One more semester to go, and life is GOOD!

Yo! I feel like saying yo, even though I'm just writing to myself, ha.

So I just finished my 3rd semester in nursing school!! Crazy!! Cray cray! We only have one more semester, and we'll be done! I'm excited for capstone, I think I'll learn a lot and really like it! I hope, anyway. And I'm excited to be nearly done with nursing school, so that I can stop paying tuition and start making money instead (and paying off those dreaded student loans...), but I'm a little sad that it's almost all over. I have really enjoyed nursing school and learning the skills of a nurse, but I have also met and made some of my best friends here in the program (our tight little group is Maryn, Maggie, Elisa, Gabby, Jessica, Cydney and me), and I'm sad that we won't be seeing each other as much, and many not at all.

But life is so good! I am so blessed, I just can't even believe how many things I have to be grateful for, and how many good things are happening in my life, and how many great things I am just blessed with! Among the top great things going on in my life right now are:

-Nursing school. I love it, I love learning, and I'm so excited to be a nurse!

-Training for my first triathlon! I'm signed up for the Woman of Steel sprint triathlon with my friend Heidi (who I love. She's like 40-something, has some grand kids even, but she's so fun and cool and fit!), who is in the other nursing class, who I know through TRAILS. It's in about 3 weeks, and I'm still nervous about it, but so excited! I kind of signed up on a whim one night, after her telling me about it earlier that afternoon at TRAILS, but after looking it up and reading more about it, I felt good about it, so I signed up! Then I found a blog of a woman who did it a few years ago, and read her post about the tri, and then felt like I was going to die. But I'm back to being excited! It's been so good for me to have this to train for, and such a great motivation in so many ways for me! I love having something to work towards, it's so good for me. Not to mention exercise is so healthy anyway, in all areas!

-I'm also now going to be doing a Ragnar! One of my best friends, Wendy, invited me to run it with her team the other day, and I'm doing it! I've wanted to do one for a while, because they sound so fun and it would be a great accomplishment, seeing as running is not my strength or favorite thing. And I love her, and she doesn't love running either, and she said her family are not intense or a fast team (thank goodness), and I feel so comfortable with Wendy, she's the best. I know she will take care of me. Plus, since I was a little leary of signing up after she told me it's $100 per person (on my student budget, yikes!), she is a saint and demanded me to let her pay for half of mine. She wanted me to do it that bad! I am so blessed with amazing friends, I tell ya! So even though that is NOT something I like to do, let people pay for me like that, it really would have been hard to pay that much (I can't even really afford the $50, but hopefully somehow it will work out, I felt good about doing it, so..), so she certainly made it more doable for me. I love her to death.

-I know I've written in here before about this, but I just have amazing friends! I love my school friends, who I've already mentioned, and I love my church friends too (Jamie, Wendy, Liz, Cheryl, Nichole, Holly, etc. etc.). And particularly, Jamie and I went through what felt like to me, a rough patch there, kind of an unspoken one. And I wasn't sure if we would ever be super close again, but when I finally was humbled and realized that I did want to be again, I prayed for help that we could become really close again, and it has happened! I love her to death again, and we are once again really close, and seeing each other more, and back to being closely in each other's lives. I really cherish my relationship with Jamie, and to this day I still am amazed at how much she likes me too. I always have been. She's so amazing and I love her.

-I am totally over Wes! I already wrote about it, but it just feels really good to have that behind me, and to not feel anxious over the possibility of seeing him at stake functions. And that I still feel good about the message I sent him.

-I've been meeting some pretty decent guys lately, especially this last weekend. None have made any effort to pursue anything with me (bummer), but they've been positive experiences, just meeting more guys, expanding my circle (like at Loralie's party on Sat. night, and then after the amazing Institute fireside last night). I feel like at least there are decent guys out there, that I could be happy with, I think.

-My guitar skills are really improving! I absolutely love playing the guitar, and I'm so grateful for the motivation that HF gave me last year, to set the goal of practicing it (or the piano, which I've kind of let go of for now) every day! I have actually done just that almost every day this year (missed probably 2 or 3 times), since last Dec. 31, 2012! I'm really proud of myself, and so grateful for the motivation and perseverance I've been blessed with to keep my goal. But I love playing, and I feel like I can actually say not that I play the guitar. I'm not great, by any means, but I feel comfortable with a bunch of the basic chords, and can transition between them fairly well. It's so fun! My goal is to be good enough that I can play comfortably and confidently at a girls camp around the camp fire one day (as a young women's leader, hopefully..dream calling:).

The only thing that's not stellar in my life, necessarily, is the realm of boys. Not dating anyone right now, there's not really anyone substantial that I have my eye on, so that's sometimes a bummer. But I'm so grateful that I have all these other great things going on in my life to keep me busy and keep me from dwelling on my single-ness.

So yeah, life is good!

Finally messaged Wes

I need to write about so much more than this, but I messaged Wes last night, finally, and said this:
Hey Wes,
It was good to see you the other day after stake conference, thanks for saying hi.
So I'm not really sure what really happened, but I wanted you to know that I'm okay with everything, and that I hope we can still be friends.
Anyway, I hope work and everything is going well for you,
Melissa

I had seen him after stake conf. in the Assembly Hall, and we were so close to each other it was only inevitable that we eventually make eye contact, which we did, and we both said (mouthed, more like. We couldn't hear each other) hi, and how are you, and good. And that was about it. His eyes looked slightly sad or something, during this exchange, and the whole incident affected me for a good part of the rest of the day. I felt a little sad or something.. Jamie asked me, after we walked out of the Assembly Hall and away from where he was inside, if I hoped for something to happen again with him. I said no, no I didn't, but I felt like my heart wasn't sure, or wasn't agreeing or something. By the end of the day, I realized that was I was feeling was that it just made me miss him. Miss what we had. Miss that. But I re-remembered why I had decided that he isn't the one for me, and since then I've been fine. But I've kept thinking about messaging him, I've planned on doing it eventually, for a long time, if he never contacted me first, and yesterday I finally felt really ready to, really okay with things.

And surprisingly, I've felt great about having sent it ever since! This is a good sign. A good sign that I really am okay with things.

Life is great, and A single miracle!

I really should be asleep, but there is so much I need to write about (this seems to be a pattern), and life is pretty great right now, and I just wanted to write real quick about a small miracle that happened tonight.

So lately I've been wondering if there really are any guys out there who are good guys, single, who aren't addicted to pornography or haven't had problems with it in the past, and who I could actually date. I've become more accustomed to the idea again (some days, anyway) of being single for..a long time longer. Or my whole life. And it would be okay. It would be really hard at times, but it would be okay. Or at least I can say that now. Things are going really well in my life, I love school, school is so good for me. I love learning and studying and progressing that way. Especially learning about things I'm so interested in. I've also been training for a sprint triathlon that's May 18, which has been really good for me as well. I've been running and biking more, and even going swimming! And this increased amount of exercise feels so good! It makes me feel so good about myself. And then my guitar practicing. I still practice the guitar every day, pretty much, and I love it! I love playing it and learning new songs. I feel like I really could be good at it one day if I keep diligently practicing, which is an exciting thought. Also, I have the greatest friends. I feel so blessed. I have really great friends from school (Maryn, Maggie, Jessica DaCosta, Elisa, and Cydney, specifically--my closest ones), and great friends at church as well (Liz, Jamie, Wendy, Nichole G., Holly, etc.). I just feel so blessed in my life, and I'm so busy, but getting lots done, which I thrive on. Oh, and my job too, I love that (helping Paul, my quad). He has been a regular missionary experience, which I also love and am so grateful for.

Anyway, life is going pretty great right now.
But tonight, I went to fhe, which was country dancing with another ward in the stake, the Winmill ward, and I met this guy named Zack, who I danced with a little bit, and it was fun to dance with him (minus me being sweaty and stinking, especially when I raised my arms, like when he'd spin me..so embarrassing. I have this sweating problem..), but he was a great conversationalist, and we seemed to click pretty well. But then he basically just left me, kind of randomly and out of the blue, when I thought we were having a good conversation. But then as I was hurrying to leave to go meet Maryn to go swimming, I said bye to him, since he was right by the door, and he was really friendly and remembered my name.

Anyway, as I drove home and to the pool, the more I thought about him the more I became interested in getting to know him better. He is about my same height (ugh, again?) and not real thick, but not super skinny either (a plus), but I decided that if everything else about him was great, like the important stuff (i.e. good conversationalist, same sense of humor, likes country music, no problems with pornography, spiritually there, educated, good job) then I would take someone like him, even if he wasn't any taller than me, over being single the rest of my life.

But the greatest part, the miracle of it all, was that I have this new sense of hope! Hope that there are good guys out there! And there still could be someone for me to marry! This truly was a little ray of hope in my forever-single-looking life.

Healing, and nursing school is great!

Oh man, it's been a couple weeks since I've written, and I shouldn't wait that long..so much to update on. Nothing like I'm dating anyone new or engaged or anything, but just life.

Since last I wrote (I think), I've gone through the angry stage of grief, you could say, and was pretty irritated and mad at Wes, for what he did and what happened, and how he "ended" things. Maybe I was already in the angry phase last I wrote..I can't remember. But anyway, I've gotten over that phase, thank goodness, and since then, as far as he goes, I mostly just have sad moments every now and then. But thankfully time is a great healer, and those sad moments are getting fewer and farther between. One of the sad moments though, was I saw him at our stake musical fireside a couple Sundays ago, and he was basically in my line of vision the whole time. Well, to the side, but in front of where I was sitting. I gave the opening prayer and basically had to walk right by him to and from the pulpit, but I avoided glancing his way on my way back to my seat. Afterwards, we kind of avoided each other. We made eye contact once afterwards, from across the chapel, but no other contact. I felt okay about things, more so than I did after I saw him that first time at stake FHE, but after I got home I just felt sad. Sad that it was awkward and that we had to avoid each other.
But since then, I have felt less sad, just in quiet moments. Sad at what could have been, and that slight hurt of feeling rejected I think will always be there. At least until I find someone else to fill that hole.
But speaking of finding someone else, no, I haven't. But I've decided that it's good that I'm not dating anyone right now, it's so stressful and dramatic, I'm more stable now, and I get more studying done! :) But seriously. I'm better able to focus on school and homework and reading our huge peds textbook, which I actually really like! :)

Which brings me to the topic of school. I love nursing school! Not everything about it, but I love especially clinicals and the actual nursing classes, like maternity and peds and patho, etc. I'm so excited for my capstone and to work as a nurse in a few months! A little terrified, and can't wait for the day when I actually feel like I know what I'm doing, but I'm excited!