How I Grew to Love Everyone Unconditionally

One year ago today, my father passed away. It was one of the roughest days of my life. But ever since that day, I've lived my life how I know my dad wanted me to live it - happy. Through this, I realized how similar to my dad that I really am.

I got my personality, my sense of humor, my kindness to strangers, my thoughtfulness - everything good about me, I got from him. From seeing him doing anything he could to help someone, even if it stressed him out to no end. I know that when he helped someone and saw their face light up because of something he did, it was all worth it. Can you even think of a better role model to grow up with? 

People always tell me that I make them happy or they feel at peace or they can finally relax with me around. I don't think I really ever understood what people meant - I was just being me! But looking into myself, I realized that that is exactly how my dad made people feel, myself included. My dad gave me something that I didn't even know he had until after he passed away - the innate ability to just love people, no matter what. People will still come up to me and tell me about "this one time my dad noticed them when no one else did" or "that one time he did something without them even asking." He is and always will be my biggest inspiration. 

Dad, I hope you know that everything I ever do, I do because of you. You showed me how to be a decent human being, despite my being a brat for most of my life :) You were the most loving individual that most people had ever met in their lives and I count my blessings everyday that I got you as my dad. I love you! You will always be the most super dad ever.

Your self-worth isn't determined by your relationship status.

Recently, I've been meeting a lot of people who have the mindset that if they aren't dating someone, then they aren't happy and they look down on who they are. I was reading an article the other day that said, "If you are single and feel like you need a significant other to be happy, I am going to be blunt, YOU ARE WRONG. You can't be in a healthy relationship until you are happy independently. Using somebody else as a crutch for your happiness is a one way trip to an unhealthy relationship." This is exactly my thoughts on relationships that I would want to have in my life.

Growing up, I would get down that I didn't date a lot in high school because when you're young and stupid like I very much was, my self-worth was 100% about if someone was interested in me and if there wasn't, I would just be mad about my life and basically just be a drama queen. I just kept thinking, "When I get to college, it won't be long until I get married and THEN I'll be happy." I kept holding out hope that I would be married quickly and that's how I would finally be happy. Oh, how wrong I was indeed.

I've talked about this in past blog posts, but I was not even prepared for what would happen in college. I came here and felt very similar to how I had felt in high school. There weren't boys fighting over me or just randomly coming up to talk to me or walking me to class (yes, those were literally day dreams I had about college and they are very embarrassing to think about in retrospect). And like in high school, I thought that this meant I wasn't pretty or fun or worth it. How sad is that? Just because a random boy didn't ask me out and immediately fall in love with me, I was sad.

After about a year of this way of thinking, I finally realized that I didn't care. Who cares if I'm not dating somebody? I'm freaking AWESOME. I'm loyal, caring, generous, loving, and friendly. I could still be those things without a boyfriend. I found an amazing quote that really said how I feel about all this!
"It's all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate of a self love deficit." - Eartha Kitt

I love this so much. I always believed that love should be two independent people falling in love instead of being dependent on the other.

Find out who YOU are alone than who you are with someone. Develop your own skills and hobbies and find what you love about who you are. When the time is right, someone will come into your life and will recognize in you what you love about yourself. I personally cannot wait for the time to come.

<3

Birthday voicemails from my dad.

Crazy how times flies, right? I've been busy having fun here at college, not thinking about things too deeply for fear that I would fall face first into the grieving process - I don't truly think I would be strong enough to get back out if I did. I saw how all of my family was right after my dad died in October but I decided subconsciously to be the strong one. I think I knew that eventually, it'd be impossible for it not to come out, but I've been trying to preoccupy myself with other things so as not to think of it. I got through Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year without completely falling apart so I thought I could escape grief's seemingly inevitable grasp. But there was one thing that I never thought about - my birthday.

I turn 21 in a week. Super exciting, am I right? Now I've never been one for birthdays because I always seemed to build up how it would be in my naive head and then when it didn't reach my impossible standards, I was disappointed with the outcome. In spite of all of that, the one thing I could count on was a phone call from my parents singing me "Happy Birthday" and the promise that we would go to Red Robin when I came home from college.

As I was laying in bed tonight, sincerely attempting to fall asleep, I had a vague memory of a saved voicemail on my phone from my last birthday. Sure enough, I had saved the voicemail that was left on my phone a year ago, pretty late on the night before my birthday. My parents are both groggily singing "Happy Birthday" to me with my dad improvising "it's 1 in the morning and we're wishing you a happy birthday" at the end. Hearing his voice end the call with "I love you, byeeeee!" totally did it to the wall I had put up to defend myself from grief and I just started crying (and here I am, writing this sad blog post at 4 AM).

Before all of this, I had just finished rereading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I read TFIOS once right after I bought it last summer. I loved it and it was sad, but I didn't fully understand a lot of it until I reread it today. One of my favorite lines in the book is,
"Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you."

I absolutely love this quote. Grief isn't a bad thing. I believe that grief is our soul mourning the loss of another soul that touched our lives so deeply. A good friend told me right after my dad's passing, "right now you feel numb. After a couple of months, that will go away and it is then that it will hit you full on." I didn't understand what exactly she meant until today. (Apparently, today was a great to for self-realization)

I could definitely look at his death in a negative light because my father will never get to see me do a lot of things. He'll never get to see me turn 21, 30, 42, etc; he'll never get to see me graduate college, get a job, get married, have kids, follow my dreams, and so much more.

I prefer (and I know that he'd expect nothing less) to look on the positive side. He did get to see my birth, see me grow up from a crazy kid to a moody teenager to a somewhat better young woman; he got to see me graduate high school and attend college, and he's the one who helped me discover my passion in life.

Despite my overall positive way of thinking, it's easy to get caught up in grief on days like my birthday. "Pain demands to be felt" (another awesome TFIOS quote). Some days will be easier than others. I've been pretty good at making sure I don't have any bad days ever since October. It's exhausting pretending you're always totally okay though. Sometimes, pain truly does demand to be felt and it's impossible to not feel it at some point.

While my dad won't be calling me this year (or any other year) to goofily sing me "Happy Birthday," I know that I have such an awesome family that will do it instead. It'll never get easier, just more bearable to move past it and continue living.

Thanks for the call last year, Dad. I'm lucky that I will still get to hear you sing to me every year with your award-winning witty twist to the birthday song forever on my voicemail.

I love you.



***If you haven't read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, I cannot recommend it enough.***

The "Mormon Girl" Syndrome

Speaking as an unmarried, almost 21 year old LDS (also known as Mormon for all you possible non-member readers) girl, there's nothing wrong with me.

Growing up in the church is great. The youth program is amazing, seminary teaches you tons, and the people are just all around some of the best I have ever met. But the one thing that I remember taking away from Young Women's is GET MARRIED and HAVE A FAMILY and BE A GOOD SPOUSE. Now I want all of these things so much, don't get me wrong. But I was in the wrong mindset for a good couple years because I didn't fully realize everything that would happen after I graduated high school.

From the time I entered the Young Women's program at age 12 until about 19 years old, I thought this: I would graduate from high school, go to a BYU school, meet my future husband within my first year, get married, and start having kids. That has become somewhat of a stereotype among the LDS population because yes, it does happen! Quite often in fact. So I was excited to head off to BYU-Idaho and meet my future husband as soon as possible! A lot of the members in my ward joked and would say, "You better not be engaged when you come back!" I would chuckle and agree not to be, secretly hoping that I would. I wanted to be that stereotype because that's what I believed had to happen. That's what I had been expecting the whole time I was in the Young Women's program. I didn't date during high school because there weren't very many LDS options for me. I expected to be "reimbursed" so to speak those years I didn't date and find my husband quickly at college.

After the first year, nothing. I didn't even get asked on a date! After a while, I knew that most of that was my own fault. I didn't get as involved as I could have and I lived in an apartment far away from the social scene on campus. I had thought I would barely have to try and my future husband would just fall into my lap. Obviously, that didn't happen. So I went back for my second year. I dated a little and I met more guys and made more friends, but still not even close to getting married. It was at this point that I thought there was something wrong with me. I kept thinking "I'll never get married" and  "boys don't like me" and "everyone I know is getting married but me" and then not even try. I thought this for almost an entire year of my life and I thought there was something wrong with me, something that other girls I knew wouldn't understand because they weren't me.

I'm not entirely sure what changed, but I realized that I didn't even want to be married right now deep down. I was 19, almost 20, and I wanted to get married?! I was still a kid! I barely knew who I was. Not saying that I had to know who I was, but I thought I should at least more than I did then. I was still having the time of my life: being (somewhat) on my own, being in college, making new friends. I knew that I still had friends to meet that I wouldn't meet if I had been married at that point. I wanted to make a name for myself, follow my passion, and do it on my own for a little bit.

Thinking back to myself fresh out of high school sends chills down my spine. I cannot imagine who I was then to be married now. She was still naive in a lot of ways and I had to do a lot of growing up in the last two years. While yes, I would love to be married, I understand that that is not where I need to be in my life at the moment. It will come when it comes. If it doesn't, I'll deal with it.

Now to the girls in my situation or a situation similar I say this: there is absolutely nothing wrong with you if you're still young and unmarried.  It doesn't matter if you're 18 or 24 or 35, your timetable isn't the same as everyone else's. Be happy for those who do find that person, no matter how old they are. Just look forward to the day that it is you getting married because on that day, it won't matter how old you are. It will only matter that you are truly happy.

For Russell, my father.

Everyone keeps telling me that I am handling the situation really well, way better than they could. For me, I never in a million years thought I would even be in this situation. Growing up, I never thought it would even be in any realm of possibility that I would be the girl whose dad died. It seems so harsh to put it like that, but I don't like saying "passed on" either. There doesn't seem to be a good way to describe what happened in my mind because I know I'll see him again.

I always heard stories when I was younger about how people had so many regrets with someone who had died. They didn't get to see them one last time, they didn't get to tell them they loved them, they didn't get to say those things they always meant to say. And it always seemed to make it harder for them to get on with their lives after it happened. Maybe that's the good thing with dying from an illness rather than abruptly. Sure, we didn't know when it would happen, but we had a heads up.

I remember my mom calling me and telling me he had gone downhill and how I should probably get back to Ohio as soon as I could. I was lucky enough to have people who cared about me being there so much, they bought me a plane ticket that night so I could be there the next day. I had amazing friends who drove me 4 hours to the airport at a moment's notice. I landed in Ohio and was driven straight to the hospital. My dad was so in and out at the end that you were never really sure if he knew what was happening around him, but he smiled when he saw me and he said my name.

I got to sit with him for a few hours and at one point I got to say my goodbye to him. I knew I wouldn't get another chance with him alone once the rest of my family came back and people kept coming to see him, so I said it more than 12 hours before he actually left. It's a moment I will never forget while I'm on this earth. I got to say everything to him that I always wanted to and that's way more than I could have ever asked for. But most importantly, I got to tell him I loved him. I knew he knew that, but I wanted him to hear it from me again.

One of the best moments from in the hospital was when some of ward family was visiting him. My brother Eric, my mom, and I were also in the room. My whole life, I always joked with my parents and would say, "We all know that I'm the favorite" and of course my siblings would laugh and disagree and my parents would just say, "We love all of our kids equally." Well, I made that joke again while we were in there, not knowing my dad could hear me. But he opened his eyes and looked at me and nodded his head. Of course, my brother Eric is still certain that my dad had no idea what I was saying, but I know that he meant it. Not to say my siblings aren't awesome, but come on. It's me :)

I was weirdly calm in the hospital. Maybe because I had feared this happening ever since we found out 2 years ago. Maybe I was deluding myself into thinking he would be okay even though I knew he wouldn't. Or maybe it was because I knew he had done what he needed to do here and he was needed elsewhere. I think I just knew it was time and I had made my peace with it.

The best part of the whole week in Ohio was that my whole family got to be together. Nieces and nephews that had never met got to meet. I got to see my mom. I got to see a lot of people who came to say goodbye and to support my family. Never had I felt more loved by so many people than during that week. It was just nice to be able to see all of my siblings back in Ohio again.

I will always remember my dad. I'll remember when I would call him Russell and he would say I was "dissin' him". I'll remember that time when he took me to the daddy/daughter dance when I was younger even after I lost my tooth that night and didn't want to go. I'll remember so so so many people telling me stories of how amazing my father was over and over again. I'll remember how he was a father to so many more people than just me and my siblings. I'll remember how much he loved my mother and how much he loved to have matching clothes with her. I'll remember how stubborn he was about so many things and how it frustrated me to the point of insanity. I'll remember his scrambled eggs in the morning. I'll remember how obnoxiously loud he laughed and how I pretended to hate it even though I loved it. I'll remember how he would make the WORST jokes and how they still made me laugh. I'll remember how he would only ever use his Twitter to tweet random weird things I said. I'll remember how he smelled when I would lean my head against his shoulder at church. I'll remember what a good dad and grandfather he was.

But most of all, I'll remember how he made it obvious everyday of my life that he loved me. 

I'm lucky. If it wasn't for my dad, I wouldn't have found my passion in life. He was the first one who ever showed me how to edit a video I had to make for a class. After I started making videos at college, it was the one time in my life I felt overwhelming pride from him for me. I always knew he was proud of me, but that is one time in my life I could almost physically feel it. I even had started to teach him how to edit videos better after taking my classes in college. I'm lucky because I found what I love to do and every time I do it, I get to feel close to him. A lot of people can't say the same thing.

My dad was the best person I ever met and I can't wait to see him again. I love you!


P.s. - Don't worry, dad. I'll always be your little monkey.

Fast Food Slavery: Part 2

Hey everyone! So I previously did a post in this Fast Food Slavery series after I just got my job at Wendy's earlier this summer! Well in celebration of my last shift TODAY, I decided it was finally time to post some more ranting.

1) I'm not psychic. I cannot read your mind. If you ask for something and don't specify what EXACTLY you want on it, how am I supposed to know that you didn't want cheese or ketchup or anything on it at all? Or if I asked if you wanted the combo and you said, "no" and then after I give you the order ask why you didn't get your fries or drink....I'm pretty sure we were both there when I asked you if you wanted the combo.

2) I already know that I can't fully focus when someone talks so I miss some of the stuff that is said (it's actually called selective hearing...I'm not even making it up hahaha) but please never mumble. And then don't get mad when I say that I can't hear you because really? It's just rude in general to not speak clearly when someone is trying to make sure that you have a pleasant experience.

3) I'm not sure if a lot of people realize this, but drive thrus in fast food places have timers that times how fast our service is. Everyday, we try to meet our goal while also being friendly and accurate. It's pretty tough....but it's even more tough when you take more than 5 minutes to order. Not saying you should know exactly what you want RIGHT when you get up to the speaker, but just know that when you sit there taking your sweet time, there are at least 4 people listening and getting frustrated because this one order is going to mess up their otherwise great average time.

4) This is probably the most common problem I run into but we do not create the prices for the food we serve. Just because you don't like that that particular burger by itself is $3.69 doesn't mean you have to buy it let alone get rude with me because you think it's "ridiculous"...pretty sure no one is forcing you to get it.

5) Yes, we take credit cards...it's the 21st century. Sorry to be blunt, but come on.*

6) If the service is ever slow going, it's most likely because we are understaffed. We're usually supposed to have around 12 people for a rush and if we only have 6, it's not going to be as speedy. Not that we don't want you to get your food as fast as possible, it's just we are literally going as fast as we can.

7) I can understand maybe a child being timid and not being able to address a stranger (me, the cashier) to tell me their order...but if you are an adult and you're speaking to another adult to say your order for you when you're both right there, it's getting just a little ridiculous.

8) If you only say that you want, say, a #9 and then say "that's it"...what did you want? The combo? Just the sandwich? What to drink? WHAT SIZE? The questions are endless.....it'll just be easier for everyone if you say something along the lines of "a #9, medium, with a Diet Coke" because then that's all I needed to know.

9) This might just be a minor thing, but it actually kind of bugs me when someone asks for "McNuggets" or a "Happy Meal" or something...do you seriously not even realize what store you just walked into? We're actually not all the exact same amazingly enough.

10) Before I even worked at Wendy's, I realized that people literally do not even care how disgusting they are and the fact that someone has to clean it up. I can't even tell you how many times I've had to clean our condiment stand that's smeared with ketchup, drinks spilled, napkins everywhere, and more. I don't really know why the napkins are everywhere because they CLEARLY were not being used to attempt to clean up the mess. Try to be decent and help by not completely destroying where you eat. Not to say do our entire job for us, just don't be extra disgusting just because you can.


*I actually prefer cards because that means it takes about 2 seconds to swipe the card, there's no way I can mess up your change, and if it's a big order, I don't have to worry about you maybe giving me a $50 (which means I have to go run and drop it in the safe before I give you your change cause that is stressful for everyone involved).

After all of this, I actually had a pretty decent experience at Wendy's! At first, I was pretty intimidated but then I got to know my coworkers more and everyday was a new adventure. I don't think you'll ever have that kind of bond with other people because you had to slog through all the crap people throw at us and we have each other to laugh at/get mad about it with. It'll be a little sad to know that I most likely won't see a lot of them ever again, but I'll always have the hilarious stories from this summer to last me.

Until next time,

Ames

My Biggest Secret.

A lot of people that know me probably don't know this about me. I have psoriasis. I'm tired of feeling ashamed for that since I have no control over it. It's one of my biggest secrets but it's ironic since it's not something I can really hide.

For those of you who don't know what psoriasis is, it's a chronic auto immune disease. Psoriasis is when your body overproduces new skin cells. They build up in patches all over the skin and that is what you see. It's a lifelong disease with no known cure and I was diagnosed with it when I was 11. So I've lived with this for 9 years. I really don't publicly tell people about it. Even a lot of my best friends and people who have known me my whole life have never gotten my whole story about it. Honestly, at this point in my life, I can't even remember not having it. 

It's caused some of my greatest insecurities and it's probably the one thing I've cried about the most in life. One of the worst years in my entire life was in middle school. I know a lot of people had their worst year in middle school, but mine was pretty terrible. A lot of people remember one particular year where I wore a hat everyday to school. This wasn't because I thought I was cool or anything remotely close to that. It was because that my psoriasis had gotten so bad that year on my scalp I literally had a decently sized bald spot from it. I was too embarrassed to go to school like that and obviously I couldn't just not go to school. So I had to get special permission from my principal to wear it. People jokingly would sometimes take my hat off, but they had no idea the real reason I was wearing it. It was terrifying and everyday I was scared that people would see what I really looked like without the hat and not want to be friends with me anymore.

If you've met me (which if you're reading this, I hope you have), you've most likely seen my psoriasis on my arms and legs. There are months where it's been barely noticeable and then months where it's very obvious. I can have breakouts of it depending on stress, different environments, etc. I've tried pretty much every type of medication since I was 11. Some have worked for at least a short time, but most all of them have had no affect. I've had creams, sprays, lotions, UV light therapy, and so much more. Since there is no cure, I'll have this the rest of my life and it will never truly go away. 

Luckily, the few people I have told have been amazing. They understand and they don't judge me based on how I look. You'd be surprised that more often than not, people judge me when they see it. If I got a penny every time I caught someone staring at it on me, I know I'd be rich. They might get grossed out and it's really hard to deal with. I can't change the fact that I have it. There are a lot of things I hate about having it, especially the fact that I can't even try and donate bone marrow to anyone, namely my own dad, because leukemia is an auto-immune disease and so is psoriasis. 

But while having psoriasis is the hardest thing in my life, it's actually made me a better person. It's taken me 9 years to understand that. My larger than life personality is actually to compensate for my lack of normal appearance. It's also helped me to never judge a person by their looks because I hate when people do that to me. 

Now this was really hard for me to write. Why did I decide to randomly do it then? I'm not sure. It might be that I've just been getting fed up with myself and with the judging looks from others. It might be something else entirely. I just know that I've been too ashamed of this for too long and I'm tired of it. So there you go. One of my biggest secrets, all spelled out for you. I didn't write this blog post for pity. There are definitely worst things to have in life. I just wanted people to understand me better and I know a lot of people have noticed it.

So last but not least, I want to give a little shout out to all of my amazing friends. You might never have heard my story about all this, but you still treated me the same anyway. That's the only reason I became so loud and crazy. This definitely made me more closed off when I was younger and I never thought I'd be how I am today. It's those friends who treated me the same as everyone else that are some of the best people I have ever met. :)

Thanks for reading! And thanks for all the love over the years <3