It's Elementary Darling

I'm back, at least for now.  

If I've learned anything from this past year and a half, it is that you can never truly know what to expect from life, and just as soon as you think that you have everything exactly the way that you want it to be-- things change.

This semester has been crazy! I'm taking 18 credits, working, and trying to balance, sleep, callings at church, and club involvement and often I feel like I have no control over my life and what is happening in it. I hardly have time to breathe, and sleep truly has become a thing of the past.

But, lately I've been learning that no matter the situation you have to make time for joy.

In my life I have dealt with a lot of stress and anxiety-- It's just a part of my personality. I joke with my close friends that my brother Matthew was born a warrior, and I was born a worrier. This semester it seems like all of this worry and stress has compounded leaving me with a deep set anxiety.

Last week I reached one day when I was at a breaking point. Just when I felt that I couldn't deal with it all anymore and wanted to let go of everything that was worrying me, even in the slightest a friend gave me some wonderful advice.

He gave me three rules to follow.

1. Breath when you feel overwhelmed
2. Focus on what you can change; ignore what you cannot
3. Relax. Go out with friends and family when you feel anxious and overwhelmed

Although simple there three things have really grounded me these past few days, and I've been able to see how much of a strength my friends are to me. I feel like so often I go through my life trying to carry all of my worries, stresses, and anxieties inside me because I don't want to be a burden to another, but this semester especially I've been able to see what a strength my friends are. Just as I am there for them-- THEY ARE THERE FOR ME-- and they want to help me, I just have to let them in.

This weekend I went home (rule #3) and as always the light and love found in my family filled and rejuvenated me. While home my little sister, Sasha, asked me about why I no longer blog. Honestly that answer was easy. I don't have time. But, this is something I truly love. A way to express myself through word and photographs, and it's something that I love. So for this... I will try to make time.

There is joy to be found in little things, even in the most trying of times, and for that I am so thankful! I am thankful for journals, little notes from my students, inspiring quotes on Instagram, finished to do lists, random dance parties, laughing in the early hours of the morning even though you have gotten four hours of sleep in the last two days, for sisters and for mothers, for love that stretches across state lines, and for the promise that comes while spring is in the air!

I'm glad to be back.

Outfit Details:
Glasses: Vintage (Dad's from the 80's-- they used to be Sun glasses, but I popped out the dark lenses and filled them with my prescription instead)
Dress: Vintage, thrifted
Shoes: But Another Innocent Tale, thrifted
Circle Ring: Forever 21
Triangle Ring: Rue 21