In Which I Am Alive

Last week, my mom had me go through some boxes of my stuff from junior high and high school to get rid of whatever I didn't want anymore (apparently my parents' house doesn't have infinite space?) In the process, I found something bizarre. Something glorious. Something I had completely forgotten existed.  It was....the Man in a Can! So, the Man in a Can was an activity we did for my church Young Women's group when I was 14. We cut out pictures of wedding dresses, color schemes, and rings, made lists of attributes we wanted in a future husband, and picked out names for our future children ("So, basically pre-Internet Pinterest," says my brother). Then, each of us sealed up the contents of our wishful wedding planning in a Number 10 can, to be opened only when we had become engaged. So here I was, face to face with my DIY Pinterest Time Capsule, opening it a year and a half late. I remembered the activity; I also remembered having a really bad attitude about

This year, I set a New Year's resolution that I've been trying to bring myself to set for a few years. I decided that I would lose 20 pounds by the end of the year. For the past three years, I've been skirting around the issue, pretending I don't care, and basically doing nothing. So what that I'm almost thirty pounds heavier than I was five years ago? Bodies change, man. I was training for a half marathon five years ago, and I sure don't have time for that now. I would tell myself that the only healthy outlook was to love myself as I was, which meant accepting those extra thirty pounds as a welcome part of me. I told myself that trying to lose weight would only lead to extreme dieting, anxiety, and probably profound disappointment. I reasoned that it was just too hard, I couldn't do it, and it would make more sense to just accept my new size as normal. And I was ready to leave it at that, except that I couldn't. It kept nagging at me. This extra

Well, you may have noticed that my Johnny Karate blog series lasted exactly one post. I'm not going to make any apologies or give any excuses for that. But after a seven month blogging hiatus, I think I'm ready to start writing again. I don't know what shape this blog will take or what purpose it will serve. It used to be a journal of sorts, a place to vent my thoughts when I didn't know who to share them with. I have an unprecedented level of support in my life now, and my mental health is much better than when I was blogging the most, so I don't need this blog to be therapy for me anymore. But I do know that I miss writing. I know that these days blogs are supposed to have a theme or a niche or some unifying feature. For the past seven months I've been trying to choose an angle: do I want this to be a lifestyle blog (whatever the heck that is)? A blog about living in Provo? A religiously-themed blog? A blog full of stirring essays about my deepest inner feel