I've been thinking lately about life in general. What am I going to do in my life? What's my purpose? What is the plan that I am suppose to follow? A set of lyrics from the movie Pocahontas 2 pops into my mind when I get into this mind frame:
*Note: I know that most of you that may decided to read this frown upon sequels, especially Disney sequels, but the redeeming quality to Pocahontas 2 is this song right here and that Disney sets history straight and has Pocahontas end up with John Rolfe.
They do what they must for now
And trust in their plan
If I trust in mine, somehow I might find who I am
CHORUS
But where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go from here?
My world has changed and so have I
I've learned to choose
And even learned to say goodbye
The path ahead's so hard to see
It winds and bends but where it ends
Depends on only me
In my heart I don't feel part of so much I've known
Now it seems it's time to start,
A new life on my own
CHORUS
But where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go from here?
First time I heard this song I was at work in the morning watching this movie. It caused me to tear up because of how true it was to how I feel about my current situation.
The thought that came into my mind was something that I have been going back and forth about: Going on a mission. I've always kind of wanted to go on one, but then, I haven't had the strongest desire to do so. The biggest obstacle in my way currently is my thyroid problems. To catch you guys up:
It all starts back in the Summer of 2009. I found that I had this lump developing on my neck. Not sure what it was, and getting kind of worried, I went to the doctors to see if they knew what was up. For those of you that know me really well I call the doctors "quacks" because I believe that most of the time they don't know what they are talking about and can give you their best guess of what they think you have. (When I am sick I can usually predict what I have before I go to the doctors. 9 times out of 10 I'm right.) They, of course, didn't know what was up and referred me to a doctor, which then referred me to another doctor, which then referred me to the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist that I currently see.
After many blood work tests they decided to do a biopsy on the lump on my throat to see if it was cancerous. For those of you who have had a biopsy know that they use a good 2 1/2 inch needle and stick it in the area that they want to get a sample of. They then suck up some of the tissue and take that to get tested. With it being on my throat I had to make sure that I didn't swallow while the needle was in my neck, or else they would have to do it again. They had to restart three times.
After that I went home and was just left sore and tender, and my neck hurt bad. One of my sisters decided to invite me to go do baptisms for the dead with her, and I decided, why the heck not? My neck throbbed the whole way there. Right when I stepped into the temple my neck stopped hurting, and it didn't hurt anymore after that. Definitely a testimony builder, right?
Well, the results came back from the biopsy and it was inconclusive. They decided that they didn't want to take any chances and so they scheduled me to have a surgery to take it out in the coming two weeks. Terrified, I prayed... A lot... I prayed for comfort and courage. It was the first surgery that I had to go through. The day of the surgery finally came. My ma came with me so I wouldn't have to drive myself home after the procedure. Sitting in the room there were doctors coming in and out asking me questions. Finally the anesthesiologist came in and asked me if I had any allergies to any anesthesia medicine. Not knowing for sure, since I had never had to take any, I told him I didn't think so. He then left and I was left sitting in the room with my mom. She then turns to me and tells me that one of my great grandpa's died because he had an allergic reaction to an anesthesia medicine. My heart stopped at that moment. My thought was, "I have a good chance of having an allergy to the medicine, and today could be the day that I end up dying." (Yeah, I'm dramatic, but that's why I do theater.) I then looked up at my mom and told her, "If I'm meant to die today, then so be it." Well, long story short, I came out of the surgery alive, or else I wouldn't be writing this blog post, right? :)
Well, after the surgery the doctor decided to keep an eye on my thyroid. Well a good 9 months later he found two cysts on the left side of my thyroid. He told me that he wanted to watch to see if they grew, so he scheduled me to come back in 9 months. I was kind of thinking of going on a mission, but I was like, okay. I can wait until January of 2012 to see if things are okay, right? Well, leading up to that my throat got tender, my sleep patterns went all funky, and my eye sight has been doing some funny things. I had a lot of symptoms that looked like Graves Disease. I went to the appointment last week and found out that the cysts grew a bit and that there were many more that started to form on my thyroid. My doctor, deciding not to do anything else, told me to come back in NINE MORE MONTHS to see if the cysts grow any more. He didn't really address any of my concerns, and sent me on my way.
Any way, getting back to how this relates to a mission, I am left to: do I just wait and see if the docs can fix me, or do I go out to the field and if I actually have major problems come home in the middle? If I go out, I want to dedicate my whole self to the mission, and I don't want anything to send me home.
In the meanwhile, with wait that I was going to have to do, and highly considering going on a mission, I decided that the fall of 2011 I was going to take the final class I needed to get my associates in Family and Human Studies at SLCC, and work as much as I could to save up money for a mission. Well, less than a month before school started for the fall I got a call saying that they dropped that class because not enough people signed up for it. My thought was, oh great, what am I going to do now? It was too late to go get registered at the University of Utah, and there are no more classes that I can take at SLCC that will help me in my educational pursuits. I ended up having to take off a semester of school, which was one of the hardest things that I had to do.
One of my sisters came up with a plan that Spring 2012 I take that last class I need and also start taking classes at the U. I thought it was a great plan, and sent in an application to the U. Long story short with that, SLCC was a little slow with sending my transcript, making me miss the deadline for applying at the U. Right now I am taking my final class at SLCC and will have my Associates in May and I WILL be going to the U in the fall.
Life's a funny thing... You may think that you know what to expect, but then a curve ball comes your way, making things all confusing again. What is expected of us is to get back up, roll with the punches, and keep moving forward. Well, it's not always easy to try and stay positive and to keep going. This picture illustrates what we need to do though:
Interesting thought... Try again tomorrow... that's all that we can do. We got to try your best and have the courage to keep going, even when life sucks. Keep smiling.
The next thing the song reminded me of is dating... Yeah... I know what you may be thinking... Attending a singles ward they talk about it ALL THE TIME! I'm not even kidding you... We even had a couple come and speak about how great marriage is during Sacrament meeting. Sure, every girl thinks about it from time to time. Do I have a boyfriend right now? No... Could I have a boyfriend right now? Yes... The past year I have had five chances to get a boyfriend and I turned each of them down... It's kind of interesting: ever since I was 19 I went through a cycle of where I would have a boyfriend for three months, he would dump me, and then in three more months I would have a boyfriend. It was something that I got teased about a lot. Where I'm at now, I haven't had a boyfriend for almost a whole year coming up on my birthday (yeah, I got dumped on my birthday, but that's another story if you are daring to ask me). There is one that I would like to date, but wouldn't in his current situation and there is another that I would be interested in dating, but I don't think he knows I exist... nah, just kidding about that. He does know that I exist, but the most that I get out of him is him calling certain things I do "cute" or "adorable." Sigh! I just need to find my unicorn, as one of my good pals puts it.
Well, what I know for sure is, I need to trust in the Lord and keep pushing forward. He has a plan for me. I don't know what is in store, but if I do what is right and do my part, he will lead the way. I just need to keep moving forward! I know that whatever choice I make, I will learn from it. :)
