what lurks deep down

In light of all the COVID quarantine shenanigans, on one of many zoom calls, I told my closest friends of my new hobbies and my new to-do lists. Things that included, studying the Bible, learning the art of Calligraphy, becoming my own nail tech, and still balancing the daily ins and outs of what is left of average life. One of the lovely humans on that zoom call chuckled and stated that he couldn’t tell if I was dealing with this quarantine situation incredibly well or if I was in crisis. Honestly my mind started wondering the same the minute he asked me that question. Now I write this, on the floor of my bathroom, in tears, and it’s hard to not agree that it’s crisis.

You see, back when things were normal, I was a busy body. I had a routine and I kept myself distracted and constantly going. Now that quarantining is a thing and most of my distractions are gone and the human interaction outside of my household is scarce, I am crumbling. It only took me falling on the floor of my bathroom to truly realize that I am crumbling. I have very little left to distract myself with and all of my insecurities and fears are blaring in my face.

I’m honestly not sure why I started crying in the bathroom today. Do you ever just stop for a moment and really look at yourself in the mirror and then all it takes is that eye contact you’ve finally made with yourself to completely break you down to your most vulnerable state? That’s what happened. I finally faced myself eye to eye and realized i’m not myself lately. I’m not happy. I’m so quick to argue or snap at people and that’s just not me.

The loneliness is getting to me. I honestly don’t know how to deal with it. I get a lot of my happy and positive energy from the people I see daily and interact with at my office and it recharges me and keeps me light and airy. I haven’t had a recharge in probably a month now. It also doesn’t help that i’m very much an emotional backpacker — meaning, I take on other people’s emotions for them. Anyone you come in contact with these days is frazzled, anxious, and out of their element… this just means that I now and frazzled, anxious and out of my element too. What the people I do get to interact with feel, I also feel.

The first people I want to turn to are the people I left behind in my recent (not so recent but still too soon to even talk about without crying) move. I think that makes this worse. I never fully dealt with my emotions from moving away from a city I fully fell in love with and people that absolutely changed my life for the better, back to my home. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to be home and close to family and childhood friends; but that doesn’t just eliminate the pain that I didn’t deal with. Uprooting my life and restarting in a place that should be home but doesn’t feel like it anymore is something i’ve bottled up tightly since I boarded my flight from Boston to Florida.

These kinds of deep, sealed off, locked up anxieties are the ones that resurface when all the distractions you put in place for yourself are gone. Although I have many other sealed up issues to deal with, this one is the largest, I would say.

Moving tore a huge whole in my heart. This sounds incredibly dramatic, but it did. Nothing has been the same since my 5 years in Boston. Those years got better and better and better as the years went on. The friends I made are friends that are truly God sent. They are the kind of uplifting friends the Bible speaks of. And I left them. I left my apartment. I left the city life. I left the places that held some of my favorite memories of my life. And now i’m back “home”. It’s funny cause you move back home and you expect everything and everyone to just magically be in the same place you left them, but OH MY what a RUDE awakening it is to come back and realize everyone else’s lives have moved forward too. This adjustment is the hardest adjustment i’ve ever had to deal with and i’m still actively dealing with it. I’m still constantly lonely and yearning for those days and nights where I could just go for a walk with my roommate or simply text a friend and meet them in a matter of minutes. That doesn’t happen here in Florida. Everyone here is very very wrapped up in their own lives. Which is fair. Don’t get me wrong. We’re all at different places and focused on different things and what I need to come to terms with is that this will NEVER be Boston. It will never even come close to Boston. And that’s harder to come to term with than this COVID stuff.

That right there… that’s the true reason I wept on my floor tonight. The loneliness came to the surface, uncovered by the distractions that have moved out of its way.

You are what you eat*

*This post is not about your diet.

The concept of “you are what you eat” is pretty simple to understand. The idea is, if you’re eating things that are good for you, you’ll be healthy and if you’re eating things that are bad for you, then…well you get it. What people don’t realize, and what I recently came to the revolution of, is that this concept goes for a lot more than just food.

When it comes to the people we surround ourselves with, the exact same principle can be applied.

For some reason, this lesson has been revealing itself to me over and over recently. The concept of surrounding yourself with people who lift you up has been coming up so often. So, of course, I have a lot of thoughts on this topic.

I recently went through a fall out with a friend of mine. This friend was my roommate for essentially 4 years. Her and I went to the same grad school, had the same friends, and spent a lot of time together (whether we wanted to or not). I held her as a close friend of mine. I held her in a position of friendship. What broke me (and is still breaking me) is that when the 4 years were over, she valued our friendship as nothing more than a roommate-ship.

Realizing that someone doesn’t care for you the way you care for them has got to be one of the hardest realizations to make and go through.

This post isn’t a sob story though. I’ve picked up the broken pieces and i’ve analyzed them. What I realized is that, this friend was placed in my life for a reason. She helped me through some really rough times. She was a companion in school and we had each other through all the stages of grad school, which was really nice to have.

This whole “break-up” made me reflect and think about the kind of person I was around her and then the type of person I became when she moved away. I realized then, more than ever, that the people you surround yourself with really mold the person you are.

I won’t reflect back on who I was around her, instead I’ll just focus on now. Now is positive. Now, I’ve grown. I’ve become more of the me that i’m used to.

I’ve surrounded myself with people who lift me up and have the same morals and thoughts on life. My new roommate and I have a lot in common, and it’s been quite interesting to see her bring out the best in me. The pieces of me that I hid away the last 4 years because I didn’t find anyone to relate to.

Pretty much, my new roommate and I discuss things like Christianity, the state of the church, Christ in our lives in general, and so much more. We discuss how we want to do more for the community. We discuss our failures, we discuss how we’ve grown to who we are now. It may seem small, but these discussions have shifted me back into the lane of the girl I first came to Boston as.

I’ve become much more aware of who I become around certain people. The people whom I leave and feel replenished and happy are the types of people I want constantly around me. There are others who drain you of emotion and are constantly complaining or unsatisfied. While these people need happy people like you and I around them, I feel it’s best to limit time with them as to not bring yourself down or begin to also think in a negative manner.

I really do see that the best way to change how you feel and how you act and see yourself is by surrounding yourself with people who see you for your good, who are constantly lifting their friends up, who do not feel the need to compete with each other, and who are all focused on the Kingdom of Heaven. Together, may we all lift each other up and keep our eyes focused on things Unseen.

When the Spirit of the Lord moves in my heart…

I’ve been wanting to write something. I’ve been wanting to write it for a while but I can’t figure out how to write it. There isn’t a good enough way to put these things into writing. And what are “these things” anyways? I’m still not entirely sure…

Recently I have found myself in a mindset of “more”. I want to learn more. I want to do more. I want to plan more. I want to help more. Just more of it all. There is a thirst within us all and when you take an initial sip to quench it, you suddenly start wanting to take in gulps at a time. That’s kind of where I am, or at least, the best visual representation of where I am currently.

There’s been an overwhelming feeling within me more recently that has told me to go above and beyond and not to settle. Not to settle for anything in my life. To seek more. And I’m doing what anyone with a very prominent gut feeling would do- i’m just following it blindly.

I was recently in a relationship. There was nothing technically wrong with my relationship but I did just say “was recently in”, meaning it is no more. Why? To be honest it was an overwhelming sense of “My darling, you are not ready to settle and coast”.  Now i’m not saying that people get into relationships just to coast through the rest of life, but in this particular instance- that’s how I felt. At times it would feel like the relationship wasn’t enough; but that was never the man’s fault, even though I constantly pinned it back on him. The real truth is that my soul was longing for depth and attention and it wasn’t something that was going to be satisfied in any average human way. This longing was so much larger than I have ever felt.

I took time to pray about this feeling and over the course of several weeks I started to realize that my soul is too immature for a serious relationship right now. My soul is an infant and an infant just can’t be committed, they don’t know what that means. All I knew was I was in need of depth and in need of “more”.

So, clearly, I stepped back from my relationship… I went ahead and took the incredibly painful and difficult step to end it. The guy did nothing wrong and yet I was ending the relationship. But it was needed. I know now how greatly it was needed and I am thankful that I took that step to back up and shift my priorities around.

Being without an intimate relationship gives you a lot of spare time you didn’t realize that you wasted so easily on long phone calls filled with empty conversations, and things that just didn’t add to my daily life. The trick when you get out of a relationship though, is not to fill that time up with TV, more people, or food (trust me, the answer isn’t food). The trick is to use the time to reconnect and reestablish and strengthen an old relationship you’ve neglected while with your (ex) partner. Obviously, i’m talking about the severed relationship with God.

Refocusing on God and spending all my free time talking to Him, reading about Him, listening about Him, speaking or preparing to speak about Him- these are all things that have taken the place of the empty conversations and unproductive hours that use to just slip by. In carrying out this change and shift in focus, you begin to feel differently and see things in a different light.

It’s funny when we think back to Sunday school teachers or elders that told us once “just spend some time praying and reading the Bible and it will help you” and the younger versions of us would think “please shut up and tell me how to actually feel better”. We needed something that could be done right then and there to physically see a better outcome, when all along they were right. Reading the Bible isn’t this task I have to check off my list now… it’s something I do as part of my day in order to connect with God. In order to spend time listening to Him. Hearing a message from Him for that day. It’s like unlocking your phone  and seeing “1 new text message”. It’s the same thing- it’s a message. It’s just one thats a bit more formal and takes some time to read and understand, but lets not fool ourselves, we’ve all gotten actual text messages that need the same attention. The difference is, the texts we read in passage are way more beneficial then the text you just got with the latest gossip heard through the grapevine.

Once I started spending my free time doing things that are beneficial for my soul and for my spiritual life, I started wanting to do more and more. I wanted to read quicker so I can get through more books. I wanted to have more time to pray so I can discuss with God all my feelings and thoughts. And I realize that i’m so much happier. I’m in such high spirits (thank God) and it wasn’t accomplished by hanging out with people or talking to a boy on the phone for hours. It was accomplished by diving into God and all there is to Him. It’s amazing. You start noticing your conversations have more depth, with everyone you speak to. You start noticing how much you bring up God in conversations, even though before- you never would because it felt weird. God becomes this whole entire world you just want your life to revolve around. It’s addicting. It’s encouraging. It’s vibrant. I wish I could somehow better put into words how I feel. I feel like i’m on a high. A rush of adrenaline from finally feeling what it’s like to be immersed in the Lord and all He has to offer. I pray that you will find some hope in this little blurb of emotions and try to re-prioritize your time too. And PS, I am not telling you to go break up with your significant other (bummer, I know).

Much love & happiness,

MG

What a high!

I seem to have a hard time keeping up with writing down everything I want to reflect on. It’s been a while since i’ve just sat down and caught my breath. What a year this has been already. 2018 has been absolutely mesmerizing so far.

So, let me start by saying that the speed bump that I continually reflected on in my past posts, has been driven over. That hurdle has been jumped. The mountain has been climbed. The weight has been lifted and I have never felt lighter than I do now.

What I came to reflect on is how amazing God truly is. The second I started firmly believing in God and His abilities and His plans, that’s when my life actually started coming together. It’s amazing. It’s breathtaking. It’s astonishing. There are so few words that can even begin to describe how amazing it is to finally know in your heart that God is for you and not against you. Which sounds like it should be common sense but it’s so different to say the verse than to firmly believe it.

I think that I was stuck in a limbo of trying to know and figure out who God is. I couldn’t grasp that God loves me and wants the best for me. I couldn’t understand that there was this person that wanted nothing but the best for me, that opened and closed doors I couldn’t even see, that picked me up and carried me when times were hardest. The minute I stopped trying to analyze and decipher God was the same minute I simply allowed Him to love me and fully handed Him the wheel of my life.

Handing off the wheel to God was the greatest thing i’ve done. And I realize that once you do it once, it’s so easy to do it again. Just because I passed over one big speed bump doesn’t mean I haven’t encountered a bunch of little ones since. The difference now is that I approach them with caution and simply let God drive over them. I fully throw the issue and my anxieties on the Lord, firmly believing that He is there for me and that He is aware of everything I go throw. And it has been such a life changing thing. I see God so clearly in the tiniest moments in life. In the quietest of breezes I feel Him surrounding me.

And of course i’m only human. I still panic, I still get anxious, and I still overthink things. The difference now is once I notice myself doing any of these things- I stop, breathe and think about the fact that God is so aware of my life and everything I feel and I just pray. I pray that He takes hold of the problem for me and guides me in whichever direction He wants me to go. No matter how big or small the situation may be, He’s there and He’s ready and He’s so great. He really, truly is.

I would have never gotten to know just how gentle and beautiful our Lord is if I didn’t go through such a hard time these past 3 years. Going through this difficult time sculpted me and taught me how to fully relinquish all I have to the Lord. Nothing I have belongs to me. None of my successes or failures belong to me. Everything is the Lord’s and I am simply His vessel here on earth, and I am so humbled to have that position.

I can’t wait to take each day and face it with the Lord. You should try it. It’s such a high.

-MG

For everything, there is a season.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” Ecclesiastes 3:1.

Have you ever been stuck in a weird loop of life for so long that you really don’t even know what you’d do if the loop ends? I mean, even if this period of time hasn’t been the best, you’ve just been in it for so long that you don’t even know what you would do if you weren’t in it?

I think that’s what’s happening to me now. I’ve been in a season of change (I like to call it a season of change now, but if you were to ask me about 2 years ago I would have called it a season of drought and devastation) for about 3 years now. This season has consisted of many failures, many losses, and many times where I thought I may as well give up on life because this season seems like it may never end for me. Here’s the turnaround though- that season is coming to an end. Whether I like it or not, whether the outcome will leave me happy or not, this season will come to an end.

I’ve gotten to a point in all my failures and losses where, after one last attempt at a comeback tomorrow, my life will be out of this drought. Whether the outcome is good or bad, the season will be over.

Now the question is- now what? I’ve been so use to living life a certain way. Constantly working on trying to come out of this season and it has become a routine and a mindset, so what do I do when this season in life ends and i’m not actively working towards jumping this hurdle?

Yea, the obvious answer is to get ready to jump the next hurdle. Which I agree with. But doesn’t that feeling of the unknown scare the piss out of you? Because it sure as hell scares me.

I guess now that I think about it, going through seasons really prepares you for the “coming up next” in life. Taking a minute now, I realize that jumping over my life’s next hurdle will be significantly easier than jumping over this past one. Why? Because going through that long gloomy season has completely changed me.

At the beginning of the gloomy season (clearly what i’ve now dubbed it), I was so upset at my own life. I was wallowing in the sadness and the losses and failures. I let the failures define me and consume me and I was nothing more than a person waking up just to go back to sleep. As the season went on, there was so much change. This change took years, literally, but now I look back and realize that it all needed to happen the way that it did.

I finally stopped moping and wallowing. The point of that stopping was the same point I decided to truly turn to God for help. I guess I got to a point where I was so low that the only place I could look was up. I was previously upset with God for putting me through such a rough series of unfortunate events, but then I began to realize it isn’t about the event itself, it’s about how we face the events of life that really makes the difference. The whole “mind over matter” thing, as much as it is a cliché, it is still absolutely true.

I think the most change has happened to me and how I view all the circumstances in my life within the past 6 months. I’m really not sure what it is that caused me to just give up everything to the Lord, but the fact of the matter is that I did, and this time I TRULY did. I use to tell myself oh yea i’m leaving it up to God, but I don’t think I ever fully wanted to. Part of me wanted to be in control of my situations and believe that I could handle them on my own, with some of God’s help here and there. Reality hit hard and made me realize that isn’t the case. The truth is no matter what we do or what we think or what we plan out for ourselves, God has a plan and His plan is in action and always has been. Whether we see where He is coming from or not, whether we see His Hands in our lives or not, whether we want to believe it or not, God is in control and He does things for our benefit and we just can’t see or grasp that with our tiny human brains.

Once I fully realized that this was truth and that God has a plan and He really does care for us more than anyone in our lives ever could, that’s when I relinquished all my hurt, all my feelings, all my plans, all my heartache, and all my anxieties. I casted them all on God and let me tell you something- it was the greatest thing i’ve done. The greatest part of me season of “downers” was finally looking up.

Once this realization was made I strived to grow closer to God. I now make it a point to take time every day and simply read the word of God and talk to Him. I tell my friends this all the time- I literally talk to Jesus like I talk to any of my friends. I laugh with Him, I cry with Him, and now, I go through life’s daily struggles with Him. And I do so a day at a time because:

“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”.  – Matthew 6:34. 

So, looking onto a new season, looking on to the unknown, I don’t really look too far. It sounds crazy but i’m really just taking it all a day at a time. Finishing one day and moving on to the next, with God ever so present. Every time I start getting anxious thinking into the future, I stop and say a prayer and ask God to fill me with peace and to help me focus on today and right now and all the other things will happen as they are supposed to and God and I will face those things together when they arise.

I guess my point here is, I went through a really long season of sadness and hopelessness. But if I were asked if I would change anything about these past couple years- I would say no. This season has morphed me. This season has brought me out of the dust. This has helped me grow and will help me to continue to grow as I encounter all of life’s seasons to come.

We all have periods in our life that seem like never ending cycles of bad situations, but i’m letting you know that it does get better. Just trust in Him. It’s so beautiful and so worth it.

-MG

No expectations, no disappointments.

If you know me then you know that one of my biggest weaknesses/flaws/issues/pet-peeves, whatever you wanna call it, is getting incredibly upset when people let me down.

We all have some set level of expectations of others. Obviously expectations of others vary on who the person is- but what doesn’t vary is how hurt I get when I get let down.

I’m writing about this because it IS a flaw. Because it isn’t healthy for me to become as upset and hurt by others as I do when they change plans on me or when they just don’t live up to the subconscious expectations I have for them.

I’ll give you a couple examples to have you see where i’m coming from- so, I have a pretty core group of girlfriends and we usually plan to do stuff together. I got pretty upset recently because, for an entire week, we planned out a dinner at a certain restaurant we’ve all been wanting to try. So because of that, i’ve altered study schedules and such just to make sure that I am going to be able to go to the dinner and not have to worry about any work I haven’t completed. To my dismay, I opened up the conversation about what our plan is (on the day the dinner was planned) and I could already tell I was about to be let down. The girls had discussed among themselves the night before (I wasn’t out with them because I was doing all the work I needed to do before the night I was going to take off) and they attempted to maneuver around my question. It was pretty obvious that they decided to change plans and just haven’t figured out how to tell me yet. So, on my end I was frustrated that I had planned this all out just to be let down; but on top of that, I was upset that they didn’t want to just fill me in on what they want to do instead of just wiggling around the topic until the time of dinner approached.

Now, you’re there reading this and thinking “this girl is so petty, this isn’t even a big deal because plans change!”. You’re right. I get that. I can sit and think to myself and tell myself the same exact thing. The difference is I don’t know how to just let it go.

This flaw of mine has been brought to my attention several times within the past couple years. I do know it’s a flaw and I am trying to work on it. I sit and I think about why I get so upset? Where is that stemming from? Why can’t I just accept changes and accept that people will let me down? And I came to the conclusion that it’s because if the tables were turned, I never have it in me to change plans once they are set. Knowing how much it upsets me, I always go through with plans (even if I no longer want to) and I always have the other person (or people’s) best interest in mind. I want to make sure that THEY are okay and that there’s no chance of them getting upset at me. And then the reason I get upset is that, I expect others to have the same mentality.

One of the hardest lessons of life i’ve learned (well, one that i’m continuing to learn) is that people don’t always treat you the way you would treat them. This is such a hard lesson and concept for me to grasp and be okay with. My mentality is to think 20 steps ahead and see how my actions will make another person feel and to make sure that said person is going to come out of the situation happy. I strive to accommodate for others in order to keep them happy. This is not, by any means, something that I am bragging about. I think of this as a blessing and a curse. I do like that about myself. I don’t want to change that about myself because I whole-heartedly just want the people that I love to be happy. Heck, I want people that I’ve just met to be constantly happy. And maybe that’s because I wish to be constantly happy as well? Who knows? The “curse” part of this is the reality that I end up hurting myself because I automatically think things like:”but I would never change plans on you when you’ve been looking forward to something” or “but I would go home early just to spend time talking to and making sure you feel okay”.

I guess I just take the golden rule of “treat others the way you wish to be treated” way, way too seriously. And because of that I end up feeling hurt and let down more often than I should. I end up letting little changes and little let downs be so much bigger in my own head than they need to be.

I do know that this is a flaw. And I really am striving to work on it. And when I say that, I mean i’m working on accepting change more leniently. In no way do I mean I will change how I treat others because it is not how they treat me. I will simply have to learn that people disappoint you. It really is the sad truth but not everything will go as planned all the time. It’s just the fact of life that I need to get accustomed to, sooner rather than later for the sake of my own personal happiness.

Happiness should not stem from others. Happiness should be something from within. Something that doesn’t fluctuate based on other people’s actions.

I guess my take-away here, for myself and for others is simply:  Expect nothing and accept everything & you will never be disappointed.

-MG

 

Thought bubble: We all want to be happy, but sometimes trying to find happiness can be a struggle. Often times we search for it in all the wrong places or ways, when the answer is much simpler- God. “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord” Psalm 144:15.  

 

Surpassing all understanding.

Many people speak of encountering peace in their lives. By peace, I mean the inexplainable peace of the Lord.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Surpasses all understanding. Thats a pretty big statement, don’t you think? But, it is so true and there really is no better way that St. Paul could have spoken that phrase.

I had a meeting with some of the most important people in my school. Im talking the big dogs, the ones with massive glass offices and views you didn’t even know you could see from your part of the city. The untouchables, pretty much. And in this meeting I discussed with them just how anxious I am about all the things coming up in my life. Now, before I keep going, a crucial part to this story is that, before I entered into this meeting, I made sure to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to speak through the deans and to me. I prayed and asked to hear the Lord in the meeting. I wanted to hear Him tell me what to do next. I prayed and asked for a sign, for comfort, for peace.

And I can tell you one thing is certain, “Ask and it shall be given unto you”. I asked for the Holy Spirit to speak and I cannot explain it but I know what I heard was the Lord telling me what would happen next to me in my life.

That all sounds crazy, right? The truth is, I received answers in this meeting that I didn’t even think were options for the questions I was asking. There was a specific point where I heard an idea from one of the men I was talking to and for some reason it struck a cord in me and I instantly felt at peace after hearing it. It’s like I knew within me that that was exactly what was going to happen to me. That idea that was thrown out to me was exactly what I would live out in about 5 months.

When St. Paul talks about this peace that surpasses all understanding, he really wasn’t kidding. I wish I could better put into words and describe exactly what it feels like to just know that the Holy Spirit has spoken through someone to you. And all I had to do was ask to hear Him? Pretty amazing if you ask me. And just like that, the anxieties I had going into that meeting had suddenly diminished. I was anxious about so much in my life that was completely up in the air, but just by praying to hear the Lord and then feeling such a gentle touch of overwhelming comfort, all of my anxieties were turned into dust.

I guess what this experience has taught me is the immense power of communication. We mope and cry and whine our way through life. We complain that God isn’t there and that He doesn’t hear us; that He doesn’t attend to us. The fact of the matter is we are just lazy, and we fail to put in effort to simply ask Him to speak to us.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Just remember, the power of prayer is so incredibly immense.

-MG

 

a dream of a child’s past.

I firmly believe that it’s unhealthy to try to be 100% positive and happy 100% of the time. It would be lying to yourself. It would be lying to everyone around you. It would, believe it or not, hurt you.

I’m a big believer in mind over matter. I’ve taken very serious hits in the past 4 years, and life hasn’t backed off. I keep thinking it’ll pause and say “okay that’s enough for now, she’s not handling it too well”, but no, life has no remorse, it will continue to hit.

For this reason I say, it is okay to not be okay 100% of the time, and i’m speaking this through the heart.

I would say that i’m currently in rock bottom. Of course, life could always get worse, but I guess I mean emotional rock bottom. In this point in my life, this is probably the weakest i’ve been. And I know I write a lot about being okay with God’s plan (which, I still am, I promise), but I don’t think I write enough about the reality and rawness of going through life, taking the hits, and trying to keep telling yourself that in the end, it’ll be worth it.

The truth is, life’s biggest hurdle, our biggest struggle, is coming to terms with the fact that it won’t be easy and it won’t be everything we imagined it to be when we were children. When I was a little girl I wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to be a fashion designer more than I could ever express to you in writing. From the moment I could hold a crayon until about 10th grade- I was sketching and designing. That was all I wanted and what I was so very passionate about. I wanted to show my sketches to everyone I knew, the minute I finished them; of course, that took some time because, being OCD, I overanalyzed every fine line.

Then high school came around. I was in a medical magnet program because in middle school my parents made it very clear to me that they did not believe in my dream. They made it clear that I could not continue to sketch designs of clothes that no one will ever see. They made it clear that it wouldn’t make any money, and that it would be impossible to make it in that field. So, being the obedient child I am, I took what they said and gave up. I gave up the biggest and most passionate part of me- and I applied for the medical magnet program in high school, following the steps of my Aunt, (whom I looked up to so much at that point in my life – she dressed very well and was incredibly gorgeous. She carried herself with so much elegance.) who is a pediatrician. I knew nothing about what it took to be a doctor. I knew that I liked children, and I liked helping people, so why couldn’t I also be a pediatrician? And so, I worked towards that throughout high school. I became a CNA, a licensed first responder, and I entered into an externship program to further explore the world of medicine. During this externship, there was a pivotal moment that shook me and made me swear i’d never become a physician, for I never wanted to endure what this physician endured.

I was rotating through the hospital. This week I was in the ER. It was my first day and the nurse at the front desk was explaining to me what happens when a person gets checked in- green coding meant the person was fine (probably had the flu or such), yellow meant they were stable but that could change at any point, and red meant the person did not survive. There was one name in red that day, and I happened to take note of the name at that moment. The day went on and it was quite dreary, until a middle aged man frantically ran in and looked at me and said “i’m looking for my father, I got a call that there was an accident and he was brought here. His name is ____”. The minute he said the name, I promise you my heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds. I looked at him and said “one moment please.” and found the nurse and told her what was happening. She greeted the man with a smile and took him into the ER room where he will soon find out that his father has died.

The minute she took him back, I ran to the bathroom and immediately broke down. Why though? I didn’t know this man. I didn’t know his son. What I did know was, that man was at work. It was another average day. He had no idea that he was going to lose his father that day. One phone call changed everything and it was so unfair. I couldn’t handle the reality of life, and I knew I would never be able to handle telling someone that their loved one has died.

I didn’t care about logistics behind the fact that some doctors may never have to do that. I didn’t care about what my parents thought. I vowed I wouldn’t become a physician, for that feeling, is too much. That duty is too much for me, and I have an abundant amount of gratitude and appreciation for every physician that does this daily.

Well, I seem to have gotten side tracked here. The end of that story is that I stopped the externship. I ended up looking for other healthcare opportunities and ended up deciding it would be fun to shadow my dentist. And the rest is history from there.

But now, I’ve reached a point again where, I’m questioning if this is what I am meant to do? I’m beginning to wonder why all of  these memories are flooding back to me? Why am I reminiscing on a childish passion?

On this very day, at this very moment, I am not okay. I hold up a tough front. I put my best foot forward and I make sure to never let my family see that I am crumbling. It is so incredibly difficult to feel incapable. I feel incapable, inadequate, and inept. I have been trying to pass one standardized exam for 4 years. An exam that everyone around me passed on their first attempt. Why? Why have I given up what I wanted as a child and endured so much to be where I am now, only to see that, once again, it may not be for me? Once again, I may not make this dream a reality.

Over the past 4 years there have been many failures, many times where I really should have been either held back or dismissed from the program. But for some reason, I was always given another chance. I was given chance over chance. I don’t understand it, and I know that we are not suppose to understand or try to understand what God is doing or why He is doing it, but sometimes that is really hard. Sometimes, it’s hard to be okay. Sometimes it’s hard to hold up a strong front.

But what can we really do? All I can think of is, accept that bad days come. Some days I will cry and mope about my life and how i’m not where I thought I would be. Some days will be great and filled with motivation and willpower. We just have to take it a day at a time, ride the waves of uncertainty, and pray for the will to continue. Pray for God to enlighten us, strengthen us, and keep our spirits up.

I’ve taken you through quite the whirlwind of emotion today, but I did feel like it was necessary. Like you needed to see that i’m not always positive and happy about the uncertainty in my life. So that, if by any chance, you’re also going through a rough patch, you see that it’s okay to not be okay. But the catch is, you can never let the sadness take you over. Mind over matter. Take an emotional break for a day, but the next day you must rise up and get to work and move forward. Take it a day at a time.

Remember, it will all be worth it in the end. It won’t be easy. But it will be worth it.

Much love,

-MG

Supercut.

Happy New Year everyone!

With a new year upon us, it’s almost impossible to not play a reel of highlights from 2017 in your head while counting down to the start of 2018.

Every year, my family starts off the new year by heading to church at around 11pm. Within the last hour of the year, we end it by singing praises and then lifting up our prayers within the last couple minutes and ultimately ending the year & beginning the new year in prayer.

This year I couldn’t help but think back to the end of 2016/beginning of 2017 and thinking to myself “just think, this time next year you will have jumped over your hurdles and moved on to bigger things”.  Well, “this time next year” was last night, and it shook me because I felt like I have not moved or progressed in a years time when it comes to my “hurdle” that i’m always discussing. As anyone could expect, dwelling on the fact that one has made “no progress” throughout an entire year, will definitely keep your spirits down- and they were way down as the new year was being rung in all around me.

Today I stopped to think about the fact that my whole life does not revolve around its hurdles. So much more has happened in the year of 2017 then I am giving life credit for. I’ve progressed in so many other ways this year. I’ve made some amazing new friends, strengthened existing relationships, battled some pretty tough battles, and learned so much about myself. I’ve grown- and that alone should be keeping me going. That alone should be enough to prove to myself that this year wasn’t a waste. That i’m not stuck.

I can’t wait to reflect back on 2018 next year. So much of my life is completely up in the air right now- and that’s really under-exaggerated if we’re being honest. But that’s okay! It’s almost a little exciting!

The fact of the matter here is, we can’t enter into a new year in fear. The fear of being inadequate, the fear of being stuck, the fear of the unknown- it all has to end.

In order to transcend, in order to progress, we must first know that the “unknown” is very much so KNOWN. It is known to HIM. God has a master plan. There’s a blueprint of our lives. Things ARE going as planned. It may not be our plan, and that really sucks sometimes, but it sucks way less when you stop and remember that His plan is greater. His plan is THE plan. His plan is going to take us to heights we never dreamed of. We just need to stop dwelling on the negatives of our past years. We need to stop focusing on where we could be if we had just (insert your own thoughts here).

We need to restart, fresh, with this new year. Enter 2018 knowing very well that it has been planned out for you, and it has been planned to be whats best for you.

With high hopes & spirits.

-MG

Hone in.

In dentistry we tend to stare very hard at very small details for long periods of time. In doing so, it’s very easy for a dentist to forgo looking at the big picture, in our case the entire oral cavity. In dental school they teach us to make sure we notice when we do this, stop, step back and recollect our thoughts and make sure we have a big picture view of our goals for our patient- not just a micro view of the cavity we are filling. In a way, it’s a life lesson that we all could learn from.

Becoming a dentist is my short-term goal. Once upon a time, it was my long-term goal but now I’m nearing the end of that path and I realize that I’ve been so focused on this portion of my life that i’ve lost sight of the big picture. There’s so much more to life than finally becoming a dentist (or achieving any career goal you may have) and we really forget that so easily. We lose sight of the bigger picture because we’re so focused on the small steps and details of our life.

I have a very soft spot for…well, humanity as a whole. I tend to care for every single human being that I see and meet. Growing up I knew I wanted to help people but didn’t know how I would be doing it. My path right now is to do it through means of dentistry (I could go on and on about access to care and etc. but I will spare you, as this isn’t the point). Being on the path to dental school and through dental school has been incredibly rigorous, as you could imagine. I’m going to be honest and tell you that throughout the journey I completely forgot why I was working towards this to begin with. When I stop now, and step back and look at the bigger picture, I realize, that dentist or not- I have a role to play here on earth that is much greater than dentistry.

God granted me a heck of a lot of compassion. I don’t mean that in a bragging manner by the way, because believe me when I say sometimes it’s hard to feel for everyone at every moment and feel like you are responsible for everyone’s happiness and well-being. But I know he granted me all these feelings for everyone around me for a reason. I so badly want to go out and do good. I want to help those that can’t be helped and be a voice for those that do not have one. The thing is I cannot right now. That’s just not where I am in life. But it’s so important for me to pan out and remember my bigger picture, my goals, my aspirations.  (P.S. It really gives you more drive in your day to day life).

Today I pray we all take the time to stop honing in on the minutiae for a bit, and to step back and reorient ourselves. Why are we doing what we are currently doing? What is our bigger purpose? What is our life’s goal? We are so much more than our careers. Our careers are a stepping stone to help us accomplish so much more. We are capable of so much. We just need to step back and remember that. Keep the bigger picture in mind. Figure out your talents and your strong points and use them for the greater good.

Much love.

-MG