I got home from my mission about four and a half months ago, and since being home, things have been a little crazy. But not like the normal crazy (if there even is a normal crazy); it's sort of been like a mix of the good crazy and the bad crazy all at once. Kinda like life was never worse but never better. Or like I'm happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time.
Or something like that.
I came home from Honduras thinking that I had everything under control. After all, I knew what I wanted and what I wanted to do and where I was going to go. I thought I had it all figured out, and I had the expectation that things would just fall perfectly into place.
But that's not really how it happened.
I think that as a returned missionary I believed that I was automatically going to have a perfect life and be perfect person. I mean, everyone and their mom told me that the Lord just pours out the blessings on you after your mission, so I guess I thought things would be easy.
But *spoiler alert* life isn't ever easy. Like ever.
And for a good portion of my four and a half months home, I wasn't really okay with that. And it got to a point where my feelings of hopelessness and sadness were unbearable. I felt like I was drowning inside, but I was too scared to talk to anyone because I didn't think anyone would really understand or let alone care. And I wasn't even sure that I really understood how I was feeling. And it might seem dramatic and exaggerated, but that's how I felt. All I know is that I wasn't happy and something needed to change. But I didn't know how or even where to start.
But then a couple of days ago, I was driving up in the mountains with some of my friends. The leaves had already started changing and the colors were beautiful. We had the windows down, and the late-afternoon breeze came blowing in as we winded down the road. And like I so often do, I thought about Honduras. I thought about what I had been doing exactly a year ago to the day. And tears rolled down my cheeks because I would have given anything to be there again. I would have given anything to once again know who I was and know that I was loved and know that I was doing something important. And I asked myself how it was fair that something that had meant so much to me was simply over. How was it fair that the most beautiful moments of my life had an 18-month time limit on them?
But I realized something then that I hadn't before. I realized that those moments will never truly be over because I am a living masterpiece of those 18 months I spent in Honduras. And though I'm very imperfect, I'm a masterpiece still the same.
And so are you.
Life isn't perfect, but it was never meant to be. And once you learn that, things somehow get a lot better.
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