I < 3 Oregon

I got home from home today. It was so insanely difficult to leave, but my nonrefundable ticket kind of made me decide that I needed to come back.

I can't begin to express how much I miss it over there... When I put the stroller back in the car, sand spilled out everywhere. It didn't upset me. It made me homesick, and I hadn't even been off Oregon soil for 3 hours.

Cannon beach was amazing! The drive over there was beautiful. It was so green and fresh. I swear, every five minutes I would take a deep breath in and exhale, saying "I love this place."

I'm sure my friend got sick of hearing it, but I never got sick of feeling it or saying it. I never realized how gross and brown Utah is. The mountains are beautiful, but they don't seem to compare to the bridges, water, and trees that surround everywhere you go in Oregon.

The beach was amazing. It was cold. The air was full of mist, which only got stronger when you got closer to the beach. It made your skin tingle. It wasn't raining... It was mist. And I loved it. I loved the smell. I loved the freezing water. I loved the sand between my toes.

Tegan loved running around in the water. She loved every bit of the ocean experience. She had sand all over her hands and face, and refused to let me put food in her mouth. She had to grab it with her sandy little hands and shoving it in her mouth herself... covered in gritty dirty sand. It didn't seem to make any difference. She dove into the water (on accident) and loved it, until she turned into an ice cube.

I can't express how much those couple hours meant to me. I need more beach in my life. Not just any beach. Oregon beach.

That wasn't all I did up there.... My best friend is having a freaking baby! I know it shouldn't seem weird because I already have one... but it just makes me think of how far we've come even in the past couple years. I was in the house we used to play in. In the yard we got dirty in. Riding around places we used to play. It's so different, and still the same.

A baby. Chelsea is having a baby! A bouncing baby boy! We were kids and now we're having kids.

When I move, I am going to move here. This place. This place that makes my heart beat faster and slower at the same time. I want more. I want more of the people and the energy that I get from there.

Um... I'll post more later... it's been a long day... :)

going back in time...

This is a post I found from two years ago this month... The first post on this blog.

Enjoy....

here i am...

It's been a long time since I have felt free enough to start putting my thoughts down into an actual visual format. And man, writing that first sentence felt amazing.

Here I am. Back in Utah. And I think about my life up to this point, and can't believe what got me here. I have fallen in love, fallen in love again, and possibly again, and then fallen out of it. I've been cheated on, mislead, underestimated, betrayed, hurt on purpose (and possibly on accident), backstabbed, thrown under the bus, and even left for dead. My life has been turned upside down so many times, I'm not sure what side is up anymore. But here I am. And I'm still breathing. You know why I'm here? Because I was loved back. Because someone in my life helped to lift me up. Because other people keep believing in me, loving me, and keep reminding me to breathe. I know life is worth it.

Recently something happened that made me realize how much of a miracle life really is. I'm pregnant. It's weird to see it, and even weirder to say it. Usually when it comes out of my mouth, it feels like I'm screaming it so everyone can hear. And I'm forcing myself to believe that I'm okay with it. To believe everything will be okay weather it is or not.

Last Thursday, I got my baby's first picture. I saw my baby's heart beat for the first time. I didn't believe that I was pregnant, even though there were three pregnancy tests and a doctor sitting in front of me saying that I was DEFFINATELY pregnant. Dr. Aagard put that warm jelly on my belly, and started giving me the ultrasound. I couldn't really see what anything was. There was grey blobs, and white blobs, and one really big black one. And then I saw the flutter. No one needed to tell me what that black and white flutter was. I knew right away that it was my baby's heart, still growing and changing, until he/she would turn into one or the other. And that heart would be beating for the rest of this life form's life. I saw that heartbeat, and I finally started to settle down. The miracle of life was starting to grow inside my belly. And I want to do whatever it takes to keep it.

There are so many people riding for my cause, and I'm happy that I have some hands holding me up and believing in me. Of course there are people that believe that I should not keep it... mainly the father. He can't afford child support, and doesn't want to have another child that he has no connection with, or so he says. But he also says that I'm not responsible enough or ready to have a baby. That's why I have the next 7ish months to prepare! You can never be fully ready to have a baby. But I'm going to have to try my best. The fact that he says these things, just proves that he doesn't even know who I am. I will not be underestimated again.

There were a lot of fights with my mom. At first she was okay and willing to help me, and once I moved back into her house, (I know... not fun...) she decided to go crazy and start freaking out that I had sex in the first place to get pregnant without a husband. And then went off about me not having any morals or standards. Every time I tried to stop the argument, she brought up more things. More mistakes. They aren't even mistakes, they were just things that happened that with the LDS upbringing were not approved of.

I'm making this clear. I have no regrets. Things that have happened in the past are learning experiences, and if you don't learn you can never grow. You can never live your life fully if you stay under a rock and never come up for fresh air. You have to spread your wings and fly as close to the sun as possible, without melting whatever sticky substance you used to create those wings. And it takes practice. I fell a lot, but I'm still getting up and preparing my wings for the next battle I have against the elements. And each time, I learn something new to put towards the next time. Life experience is the best way to learn about yourself. And I fully believe that you should keep on trying. Keep living. Keep breathing. Because whatever is at the end of the road isn't worth it unless you really try.

Ha ha, uber-preachy. Ah, I'm out of time. But tune in next time, where I will start to go into some detail about my adventures in Florida and what led me there.... and back. Ha.
Thank you for reading. ♥

Home is where your heart is....

For those of you who don't know me very well, I haven't lived in Utah all my life. In fact, about half of the years I have spent on this planet have been in Utah, and the other half was spent where my heart always has been. The west coast.

Oregon.

That is where I sit at this current moment. I feel... Nostalgia. An overwhelming calm. I can't get over how much I love this place... Everything about it.

This is where I grew up. This is where I learned how to ride a bike, how to spit, how to play in the mud and get dirty... Where it was okay to come in from playing outside, covered in mud and dirt. It meant you had fun.

This is where my love for the ocean and anything outdoors developed.

It was here I realized all the good in people, before I learned how much bad really existed.

Some say, once you leave home, you can never return again. But here is what I say. Home is where your heart is. It may not be an actual house or location, but a general area. It is here that I breathe deeper. I smell the rain in the air and the rich soil, the green in the trees. Green is EVERYWHERE! And I don't want it any other way. It's been warm, but not so scorching hot that you can't get outside and still play. I love it.

I love this place. I keep telling my childhood friend that I love it, and that I feel like a fool for saying it so much, but I LOVE this place. Did I mention that I love it here? Love love love love love love it here.

I have had it in my head that I wanted to come here to have a family. This is where I want my daughter to grow up. The knowledge I gained here does not compare to what I have seen in Utah. The quality of life and education here seems better.

I can't explain it. It's just different here.

I can give you a million different reasons for me to move here. The list gets longer and longer the longer I stay. There is something in the air, something in the water.... Something.

I love it here. I can breathe deeper, and I am constantly smiling.

But what happens when I go back to Utah? Will I snap back to reality and realize that Oregon isn't the place for me?

For the longest time, I have wanted to move back to this place. I walked around places that I used to play... Earlier today, I was at a baby shower for my best friend in the house we grew up in.... I stood in the backyard that seemed so large to me at the time, and realized how small it was. The treehouse is still tucked away in the branches of that large tree in the backyard, but the swing that I broke is still balled up at the base. Some of the rooms in the house had changed, but it was still the same... the feelings were still the same.

So when will I realize that this really isn't where I want to be? Or is it where I should be? What keeps pulling me back here?

No sales tax?
The air?
Good friends and quality people?
Abundance of water?
All the green?
Memories?

Nostalgia?

I guess we'll find out what happens when I get back to Utah.

No matter what, home will always be where the heart is.... And my heart is drawn here.

Maybe my knight in shining whatever is waiting over here... With the house and the yard and the dog and the white picket whatever. Only time will tell, dear friend.... Only time will tell.

Love or insanity?

I had a patient yesterday that made my day hell. I got behind on everything, because over three hours of my day were spent trying to calm her down... Walking with her in the hallways, talking to her in her room, trying to talk to her husband... It was a bad day. She definitely was not herself.

I had taken care of said woman a day before, and while I knew she wasn't really with it, she was pleasant. She smiled all day, and the only way I could get out of her room was to literally walk out in the middle of the conversation, because this lady would not shut up. She remembered where she was, and seemed to understand what was going on. But, yesterday...

Yesterday was a totally different story. She was yelling at everyone. She hated me. Within 30 seconds, in what could have been a short walk from the bathroom to her chair, she changed. She didn't recognize the hospital room. She went from this sweet little lady, to someone I had never met before. She kept going back to her sorority house days. She thought I was treating her so terribly, because I wasn't letting her leave. But she couldn't leave. Medically, she had to stay where she was, because within 30 seconds, she went totally insane. She was not capable of making the decisions she wanted to make. And she was a woman that liked to be in control.

Then her husband and his neighbor came and gave her a blessing, which seemed to make things worse. Next thing I knew, she was out in the hallway. And she was yelling louder and calling everyone names.

I'm going somewhere with this, I promise.

Hours later her husband came back, and it seemed to make things even worse. She was hitting him with her walker, angry because he wasn't going to take her home. He kept trying to use a calm voice, kept telling her that he loves her and that's why she's here. I can't tell you how many times he told her he loved her. She sat there quietly for a while, and finally turned to him with a hateful look...

After accusing him of some terrible things that would make ME cry, she said....

"How DARE you talk to me that way! I HATE YOU! I DO NOT LOVE YOU!"

Could you imagine living with that? With constant emotional abuse? Would it be total insanity, or is it actual love? Is it weakness? Or strength? How strong would you have to be to put up with something like that, to keep telling yourself that they don't mean it, they aren't themselves...

I haven't been able to decide what it is that made him stay... Is it really love? True love? Or is it pure insanity? Is he used to that emotional abuse from before? I don't know...

If you can't find someone that you love more than anything, someone you would stay by through coma, cancer, or psychosis... Maybe they're worth sticking by.

Keep telling them you love them, even if they yell at you.

Keep telling them you love them, even if you think they can't hear you.

Keep telling them you love them, even when they're gone.