I can entertain myself, I frequently go to movies alone, and honestly a lot of times I prefer to be by myself once I get home.

But there are times when what I wish for more than anything is Someone. For most people this is a spouse, for others this is a best friend, a mother, a sibling they're especially close to. Someone who you KNOW loves you unconditionally, and for no other reason than because you are you.

I don't mind being alone. But I wouldn't mind not being alone either.

Update

Life is moving along. Funny Girl is almost over, Tuesdays With Morrie is just really beginning. Peter Pan will be starting soon, and then I will be taking a vacation!

Boo-yah! I'm so totally ready for it. I'm going to New York, to stay and shop and finally see my first Broadway shows.

And Mandy, you are now on my blog. So, there you go.

I can, and I can't

I can't seem to fall asleep before 1am.

I usually can't remember my day to day schedule without help.

I can't remember people's names to save my life.

I can't cook.

I can't find the time to clean out my car, do all of my laundry, clean my bedroom, or even put my hair products back in my bathroom drawer.

I can't seem to stop drinking Dr Pepper.

BUT

I can operate on little/no sleep.

I can remember to update my planner, so (almost) nothing gets forgotten.

I'm really good with faces. I may not remember your name, but I will remember your face.

I can find time to do everything else in my life.


AND

If I make a mistake, I will admit it. If something is my fault, I will admit it.

I don't play games because I don't see the point.

I'm honest because honesty is extremely important to me.

I can take and learn from criticism because I believe it will make me a better person.

I am a great stage manager.


That is all.

Superheroes

Some people wish they had a superhero to save them. Me? I wish I WAS a superhero.

Also, Funny Girl is performing at the SCERA Shell on June 10th-21st! Come see it! It is hands down the biggest show I've ever done as a stage manager. And the thought of tech week is currently terrifying me, but I'm taking it one day at a time. Saying to myself "You can DO this!". And I think I'm actually starting to listen to the GOOD little voice in my head.

Letter To The Voice In My Head

Nagging.
Screaming.
Red hot in the back of my head and the pit of my stomach.
Second guessing,
second besting
you're actually making me worse!
I will shake you off
I will break you off
Until you are broken and bleeding,
whimpering so far back in my mind
that I will easily smother the spirit breaking words
that seem to be all you can utter.

Love,
Lindsi