everyone can be happy...i truly believe that. i have had many dark days and lived on rock bottom for awhile. i've worked very hard to achieve the happiness i now have. i've spent a lot of time pondering, praying and reflecting. i've taken a magnifying glass to my soul and found scrapes, bruises and imperfections. i have a long way to go, but i have come a LONG way.
i have learned to trust the Lord. i know now who i am and what i want to be. i'm not looking forward to my surgery on tuesday necessarily, but in a way i am. i can't wait to have it and get past it so that i can have the next one and then be DONE! but at the same time, i'm so grateful everything has played out the way that it has. i've had the chance to become someone that i'm proud to be at a young age- what could be better? i know now that i will excel at anything and everything i choose to do. i'm not afraid to work hard to get what i want. i'm happy and i want others to be happy!
i'm so excited for what the future holds- to become a registered nurse! i feel 100% that this is my calling and what i'm meant to be. i love working with kids so much and will always have that be a part of my life, but i think i truly will have a talent in medicine and that my experiences have built me into the perfect candidate to be a nurse. i know how important it is to have the right people around you when you're sick, having surgery, recovering, whatever! the people who cared for me after my first surgery had a HUGE impact on my accepting the situation and in my personal growth. EVERYONE deserves to have people caring for them who really do CARE for them, who are passionate about what they do, and understand what it's like to be sick and suffering. i know that i can be that for people, and that's so exciting to me!
my niece and nephew are here right now. they are rays of sunshine in my world, i can't believe how much i love them and enjoy them. i used to REALLY not like kids hahaha. working with children has really changed my perspective, and my niece and nephew have as well. here i will admit that i have realized that i am going to be a really great mom! haha. i never thought i would say that, or that i'd even want to.
i've reached a point where i can let go of my vanity, which has been a struggle of mine for years. feeling beautiful is fun but it's not everything. it meant way more to me than it should have for years. having this bag and taking a medication that affected my very face was one of the hardest things that i've ever gone through. it's forced me to look beyond physical beauty. i appreciate myself for so much more than that. i enjoy feeling attractive and taking care of myself but i also know now that it's not the most important thing in the world. it's moved down several rungs and settled in the correct place on the ladder of my priorities. by the same token, where i used to take beauty for granted, i don't anymore. i am grateful to have what i do and will always make the most of it! but there is just so much more to life. yeah it's nice to feel beautiful. but for a long time i let my happiness depend WAY too much on physical beauty, if i felt "ugly" or not. and the truth is, it's not just a trite or cheesy thing that being happy makes you beautiful. i can SEE my insecurity and misery in old pictures- i wore it as obviously as the nose on my face. true happiness really does change your countenance.
life is a crazy thing. i think back to just a few years ago and i don't recognize myself. it's like i'm a completely different person. i think about people i worked for in those rough years (one place that i just walked out of one day, leaving them high and dry. one of my low points) and i think about my ex and his family. it's hard to think that there are people who know me as THAT rachel- a person who doesn't even exist anymore. a person who is so different from what i am now that it feels like she's a stranger. i wish sometimes that all of those people could know ME, that they won't remember me the way that i was. the only way i can make up for that is to make sure that everyone i know from here on out will always know ME 100%, and that their lives will be better for it.
i stand on the threshold, ready for this upcoming surgery. ready to recover and have the next one, and then move on with my life. i am determined to make something of myself, to be the best at what i do. to be independent from everyone and everything except the Lord. i'm not going to be the girl that waits around for the right guy who will then "take care" of me. i'm going to ALWAYS be my own person, and when the time comes for me to marry and have a family, i will bring 100% of that person and those talents to the table. and i will always do so for the people i love.
this is pure joy, plain and simple. worth the hard work, the pain and the tears. and i owe it all to the Lord. making changes isn't easy. it's painful a lot of the time. but sometimes there are people or things in our lives that are detrimental to our growth and we need to learn how to identify what/who they are and take the necessary action to be happy. in the end, it's worth it.
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| the beginning of 2010, a whole other person :) |
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| yayyyy! now :) |
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