Lost and found.

It's February, and y'all should be able to guess which word is my favorite to define--but it's also still the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around [and in the spirit of transparency, I'm about to get real personal. don't say you weren't warned].

When I was little, there was a day where my little sister Brittany decided that she wanted to take matters into her six-year-old hands and ask my grandparents why they didn't speak to us. One quick search through the phonebook and a sneaky phone call from my great-grandma's guest bedroom later, we found ourselves at my grandparents house for the first time in years. I listened to the adults make small talk around the kids, while I absorbed the feeling in the house [in awe that even after three moves and half a dozen years, grandma's house still smelled just the same], and everybody avoided the elephant in the room. My grandma took this opportunity to show us around their house, and while most of us were in the kitchen, my mom lingered behind and was talking to my grandpa. I don't know the entirety of the conversation, but I distinctly remember hearing him say "I have lost a lot of love for a lot of people."
In the moment, I didn't think much of it. Now, it stings a bit--but then it was mostly confusing.
How do you lose love? It wasn't something tangible that you could simply set down and forget about, and since it wasn't an object the odds of you misplacing it or it walking away were incredibly low.
And even if it wasn't tangible, how on earth do you lose it? What was love if it could be lost like that?

Fast forward roughly 10 years, and I think I'm finally starting to be able to answer my own questions.
Not because I know what love is, but because I know what love is not.
In middle school, you learn about the types of nouns: concrete, collective, compound and abstract.
Abstract nouns were always the most interesting to me, because I remember laughing at my teacher trying to explain to us how to define something that wasn't definitive--and that's a fascination that has never changed.
[try it: ask one of my coworkers how one would define liberty, or ask a panel of parents how they define "grounding," the possibilities are truly endless]
Abstract nouns and concepts have become even more interesting as I've grown up, if only because my definitions are changing faster than I can comprehend them.

Love is forgiveness, and second chances, and apologies and compromise. 

Love is not walking away, no matter how tired or how frustrated you are.

Love is "see you soon," "drive safe," and a quick squeeze when you're about to lose it. 

Love [for me] is pebble ice, tacos, peppermint tea, and a cozy blanket. 

Love [for them] is chocolate donuts, Skittles, spoken-word poetry, long drives, or movie nights. 

Love is not giving up, because quitters never win and everything is worth a little bit more of a fight.

Love is not easy. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Nothing about any kind of love is easy. It takes a lot of work, more patience than I have on a regular basis, and lots of compromise. If it were easy, I'd argue with my parents less, they'd roll their eyes at me less, my siblings and I would be less annoyed with each other, I wouldn't feel the need to throw tantrums about boys all the time, and I'd never argue with my best friends.

Love is both the most mind-boggling thing I've ever tried to wrap my head around, and the simplest thing in the world to understand. 

Subconsciously, I think that overheard comment from my grandpa taught me a lot.
I'm 21 years old and I still get emotional pulling out of my culdesac on my way back to Logan, and I have a healthy sense of nostalgia that can be a real problem sometimes.
Some people say I have a hard time letting things/people go [they're right], and I've never been a fan of goodbyes. When I love, I love hard and I love big--and I think that has a lot to do with the idea that I never want to lose love for somebody else, or vice versa. I want to give it my all and do everything possible to make love work before walking away. I'm not about to let my love for anyone get lost.
A year ago, I posted this. 
Love was synonymous with a roller coaster of emotions and confusion. But even then, it wasn't something I felt like I'd truly lost.
It took a lot of work, a couple thousand more tears, and more talk about my feelings that I'd ever like to do again, but a year later,  love has simply changed forms--and I am oh so grateful for the endless amounts of love around me everyday.
Love is only really lost if you let it be--and it's something worth finding again if it goes away.

Nostalgia.

For someone who hates emotions as much as I do, I'm entirely too sentimental.
I'm the one that gets a weird little twinge of nostalgia on days when something important happened.
I could tell you exactly what I was wearing the day my first boyfriend first brought me flowers.
I can quote the note my best friend from elementary school wrote me the day she moved and switched schools in the middle of 8th grade.
I could tell you the exact time and place of every first kiss I've ever had.
I keep movie tickets, concert tickets, notes and letters, and every picture my siblings have ever made for me in a box under my bed.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that our memories make up most of the person that we are, and while these memories are mostly magical, sometimes they hurt a lot.
Because as sentimental as I am, I'm also a huge planner.
I know what I want, when I want it, and how I want it to go.
Sometimes things don't go the way you planned, and sometimes the way you planned isn't the way you want things to go.

The people you think will never leave are the ones just out of reach, and the ones you never thought you'd be able to keep close are the ones talking to you at 2 am and calming your crazy. 

Sometimes what your heart wants isn't what your heart gets and what you get is what your heart never knew it wanted.

I'm 900% content with my life right now. I'm surrounded by wonderful people who love me (and even when people are dumb, there's a dozen more who make sure I don't go crazy), I'm 106 days away from graduating from a university I love more than just about anything, and I have a family that has me convinced my life is actually made of magic.
But it's in these minutes of tender nostalgia that I wonder what else could have happened. In a world where I still blush every time Just The Way You Are plays, I can't help but sing So Close when it rains, and I still believe in the magic of Miracle--what could have happened? What if I had gone to a different school, or said "no" to this, and "yes" to that,  and done a dozen different things instead of doing what put me right here?
If anything, these moments add proof to the belief that everything happens for a reason. I wouldn't change where I am now for anything in the world...but tonight, that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about dozens of Wednesday night hockey games and two years worth of letters with the sweetest kind of "I miss you" feeling and feeling incredibly grateful for the people I was lucky enough to call mine, even if just for a minute. 

Recognize goodness.

Do you ever have those days where a lesson just hits home and seems to be just for you? 

Today was one of those days.

Our lesson today was on President Howard W. Hunter, and talked about how Jesus Christ is the only way to true joy and hope. 

Then we watched this video, and if you haven't watched it yet, you need to. But have some tissues ready. 

"Evil did not win that day." 

That statement hit me and made me look differently at things. 

It's been a weird couple of months. 

I've seen marriages end, watched friends leave the church, cried over the death of family members, and dealt with my own struggles. 

I've watched the news and shuddered at the things happening all over the world that bring people to describe things as evil and terrible. 

The world is a scary place. It's exhausting, terrifying, and stressful. 

The negative things are so much easier to count than the blessings.

It's so easy to get caught up in the evils that surround us and feel overwhelmed with our inability to do something about it. 

This video helped me breathe a little better when I started thinking about these things. 

In the face of such a tragedy, and amidst so much heartbreak, this mother was able to look at the spirit her little girl had brought into the world and recognize the presence of goodness in the world. 

If they could recognize it, why can't we? 

Because if evil didn't win that day, don't let it win today. 

So there's my New Year's resolution. Recognize more goodness. 

[If you want something else to read/watch/listen to, go here]