Dear World:
I would like to throw my voice out about a mysterious and rather looming concept:
CHANGE.
Bear with me, because it may appear like my thoughts are going everywhere. It's because they are. I speak in varicose veins-- eventually they'll make it back to the heart.
So.... Change is weird.
Not a very profound statement, but alas, still fitting. Change
is weird.
I've noticed as I grow older something very odd: Things are not always the same! .... What?! ... But in all seriousness. Let's talk "change."
In the last month I have experienced a massive amount of this weird concept, change. Most often, change is good! Like when a baby poops in the diaper, it's good to change. ....... But often times, we find ourselves having a difficult time adjusting. ... Don't quite know how to relate that one back to diapers, sorry.
May I ask, has this happened to you? (Forget about the diapers, I'm talking about change again.) I submit that, at some point, it has.
Within this spring season alone, my older sister Melissa has discovered she is having a baby boy. This is a massive change for the Painters, first of all because it is the first baby, and also because it is a
boy. What even is that, a boy? We're all daughters in my family. There is no such thing as baby boys in the Painter family. .......Weird. But! Alas, a good change.
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Melissa and I in 1995 - Kyle and Melissa's Wedding - Melissa is Preggo |
Though, I still like to see myself as the little girl that ran around playing in the backyard with my sister Melissa and our dearest friend Alli Gardner. Since this day, Melissa is no longer called a "Painter" and Alli is no longer a "Gardner." -- They've since traded last names for husbands.
I would like to put forward that this is very very strange. (Not that they got husbands, but that I grew up. Stay with me here.) Why am I not a little girl anymore?
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Baby Kaybree |
This is Kay
bree Ann. My dear friend Alli and her husband Brendon brought this little girly from the hospital yesterday.
In the words of Brendon: "I don't know if I can fully describe the feeling you get when you see your child for the first time, but I guess the closest words would be divine, heavenly, and miraculous. This right here sums up the purpose of life, to feel just a smidgen of what Heavenly Father must feel for us. God's love for us is perfect and I was able to feel that with my own kid. I instantly had an unconditional love for a child that was barely a second old."
Thankfully, some people have it figured out. Brendon and Alli will be amazing parents. And with that Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints plug, I continue on.
But that was an absolute tangent that I would like to connect to my entire train of thought:
Though we experience change and move on with our lives, those behind us (like Kaybree here) have not yet had such experiences.
I would like to submit that maybe life isn't just about us. Yikes, that's an accusation if I ever heard one. So then what is it really all about? I'm no expert, but I think it has something to do with love, service and bettering the circumstances for when you have to teach someone else how to handle change.
Our bodies are mortal. We die. I hate to tell people that, because it is somewhat shocking to most people, as if they didn't see it coming. So with that said, we aren't going to be 20 years old forever, nor will we stay 26, 49, 62 or 90.
But somebody else will eventually be that age, and they are going to walk right into the same troubles you faced. Maybe not exactly the same, but similar in nature.
Our bodies might die, but written records stay behind. Our advice can be immortalized in pages.
It's interesting that this idea came to my mind today. Because a great friend posted on his blog about this very idea not a few hours ago. His name is Gabe Meyr. He's very quiet, very polite, and very wise. He's a poet and a great thinker-- he thinks some of the greatest things to be thunk.
He said: "When climbers scale a route they can put metal studs into the cliff that serve as an anchor point for future climbers, making it more safe and a little easier to go up. We don't have to trailblaze our way around because much of the cliff of life (which we scale upward) has already been marked by people long past. It happens sometimes that an author I'm reading describes an idea that I've wondered about before, then they articulate it and develop it much more than I have, and I'm grateful that they've done it."
A great analogy for record keeping. Whether it be books, journals, photographs, whatever. When you write it, it is there. Those who come across later down the road find it as a map, maybe even the treasure itself.
I would also like to say that we can be our own map writers. If you keep records, photographs and writings, look back through them. Listen to yourself-- you might just learn something.
Now back to the topic at hand. Change. Yes, it happens. So how do we handle change in the moment it is happening?
Keep a perspective that you'll have more pages to write. This is not the end. It is merely a moment in an eternity we can't fully grasp yet. You may be the last of your kind: not married, not expecting, not serving a mission for your church, not graduated. That's perfectly okay. You. Are. Okay.
Remember the last change you encountered? You survived. You grew from it. You pressed forward. Now you're comfortable with it, and now it's your life.
I challenge you to do that again.
Change isn't what is left after you've used the dollar. Change, when put together after much time, is powerful., and greater than the dollar of the first trade.
Count your change: it might not make "cents"-- but you'll find you're much more rich than you thought.
Love,
Monica
Here are some evidences of change. Some are brutal. Some are wonderful.
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Heritage Halls was torn down. That was Jared's building where he got bed bugs.
Hard to see it go. It's now a pile of dirt.
Make way for the "New Heritage" buildings. |
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Jeff Doty: One of my best friends since Jr. High.
The first photo is us as freshmen. The next, his baptism into the Mormon church,
the next, New Years 2012, and the last is us as sophomores in college. |
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Me and Jared, cerca 2010. Our first photo together.
2012: He's in Yerevan, Armenia as a missionary for our church.
I'm still here.
Wow, we grew up. |
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My roommate Lauren Jones, best friends since freshman year of college.
Now she's happily married to Jesse Myrick. |
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Emilie Elmont, freshman roommate and best friend.
She's now happily married to Kelton Davis. |
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Of course, Kate. Best friend since we were 11 years old.
Honestly, it's been a good ride.
So glad she's still single. |
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My childhood friend, Clayton Webb, passed away.
His quad-riding legacy lives on in the Sand Dunes of Yuma, AZ. |
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Gilbert Arizona got a temple. |
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I have not seen Elder Jared Hammer, my best friend in the whole world, for one year.
Half way done. Half way done. Half way done. |
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(Left) This is me and Jared, pre-relationship. And after. (Right)
It's funny to see how two people change together.
First he needed therapy from me, and then I was his therapy.
Go figure. |
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Alexis Cooper, best friends since freshman year of high school.
Probably one of the most stable people in my life.
She gets a mission call this month. |
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My best friend Tim Harker.
He's been gone almost 6 months on his mission to Nebraska. |