6 months...

i have about 6 posts that i've started and never finished in the last six months--all lovely in my mind (personal essays about being a lone reed, etc.) but never made it to this virtual press. these six months have been hard. and the critical voice inside my head debates whether to spell out numbers or use the numerical symbols but i have to remind myself that it doesn't matter. what matters is that to be who i am, i have to write.

earlier today at Thanksgiving dinner, the conversation was getting a little dry until someone had the idea for everyone to go around and say something they were thankful for in the past year. genius, right? but i really liked the idea, however unoriginal it was. i thought about the past year and how grateful i am that i finished my mission, that i served a mission in the first place, that the Lord prompted me to and called me to serve one. i am grateful for my last area and for my beautiful and humble companions and grateful for the crowd waiting for me when I came home. grateful that after two family-less Thanksgivings, i was finally with every single person in my family (not to mention 3 miracle babies!).  i also felt, though, that i am not living up to my full potential. i am not being who i am--and who i am can in some ways be measured by all these wonderful things i have to be grateful for. so i should live up to them.

in Miss Candy's dance class as a little girl, Miss Candy would tell us to dance with our "magic eye." it means to lead with your heart. dance less by going through the choreographed patterns and motions and more with purpose and meaning and expression. i feel like that is how life should be lived--by feeling. so thinking about the last six months (since coming home from 18 months with beautiful Filipinos, wearing a name tag that gave me the gumption to talk to everyone and the mantle to be worthy to do so), i have found myself identifying with two people i'd rather not--two people who were "past feeling" (see 1 Nephi 17:45).  it is easy to just be accustomed to living by going through the choreographed motions, being numb to the still, small voice of the Spirit. but i know there is a happier way--that which Paul described: "That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every on of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:27-28). that is sort of like dancing with your magic eye...right?

so i am going to try it. it is my Thanksgiving resolution to live up to the things that I am grateful for and be who i am by writing more, dancing, and seeking the Lord.