A gift that never expires

A few years ago, my sister invited me over to her house for dinner. When I arrived, my nephew answered the door. He looked up at me with his big blue eyes and said, "You were gone too long."

It had been eight days. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it amount of time for me, but a long wait for a three-year-old.

I've thought about this moment a lot since then. And not just because it's one of the sweetest things a niece or nephew has ever said to me. It reminds me of the kind of love our Father in Heaven has for us. 

My relationship with God is, in many ways, a relationship like any other. I update him on my life. Ask for favors. Tell him I need my space. Get frustrated about our communication issues. 

It's also unlike any other relationship I've had. God asks far more of me than anyone else does. He's always trying to teach me a lesson and is often slow to answer prayers, which leads to a lot of resentment and anger on my end. Sometimes it feels like the only healthy thing to do is break up with him and strike out on my own. Find new friends who don't make me work so hard.

I always end up coming back, though. I agree with what Pres. Russell M. Nelson said at the October 2022 General Conference: "The truth is that it is much more exhausting to seek happiness where you can never find it! However, when you yoke yourself to Jesus Christ and do the spiritual work required to overcome the world, He, and He alone, does have the power to lift you above the pull of this world."

The coolest part of having a relationship with God is that he doesn't care how many times we've cast him off. He's not keeping track of how many chances we have left. He doesn't get annoyed that the lessons he's trying to teach us don't seem to stick for long.

And he notices how long we've been gone, even if we don't. And for him, it's always too long, even though he understands why we're keeping our distance.

So like my nephew did that day, he waits at the door for our knock. And when that knock finally comes, he opens the door right away. Not with a rebuke and an "I told you so," but with a hug and an invitation to sit by him at the dinner table.

We're not perfect, but God's love for us is. There aren't a lot of things we can count on in this world, but God's love is a gift that never expires.

828 days

The last time I updated this blog, we were all talking about the results of the 2020 election and the Covid vaccine, which wasn't yet available for the general public. I was eagerly awaiting the season 2 premiere of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and preparing myself to return to an unfulfilling job after a rejuvenating Christmas break. It was the day before my last grandparent died and a week before I found my first gray hair.

I didn't expect to come back.

In fact, last summer I officially declared my blog dead. Cause of death: not enough creativity and passion to keep it going. I was no longer a person who wrote for fun. So I compiled the last few years of posts into a book to store next to my other blog books, a relic of my past that I could remember fondly but couldn't revive.

I like to blame Covid for killing my creative mojo, but it really started about a year earlier due to a job that was sucking the life out of me. Then Covid came along and finished the job. Career angst followed by a pandemic did a real number on my mental health, and after a while I accepted that I was permanently altered. I had evolved to be the type of person who enjoys others' creations but doesn't create any of my own. 

Halfway through 2021, things started to get better. The world was opening up again, adding some much-needed variety to my life that had become a comfortable form of solitary confinement. I got a new job that was enjoyable and fulfilling, with management that valued me for my strengths rather than dismissed me because of my weaknesses. I went back to a singles ward.

I made the changes I needed to get my life back on track, and my life significantly improved. I was more well-rested than I'd ever been as an adult due to my work-from-home lifestyle. I went on a few dates. My hair may have started turning gray, but it was also curlier than ever due to not needing to straighten it into submission as often. I could watch sports with real people in the background rather than cardboard cut-outs and glitchy Zoom attendees. 

While all of this improved my mental state, it wasn't enough to re-light that creative spark. I could do enough to stay employed, but nothing more. Which wasn't the worst side effect of two years of pandemic living, all things considered. I was painfully aware of how much worse things could be, so I accepted that I had different priorities now and moved on.  

Things continued to improve in 2022. After my carefully-thought-out New Year's resolutions in 2020 were blown to bits, I was hesitant to make optimistic plans again, but I did make one resolution for 2022: spend less time alone. 

So I joined my ward choir. I dubbed Wednesday my mandatory, midweek get-out-of-the-house day, which usually involved either going in to the office or going out to lunch. I became a regular at institute. I tried to take advantage of the fact that my whole family lives within an hour's drive of me and, like, hang out with them more. 

I did big things, too. I signed up for BYU's organ workshop so I could check "learn to play the organ" off my bucket list, and basically had the best week of my life pretending to be a BYU student again. (This is what book nerds do for fun when they aren't reading.) I joined the Stadium of Fire Chorus partly so I'd get a free ticket to see Tim McGraw, partly so I could use "I was once a backup singer for Marie Osmond" the next time I got roped into a Two Truths and a Lie game, and partly to stay busy so I could stay on top of my seasonal depression tendencies. (I am one of those special people who gets it during the summer, rather than the winter.) I went on vacation with my family and checked off another item on my bucket list: "go river rafting." (This was sadly a disappointing experience. I think everyone in my party would agree that it was a huge pain in the butt.) I went on a few more dates, tried a few new dating apps, and then swore off dating apps forever for the 80th time. 

I was happier than I'd been in years, and that little creative spark even flickered from time to time. My boss's comments on my writing at work changed from "You're a great technical writer, but can you make this more exciting/creative?" to "Looks good!" on pretty much everything. I started entertaining the possibility of starting a brand new blog, one with an actual focus and a URL that makes sense to people outside my family.

Of course, this put me up against an old foe of mine: laziness. Starting a new website is a lot of work; I didn't have the energy for that and the writing. So, again, I accepted that I wasn't really a creative person anymore anyway, and focused on the good thing my life had become despite what I lost during Covid.

Which brings me to 2023. So far, my only real complaint about this year has been the always-winter-and-never-Christmas time warp we're stuck in. Like, this week ski resorts in Utah had to close because there was too much snow. In APRIL. Usually snow makes me positively giddy, but breaking all the records this winter kind of broke me too.

But while I've been bundled up for cold evening walks or enduring more treadmill workouts of doom in my depressing basement, I've noticed something a little different about myself the past few months. I spend more time thinking about all the things than I do listening to my favorite podcasts, the ones I'm only allowed to listen to when I work out. Even more annoyingly, I've been losing sleep at night because my brain won't stop constructing sentences and paragraphs out of all those thoughts.

I haven't felt this way in years. It was all this overthinking, in fact, that inspired me to start this blog in the first place, 13 years ago. I told people it was meant to be a creative outlet, but I really just needed something to help me sleep at night.  

Last night as I was ruminating on my creative journey the past few years (and definitely NOT sleeping), I felt like I was reverting back to my fresh-from-college self. But it didn't feel like backsliding. It was more like my brain was demanding that I make room for something I used to love, now that it doesn't have to work so hard to keep me mentally neutral.

A lot can happen in 828 days. You can lose a part of yourself, grow in other ways to fill the void, and then bring something you thought was gone for good back to life.

So here I am, back in the blogging space. It may not be the most sophisticated platform, it may not be the most relevant or respectable hobby, but I'm reclaiming this space anyway. Not just because my journal is no longer cutting it as a way to get thoughts out of my head, but because writing has, against all odds, become fun again. As in, you-don't-have-to-pay-me-to-do-this fun. 

It's a nice feeling. One that I hope lasts.