Choosing your own life.

"I always attempt to tackle these particularly weighty subjects on my blog in the hopes that someone will read it and be inspired in some way. this year, i want to use this blog as a means of opening up the oft slammed-shut door of my emotional existence and lay it bare for all the world to see. melodramatic? obviously. do i write any other way? i was glancing over my journal in church yesterday and i've said it once and i'll say it again...my journal has the gravitas of a late 90s Nickelodeon sitcom. seriously. i like to think i'm deep and such. false notion. my journal reads more like a who's who of alexandra's non-existent dating life. i'm embarrassed for what the future generations might think." -Alexandra Sullivan, January 2014 i can't believe i never posted that for the whole world to see! it's a good thing i think i'm particularly funny;it's important that somebody laugh. i've decided that i will take to the blog world again and at least give my little sister something funny to read when she's bored. there are a lot of game-changers coming my way in the coming months. i've left the classroom once and for all (as a teacher, that is), i leave for the leper colonies of india in about 2 weeks, after that i'll basically be loafing about southern california, ya know, working on the tan, and then in probably the biggest of all big news, i'll be attending American University in washington d.c. you heard me right people, the dream is coming true! this post is aptly named. i have started writing and rewriting this post for months upon months and yet the title is still applicable- life is coming full circle as it tends to do. i have chosen my life. the decisions i made 8 years ago shaped where i'm going. i see all too clearly the heartbreak and disappointment i've felt/struggled through shaped me, allowed me to be here and now. honestly, for many years i felt like the heavens were closed to me. i was struggling on my own, with only my glimmer of faith allowing me to keep going. i felt like my life was a series of colossal failures- unable to keep a long-term boyfriend in college, hard to keep a solid group of friends hanging around, inability to transform lives in louisiana, lack-luster church service, epic heartbreak, job troubles, i mean, my life in no way was bad but it left me feeling like i was in the back seat of my life, struggling to get to the steering wheel. i knew Heavenly Father was there, but i didn't see the method in what i like to term "madness" (cue lightening strike? hope not.) now, what may seem small to the outside observer has been huge to me. i've had my miracles this year. i've been heard, noticed, appreciated, whatever you want to call it, by the powers that are guiding my life. what i'm really getting around to is that your miracle will come. it will come in the quiet moments when you know you served someone with your whole heart and soul. it will come through dedicated temple service. it will come as you take the time to learn about the Gospel. And in a million other moments (yep, hyperbole. my favorite.) 2 Nephi 2 talks all about how we need the bad to appreciate the good. as a young, single, vibrant woman my initial reaction to that is "hmm...well, i'm not so sure. i think i can very much appreciate the good without feeling the bad. i.e. i am enjoying this little caeser's hot and ready very much, but i didn't have to eat the disgusting frozen pizza to know that this one is deeeelicious." stunning logic, i know. but it has been through these last 8 years of personal struggle that i now know understand a smaller fraction of this doctrine. through all of the bad, i've been refined. without the "bad" in our lives, we can't grow. we don't become these awesome people with character and realness. we aren't robots (although it would be SO cool if we had small wonder robots hanging around). i feel like i can say this with some sense of authority now- you'll be trudging through the misery that this world has to offer for your lifetime, but through it all, you have the choice of whether or not you will let the bad allow you to be ready to receive your miracle.