Digging a little deeper

I wish I knew where to start. Giving status updates isn't very satisfying and it probably makes for rather boring reading material, so in an attempt to switch things up I'll explain a few things that have been on my mind.

The last few weeks, amid the insanity of everything that Joe and I have going on, I have had a few brief moments to stop and just think. In these moments when the world slows down, for a very short period of time, there are brief glimpses of the person I am becoming. I realized how many parts I have to play every single day, both literally and figuratively. There is the student, the teacher, the business woman, the professional, the air head and attention seeker (for Sleepy Hollow of course:), the wife, and - the culmination of all these roles - the adult (one I am still coming to terms with).

For some odd reason, since the age of 12 (my parents would probably argue 2), I have felt the need to be successful, accomplished, and most of all, independent. That doesn't sound so unreasonable. What I never really grasped is that all of these qualities I wanted were ultimately a search for one thing - validation.

In one of my religion classes at BYU, my professor told us that love is expressed by meeting the needs of another. There are nine basic needs that we can fulfill to let someone know that we love them. For anyone who is curious, they can be remembered by the acronym "Civil Wars":

• C ompetent- to feel like we are good at certain things
• I ntimacy- a need to feel close to someone
• V alidated- to feel accepted
• I ndependence- space and privacy
• L ove- we have a need for it and we have a need to give it; if we don't feel love from someone, we probably aren't doing much to show are love for that person
• W ell Understood- one of the biggest blocks to communication is the fear of being misunderstood
• A ppreciated - not just the things that I do, but the effort that is put into it as well
• R econciled with God- if we are not at one with God, it will flow into our relationships
• S ecurity, Safety

There was a disjunct between my association with independence and love. I didn't really think it was validation that I needed. Independent people don't need to be validated! I thought I knew where I wanted my life to go, and how happiness would be within my grasp. But then, various experiences convinced me otherwise. I got accepted to a school which is now teaching me that the greatest education I could ever receive isn't found in a college classroom, but serving those outside of our campus; I got a job which helped me discover capacities I never knew I had; I got a second chance to foster and develop talents I didn't know I'd ever be able to share or enjoy again; I fell in love with the most incredible man I've ever known, the only person, next to God, that I am completely dependent upon.

Then I realized, I don't have to do any of these things. These are things that I choose to do. I choose to take on these roles because they make me happy and they make me better. It is amazing to me how easy it is to forget why they make me happy when things get a little bit crazy. So, I am extremely grateful for these little moments that help me remember my life is being sculpted rather than forced in to a mold.