Giving Thanks

I've got so many things to be thankful for. But one thing that I'm going to say I'm thankful for that may shock you is this: I am thankful for the copious amounts of stress in my life. You're probably saying to yourself "Kels, I think you're delirious from all that food you ate. Probs should wait to do this post when you are making a bit more sense." But I'm serious. I'm thankful for my stress, and let me tell you why.

* Being a first year teacher with a very full schedule and lots of cute little kiddos
- I've got a job, a job teaching something that I'm passionate about. And yes, my schedule is very full, and sometimes (more often than not) I get very overwhelmed, but I landed a good paying job in a good district right out of college. Definitely something to be thankful for. And the cute little faces I get to see everyday are definitely an added bonus.

* Not feeling like I have enough money to pay all my bills, eat, and have some fun on occasion
- I have a place to live. I have cable and internet, a smartphone. I just bought a brand new (literally, brand new) car a month ago. I always have food to eat. I might not get to buy as many "fun" things as I used to, but I still manage to go out every now and then and buy things that my dear mother would classify as "wants" instead of "needs."

* Missing some of my friends so much that it's like a piece of my heart is just MIA
- This one is hard. I used to see my best friends every single day, and now weeks go by without even having a conversation with them. I'm going to turn to the wisdom of One Tree Hill for this one:

As hard as it is to not see my friends or talk to them everyday like we used to (let's be honest, I can't stay up until 3 in the morning driving around anymore, because I'm on teacher time. Although, there have been some late mornings since I started teaching, but that's a story for another day,) it makes the times we do talk and see each other that much greater. Even if we are just making stupid jokes about our egos that nobody would find funny except us.


Anyone close to me will tell you that I don't handle stress well. And it's true. I don't. I stress eat, I don't sleep, I cry so much that my eyes are just now permanently puffy. But when you step back and look at the stress from a different angle, they really are stresses to be thankful for. I'll be much more thankful when some of them aren't as stressful, that's for sure, but being a recently graduated 22 year old, I can't complain too much about where my life is right now.

Easy come, easy go.

People come, and people go. A simple, true statement about everybody's life. Not everyone you meet is going to stay around forever. But sometimes if you are lucky enough, you get quite a few people who come into your life, and don't go. That's not always to say that their presence in your life won't have it's difficulties. There will arguments, there will be fights, there will be moments when you say the words "I wish I'd never met you," knowing full well that you don't mean that. There might be times when you don't talk for awhile- whether it's because you're having a disagreement, you had a stupid fight about stupid petty stuff, or you're both just really busy and although talking to them remains a priority, things like sleep and work and eating override that. Long-lasting friendships like this aren't easy, in fact they are EXTREMELY hard work. But it's the moments where you're drunk at a bar screaming about getting some "mother-effing chicken fries" and your best friend finally complies (after helping your drunk self down a couple flights of VERY steep stairs) that make all that hard work worth it. Moments when you miss your turn into town and end up taking the scenic route home, and pass the corner where we sat parked for 10 minutes because I was stubborn and wouldn't say which direction to turn. Memories that you'll never forget (and some memories that you can't really remember.) It's in those moments that the hard work of keeping up a long-lasting friendship is worth it. Sometimes, the effort of these relationships gets to you, and you just want to throw in the towel because it doesn't really seem like its's worth it. But you talk yourself out of it because you know you'd be 40 times more miserable without them in your life at all,  than you are with the arrangement that isn't perfect but doesn't completely suck. And we don't get to talk as much as we want, and we don't get to see each other as much as we want, but when I need them, they're always there for me. And I hope they know that the same goes for them.

One more thing.

Another thing they don't tell you about heartbreak: losing your best friend the first time sucks. But it's nothing compared to losing them the second time- after you've tried so hard and fought and fought and fought to stay best friends, because that's what you want so badly, but it doesn't work. That's when you spend a Sunday night watching Hallmark Channel sobbing as hard as you did the night he told you he just wanted to be friends, but this time you're crying because you're not friends anymore.

It's Yours

You've still got my heart. Take care of it please, because there is a giant hole in me where it used to be.

The heart-breaking thing about heartbreak

You know how everyone tells you that there is no pain in the world like that of your first broken heart? Believe them when they tell you that, because it is an extremely true statement. I've cried more in the last year since getting my heart broken than I have in my entire life, I've had more sleepless nights because of my broken heart than anything else, and I've generally been extremely pessimistic and hated life because of my broken heart more often than not. Loving someone and being willing to do anything for them, and to not have those feelings returned in the same way sucks beyond belief. But nobody every tells you about the worst part of a broken heart: losing your best friend in the process. Because that's what you were. Not only did I love you more than I ever loved anyone, but you were my best friend. Always there to talk to, to make me laugh, to make me smile, to tell me it was going to be okay when I felt like it would be anything of the opposite. Crush you to death hugs that made me feel better than nearly anything else in the world. And, now it's gone. I can deal with the fact that you broke my heart, I can deal with the fact that over a year later it still (obviously) really bothers me (barely, but dealing.) But I hate the fact that I lost my best friend in the process. And what makes me madder than a wet hen is the fact that all along it was all these sweet things about "you're still important to me," "I'm still going to be your best friend," "I'm still always going to be there for you." Apparently not so much.
I went into this whole thing knowing that my heart could potentially get very broken, and I was willing to take that risk. But nobody told me that I was going to lose one of the most important people in my life too. Believe me when I say I'd go back and change everything if I'd known this would happen.

Waiting for the beauty

Stop for a minute and think of the things in life that you find truly beautiful.

*think time*

Here's my list (I'll keep it short)

1. Bright green lawns after a rainstorm
2. Rainbows
3. Blooming flowers
4. Autumn leaves on the trees
5. Genuine, authentic smiles and laughs
6. Birds chirping

There, six is enough for now. Those are just some of the things in this world that I find truly beautiful. Now, for the real point of this blog. What is the one commonality between all six of the the items on my list? Drum roll please: there is a period of waiting before the beauty comes forth! Let me break this down and explain it a little bit better, in case you aren't picking up on what I'm saying right away.

1. When it hasn't rained for awhile, lawns are one of two colors; really dull green, or brown. Not lawns that I would consider attractive. But then, we get a little bit of rain, and they brighten right up.
2. Rainbows only appear after a storm. Common sense people.
3. When flower first get planted, you stare at a big brown spot of dirt for awhile. Then you get some tiny little green things that pop up, and finally you get the big, beautiful, colorful flowers that you were hoping for the whole time.
4. Fall is my favorite season, because I love seeing red, orange, and yellow leaves on the trees and falling down on the lawns and sidewalks and streets. But I have to spend a long time staring at either bare branches or green leaves before I get to see the pretty colors.
5. To really see someone's genuine, authentic smile and laughter, I feel like you have to have a close-ish relationship with that person. And that takes work. And waiting.
6. One of my favorite sounds of springtime is hearing the birds chirp. But that sound comes after a long quiet winter of no birds.

See what I mean? All those things that I consider to be so beautiful have some period of waiting, and in some cases a period of unattractiveness (I don't think that's an actual word but I'm going to use it anyway) before the parts that I consider to be so beautiful burst forth. But when the beauty does show up, the waiting period, the unattractive period isn't a huge deal AT ALL, because I'm finally getting to see and experience the part that truly matters to me.

I've had a rough couple of days. To be really honest about it, I've had a rough year, and I've been struggling a lot with the fact that I'm still struggling with the things that I'm going through (but that's a post, or several, for another day.) My point is: I'm more than ready to get to a point where I "find the beauty," for lack of anything better to say. But, like I just proved above, sometimes we have to wait awhile, and go through a period of serious unattractiveness before the beauty shows up. I've been waiting a long time, almost a year now. And there are more days that not during this struggle that I haven't liked who I've become, I don't like the things that I think and do because of how my heart is feeling, and I don't like what it's done to some of the relationships that mean so very much to me. But after I cry to let out the stress (did you know that crying burns 1.4 calories per minute?) and get some sleep, I always find myself taking a step back and thinking about how this whole experience is going to better me as an individual, a friend, a daughter, and a person in general. I know that things are going to get better, because sometimes you have to wait awhile before you see the things that are truly beautiful. And when that beauty does finally show up, the waiting period won't seem like nearly as big of a deal as it seems to be now.

The Storm Will Pass

I spent the past weekend in Waverly, IA with my friend Andreya for the annual Waverly Heritage Days Celebration. Two days of hanging out, listening to awesome cover bands, eating good food, and drinking way more alcohol than my mother would care for me to admit. Waverly is a good 3 hour jaunt from Storm Lake, so I got up and got ready to leave about 11:00 Sunday morning so I would be back home by mid-afternoon. I'm getting ready to leave, and Andreya comes to help me carry my stuff out to my car, and she goes "It's raining, by the way." I'm thinking like a gentle summer rain, whatever. No. Torrential downpour would be the better term to describe it. I got out of Waverly and the rain let up a little bit, but it was still a pretty strong shower. As I'm driving along, I get about 10 miles out of one town, and 4 miles away from the next town when the HEAVIEST rain shower I've seen in quite awhile. Rain so heavy that I couldn't see a foot in front of me driving, my windshield wipers needed to go about 30x faster to compensate for all the rain, that kind of rain. Couple that with the fact that it was a part of Highway 3 that has lots of curves. *cue Kelsey panicking severely* I'm leaning as far forward as I can to see, driving 10 miles per hour, saying Hail Mary's as quickly as I can, and channeling the bad-assery of my Grandpa Struck by telling myself that I can drive the damn box that the car came in. I also had that scene from 27 Dresses where Katherine Heigl is freaking out because she's hydroplaning LITERALLY 10 seconds after James Marsden tells her that she needs to slow down or she will hydroplane. So, that's all going on. I'm telling myself that if I can just get to that next town, I'll pull into a Casey's or McDonald's and wait for the rain to let up a bit before I continue driving home. So, I kept going, very slowly, praying fast. As I get closer to town, the rain starts letting up, and I look ahead and I see bright, clear skies. The worst part of my drive home was over, and it was smooth sailing for the remainder of the trip.

I often come up with blog ideas while I'm driving out of sheer boredom, but this one is a direct result of the circumstances I had to drive in. Sometimes, life is like that stretch of time 4 miles before Hampton. You can hardly see what's going on in front of you, you've got to move along a lot slower than you would like, you throw up a lot of prayers because you aren't sure what else to do, and you generally aren't sure if you are going to make it to the next goal or destination because it seems like everything is way too difficult to get through. But, you persevere. You keep going. You tell yourself that if you can just get to the next point, the next milestone, you'll find a spot and rest there awhile until the situation lets up a bit. There's nothing wrong with taking this path, and sometimes that's what you have to do, especially when situations are really big, really scary, and really difficult to get through. Sometimes, though, we don't need to stop and rest like we anticipated. Because all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the world gets brighter, the difficult part of whatever you are going through is behind you, and your journey becomes much more enjoyable, you can speed up your pace, and it doesn't seem nearly as scary anymore.

I made it through that scary storm. I didn't think I would, but with perseverance, a little faith, and good driving skills taught to me by my mother and my driver's ed teacher (shoutout to Mr. Torrey!) I got to that next town and saw the clear skies ahead. And whenever life decides to throw me a storm (whether it be an actual storm like yesterday or a figurative storm,) those same skills and that same wisdom I came up with on the nice part of the drive home is going to help me get through those storms. I'll get through them, and then I'll coast along with the enjoyable parts of the journey, whatever that journey may be.

Ciao.