Learning to Live

So it's been a while. There's been so much going on in my head that my verbal processing has been slower than normal. Anyways, on we go. (1) Married life is fantastic! We highly recommend it to all our friends. :) (2) We are now officially house sitting for the next 5 weeks. If you are in Dallas and want to play Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Wii, grill out on an awesome patio or swing around in a library on a ladder, then come our way! (3) Nathan is still loving his job. I, on the other hand, had a small change in my job description and am learning to cope with new responsibilities and expectations. More on that to come.

On to bigger and better things. These last 7 weeks of being married has taught me loads of things about my life. Getting married tends to teach you things you didn't know about yourself. Anyways, as Nathan and I have spent the last 7 weeks together learning to live life together, love each other and just learn to live with another person, I wanted to stop and soak up every minute of it so that I could fully live life. That's when the problems started. I started to realize that I didn't know how to fully live my life anymore. I began to realize that over the last 2 years I have tended to check out when things get tough and shut down instead of dealing with problems. I thought this was my way of solving my problems.

Some of you may remember that my senior year of college was a giant learning year for me. I was deeply hurt by some friends and it felt like my life was crashing down around me. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. Which I did on numerous occasions. But I never healed. I never got better. Instead I checked into survival mode. I had classes to pass, rent to pay and career decisions to make. So I just kept on going at life. I finished up in May at A&M and moved directly to Washington DC to work for Senator John Cornyn. It was the job catch of a lifetime and I threw myself into my work. But it was hard. I had no friends in DC, my job was boring at times and I desperately missed my family, friends and Nathan. So my survival mode of life continued. I moved back to Texas in November and got engaged in December, so my life was absolutely insane. As I planned a wedding and started a new job, the survival mode continued. Then we got married and I finally had a chance to stop. For the first time in over a year, I have gotten to just stop. There is nothing looming on the horizon, no big decisions to make. And that's when it clicked. It was when I tried to start living and enjoying life to the fullest and I realized I had been in survival mode for so long that I didn't know how to live life like that. It was a long tearful conversation with Nathan as we were driving home that lead me/us to that conclusion.

So that is what I am working on right now - living life to the fullest. At the end of the day, I want to know that I have played my hardest, worked my hardest, talked my hardest, loved my hardest and lived my hardest. I want to know that I have done everything possible to love the people and situations that have crossed my path during the day. I want to collapse into bed at night absolutely certain that I took advantage of everything in the day. I tell you, it's a journey. It hasn't been easy and it won't start getting easier for a while. I am having to take a good hard look in the mirror at the person I was two years ago. I am having to face some lies that were told to me that hurt me to my core. I am having to squarely look at what Christ has said I am, not what the world has said I am. It's going to be a long journey my friends, but I am so excited about what the end results will bring!