recent accomplishments

last summer i had a conversation that made me think about how much i'd progressed as a person in the past few years. after the conversation ended i cried for a while & then sent an email to my mission companion about what a loser i was.

while i was on my mission i had my life figured out. i knew my role (slightly rebellious, but diligent missionary girl) & i was good at it. i usually felt confident and happy. but when i came home from my mission, i felt completely lost and surprisingly insecure. to deal with the lifestyle change & massive separation anxiety i had without a companion, i immediately threw myself back into school, work, & a relationship. i went through this process so quickly that i never figured out who i was or what i wanted to be as an individual. my entire last year at BYU i felt like i was in survival mode, barely scraping by. the last couple months i was in provo things started to stabilize, but i soon left for a transient summer. i had the aforementioned conversation at the end of the summer, a few days before i started grad school. at the time i felt like i hadn't changed since i was 20 & that my hobbies consisted of shopping & watching MTV dating shows.

maybe i needed a change of scenery or a new school, but now that i have been in atlanta for 6 months, i've realized that maybe i am not a total loser after all. and, i've stabilized enough to actually expand my life a bit. here is a list of my progress in the past 6 months:

* i learned how to knit & even though i'm not very good yet, i have grand ambitions
* i started running & hiking (and even the occasional rock climbing) again
* i started playing piano at least twice a week at the church and remembered that piano will always be my first love in hobby-land
* i planted a vegetable garden so i can grow my own produce
* i completely re-made my social circle and have friends ranging from uber-conservative mormons to hippie lesbians to elitist new yorkers, all whom i enjoy spending time with
* i got a student membership at the art museum & actually go to it
* most importantly, i've finally gotten over my psychotic need to always have someone with me and even voluntarily choose to be alone occasionally

and even though i spent an hour watching dating shows on MTV this evening, i finally feel like maybe i've started to grow up.