I love my mother.

She just knows.


She always knows.




Today I got a package from her, with my new car insurance card.. but also, with a note.

The card reads on the front:

Do not wish you be anything but what you are, and be that perfectly.

The inside, she wrote:

Jen,
Just wanted to tell you we love you and miss you. Glad you are making new friends and enjoying being you!
All our love,
Dad and Mom

Also, she's been sending me these little sayings on small pieces of cardstock for the past few years. She sends them every few months or so. The last one she sent said: remember your dreams.

The one she sent today says: you are simply amazing!


I really miss my family.

things I'm learning.

I'm learning more and more..

..that you have to be careful from whom you ask advice. because not everyone wants what you want, or thinks how you think, or needs what you need.
..that you really already know the answers to most of the questions that you have, the hard part is finding the courage, or the strength to accept them. the hard part is breaking down the walls that you built in order to follow through with what you know to be true and honest.
..that all you can do is be yourself. all you can say is what you think. all you can feel is what you feel. those aren't really choices that you make, they're realities that you can accept and cultivate or repress and ignore.

..that my head is a scary, dangerous place ;) and my meandering mind occupies so much of my time and energy. I have to learn how to entertain my thoughts.. really look at them objectively, and then either embrace them or forget them. I have to stop assuming that every negative thought I have is who I am. Because it isn't.. it's just a thought, a fleeting one, generally. If I could see it as that and nothing else, I think I wouldn't stress so much about problems that I create.. about things that don't even exist.

I'm learning.