Dear 18, Love 28 | Published at 38

A letter written to myself at 18 on/around my 28th birthday, discovered mere weeks before my 38th birthday. All still so very relevant. 

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Dear Nat—

Quit thinking you must have short hair because you have a long face. You will not look like a horse with long hair, I promise. Also. Wear shorts. You live in Arizona and it’s hot. You do not have unsightly legs, you’re just being ridiculous and clichéd with your needless body image issues.

So. Now that the trivial matters are out of the way.

Your dad always said he pitied those who never got past talking about the glory days of high school—because life is supposed to get better after high school. And I can promise you that it does. You were in a hurry to get out, and that was the right choice. Ten years after you graduate, you’re in a life more fabulous than you ever fathomed possible or thought you deserved.

Nat. To make a very long story short—you’re a rock star. You always have been, you simply let insecurity and fear own too much of your heart and your interactions with others. Quit that soon, because you’ll lose years of your life driving people away until you figure out how to both treat and communicate with them in the spirit of sensitivity and respect. You’re not a nasty person, but let’s be honest—sometimes you’re not a real joy to be around either. Never substitute being clever for being kind. Keep plugging away at self-improvement, you’ll get there. Once you turn the corner and figure out how to love yourself, the number of incredible people in your life will improve exponentially. With years of practice, you’ll transform yourself into a truly sensitive, thoughtful, loyal friend. This will become one of your defining characteristics and people respect this about you.

You’ll learn resiliency as you encounter professional, social, romantic, and spiritual setbacks. You’ll learn to find the silver lining. Don’t focus so much on what’s wrong all the time; find the right and chase after it. In good news, there isn’t true regret, tragedy, or heartbreak looming on the horizon—just the continual heat felt from being in the refiner’s fire. Nat—it’s nothing you can’t handle, so don’t be so afraid. There’s no need to fear life; embrace it.

You’ll learn to love yourself by being completely alone. And alone doesn’t mean lonely dear girl—there’s a key difference. Alone means far from home, able to navigate life with a competence beyond your years. Instead of constantly checking your phone waiting for it to ring, you’ll gleefully check the increasing balance of your savings account and feel like you’ve really made it in the world. You’ll travel… a lot. Yes, because you want to, but also because you can. You learn to make things happen instead of waiting for them to happen to you.

The only true life regret you have at 28 is that you didn’t figure these things out earlier on. But it’s okay; you’d be a different person today if you’d figured it out sooner. And truth be told, you wouldn’t trade the today version of you for a different one. (You worked hard to smooth out all those rough edges!)

And that’s not just a silver lining, but a platinum one.

The first married-life, pre-baby, post-weekend brain dump in the history of NatA!

It's embarrassing how the most inconsequential things make me feel like I'm winning at adulthood. Especially when said 'win' was something I've avoided doing for several years, where it's had a permanent place on my To Do list. I'm talking of course, about cleaning out the bathroom cupboards and drawers. Both of them. What a sweet sense of relief to have that terrible job completed.

In addition, we also sorted through the latest tidal wave of stuff deposited in the baby's room/spare room and the gym. Fantastic to be able to see and navigate the floors again; a bit disheartening to know that the contents of both closets have to be completely flipped. And once we're ready to assemble the nursery... yikes. We've got some furniture figuring out to do.

[Sidenote: I'm determined to complete so many house things while I'm feeling good and before the baby comes. Every thing I've read/heard indicates you won't get a thing done during maternity leave, and knowing how lazy I am clearly that sounds like the dream.]

This legitimately might be the most boring blog post of all time. I'm sorry. How about a photo of some of the wonderful wares purchased in Meridian, Idaho of all places? We stopped for the night both to and from Utah for the holidays and found ourselves with several hours to burn (trying to avoid the ghetto-ness of our $60/night rooms). Both trips held the exact same evening itinerary. Texas Roadhouse, Hobby Lobby for nursery prints, Marshalls/TJ Maxx for baby clothes. We hit the jackpot on the way home. These three outfits are Baby Girl's first stylized outfits.

Also this weekend? There were a few Blazers tickets floating around the office late Friday and knowing A) the visiting team (Golden State) is good and B) our time of being free and easy is coming to an end, I scooped them up. Paul came to my end of town where we had a quick happy hour nacho/bean dip deliciousness of a dinner (made even more fantastic by the fact we've been eating crazy healthy since the new year) and then braved the traffic and cold to get to the Moda Center for the Blazers Game.

We had a really great time enjoying the atmosphere, sitting for 99.9% of the game (bless the fact that our seats have no one in front of them and a bar on which to rest your feet), and just talking/laughing together. Oh, and planning out how we'd spend the Powerball lottery winnings should we win them.  It's very important to have this stuff figured out before your life changes forever you see.

And now that we have 9:00 church the wide expanse of Sunday afternoon is this delicious thing that typically includes stretchy pants, naps, TV, food, calling-related tasks, and anything else our little hearts desire. Though I loathe waking up 'early', I won't lie about how nice that afternoon is. This Sunday was made extra special by a [TMI ALERT!] 24-hour urine collection I had to complete for a test because though I'm having the easiest pregnancy of all time there's a random hiccup every now and then that requires some attention. (In this case, protein in my last urine test which may require a kidney specialist OR might mean I simply didn't drink enough water before my last test; which duh, my vote is on the latter.)

Shall we call this a weekend brain dump? Okay!

Guess who's back, back again?

Remember when everyone used to blog? And we had to tell our stories mostly with words? Those were the days. Earlier this week I took a spin through my last few blog posts and I was like, "Nat! You used to be such a good writer!"

Now the bulk of the writing I do is for work emails. #progress

(Also, hashtags. They're a thing now.)

But I'm thinking about bringing blogging back! Because a lot has changed since I gave up documenting my life three years ago--and that's a dark hole my memory will only be able to remember in photo, which is kind of sad, because I'm a words person!

And now I have a husband! And a house! And full fledged adult responsibilities that require a level of adulting I'm sure has been misplaced (managing a team! managing two sets of full-time missionaries with my ward mission leader husbot!), but I'm doing the best I can.

Because I'll never, ever, ever get back together with the ins and outs of the last three years, this video of Paul and my first 14 months together will have to try and cover some of the distance. 

Someone else join me in bringing blogging back!