Bloggiversary?

It's a ridiculous term, I know. And mine came and went and I didn't say a thing about it. I wasn't unaware of it, in fact I wondered that day and throughout that week if I should post something about the fact that a year has passed since I moved to Utah and began the blog. But it seemed such a ridiculous thing to do, not to mention how entirely illogical the construction of the word "bloggiversary"is. After all, if you are celebrating a one year annnniversary, you can hardly eliminate the "anni" which is the prefix indicating a yearly celebration. You know, for "annual". And so I ignored it. But with august coming to an end, I still feel a bit like I should acknowledge the year mark. And it still fits as well, since my first august here was still a very transitory time, I was living as a basement hobo and had yet to establish my classroom.

So lets take a brief accounting of the things that have happened in the past year. After all, on my first post I indicated that I was seeking to rediscover and reclaim the happy times I have known in my life. A year seems like a good amount of time for making progress in that goal, now doesn't it?

I found a place to live. I like the place I live. I had a roomie that I absolutely loved for most of the year, and now I have one that I could really give or take. She has some passive aggressive habits that I respond to in equally passive aggressive ways, and we will never really be friends, but she is fairly normal and she pays her rent and we stay out of each other's way. I'm fine with that.

I established a classroom. And then I realized how much I resented my job and unestablished my classroom. Now I am a nomad, wandering from room to room for an hour at a time with no real responsiblilities except holding babies and changing a few diapers. I like holding babies. It somehow feels a little more honest, though. After all, I am a glorified midget wrangler and I would rather not pour my heart and soul into something I am just going to end up resenting again. At the same time, those kids that were in my room over the past year, some of them I really like, and I will really miss them. Just not all of them.

I have returned to school. This was a goal long before the whole re-claiming happiness thing came along, so I think it was an absolute essential. Along with returning to school, I found a little more self respect that was lacking as a preschool teacher. Now if someone asks what I do, I tell them I am a student. It has a much better feel to it than the frumpy stigma that goes with preschool teacher.

I have re-established those friendships that I missed so much while I was gone. Sure we have grown and changed over the past few years, but the security that I feel in those relationships is back, regardless of how often we get a chance to visit. It really did tear at me to be gone for those years, and I began to question myself and the value that I had place on my friends, but I have learned in the past year that I was not wrong, that there are great people who affect us forever, and that we are allowed to cling a little bit to the good times that built the trust we rely on.

In the same realms of friendship, I was able to spend some quality time with my grandfather before he passed away. I can't begin to express how much that meant to me.

I am singing again. For a while there in Minnesota I had stopped. Not stopped the lessons and the working at it, but stopped loving it and stopped really singing the way I love to, except during the lessons, which actually kept me sane. But this is different. Instead of going from week to week with simply lessons and practice time, I am singing along with my cds in the car and I am humming along with my ipod, and occasionally I even catch myself singing to the kids. It's good. I missed feeling the music, and having it back is a pretty significant thing. Plus I am singing with an ensemble again, and that is something that for a while I really thought I would give up forever. I told you, I was in a pretty dark place for a while.

I am making new friends. Yeah, that stopped entirely for a while, and while I still refuse to go to certain singles events and activities established solely for the purpose of meeting a future spouse, I am starting to chat with people and enjoy the company of new people. I still prefer the old friends, but I no longer get that horrible all consuming pit in my stomach when faced with a new crowd or forced to introduce myself.

I should add that along with being willing to make new friends, I did make a very few new friends over the past year, and it's a good feeling, knowing that I wasn't entirely a lost cause socially.

I lost 40 pounds. Yup, its about the lifestyle change. No more evenings alone with a gallon of ice cream, no more sitting at a desk job, no more hiding from the world while curled up in the fetal position. I am back to the size I was before I left, and I intend to continue the trend so that I can actually be smaller than I was when I left. It's not so much a question of my happiness being dependant upon my body image, but my body image reflecting my personal happiness. And now that I am aware of that about myself, I am more prepared to cope with it if the pounds start piling on again.

I taught a really great classroom of 17-18 year old boys in sunday school. Random? yes. And I haven't mentioned it all that much, but the fact is, I loved that class, and today when I was released from teaching them I realized how much they have come to mean to me and how much they affected me over the past year. For the first few weeks of teaching my anxiety was nearly insurmountable, but they came and they listened and they asked me about me and they were my friends. They gave me a place in a ward where I knew no one. And they are really good guys and they accepted me and respected me and taught me to have a little more confidence in myself than I really was allowing. I'm going to miss them. They are moving on just like my kindergarteners, only they are moving on to college and missions. I hope I gave them something to grow on as well.

I lost a car and gained a car and found a child and received a scholarship and, well, the events of the last few weeks sort of pile in there together without me really being able to make much sense of them yet. But the bottom line is, with a little faith there is a lot better plan than the one we make up for ourselves. Seriously. And I think that's the real point to this past year. And I know I still have a long way to go before I can say I have claimed happiness the way I intend to, but the foundations are certainly moving into place. And today is as much a part of that path as tommorrow is, so I am allowed to rejoice a bit in the blessings of today. If all of eternity is a path that includes our yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows, then who is to say that we can't have bits of joy in every moment of that eternity, including the thens, the soons, and the nows. After all, i bei momenti is not only plural, but it literally refers to the blessed moments, and there certainly have been blessed moments.