Because Now There Are Smiles.

I feel like my life has been a pretty amazing journey.

In high school the plan was a fairly simple one, though sadly, it didn't sit outside of the Utah Mormon box.

I would go to college and which college I went to was very important because it was the one were I would meet my husband.

I had no plans to actually graduate.  College was a source to find him, because at that point in my life I was certain that I would not be marrying anyone that I had grown up with.

There was no high school sweetheart for me to hold on to.

Well, there were several, but not one in particular.

I was going to marry a man who shared the same religious beliefs I did, we would have a family of perhaps six kids, and I would be a stay at home mom.

And that was my solid plan.  What could go wrong?

I pictured us happy and living the gospel together and seriously when I pictured it in my mind, it looked an awful lot like this:

{pic source}

There you have it, right there in that picture, when I saw my future, this is the image that came to mind.

Except with more color.

But that isn't how it's gone, and as that life crumbled away I mourned it.  I fought it.  It was my identity and the entire image of who I was and it was gone.

I was gone.

Which is ironic in a sense because when I had it, I didn't really exist then either.

As the journey played out for me, I did go to college, and I did find a husband through college connections, and I did drop out and marry him.  We started our family right away and though I didn't make it to six kids, I did make it to four and I felt very certain that that was the extent of my having children.  I felt complete with that number and have never looked back with "baby hunger."

But as the journey also went, the picture wasn't actually like the one above.

And eight years is a long time to lose yourself at the actions of the one person that should be the one who loves more than anyone, and yet doesn't.

Eight years is too long to define yourself with the one thing that is sucking your individual worth away.

That picture above never really was.

When I finally walked away I was an empty shell with no direction because the one thing I had aimed for in life would never be.  And I didn't know where to go now.

I became a working, single mom.

And I threw myself into a lot of crazy avenues looking for validation and worth.

There was a pivotal moment where I sat in my new to me apartment and knew that I was at a crossroads.
No one from my church knew I was there and I had the perfect opportunity to slip through the cracks.

It was then that I knew I couldn't.

It was then that I found my ground again.  And I began to build up.

I met the most amazing man, and though we don't share the same religious beliefs, he is my perfect contrast, and my perfect compliment all wrapped up into one supportive and kind man.

I got a job where I began to excel and prove to myself that working, although a necessary evil, was something I could be good at.

I bought a house.

I bonded with my girls, despite having to struggle with using daycare, something I never wanted to do, it forced me to focus on them at home.

I built strong relationships with them at that point in our lives because they were all that I had.  And a lot because of the guilt I felt for needing daycare.  But the focus I put into the relationships with the four of them has resulted into strong relationships even now, six years later.

I got married to that supportive kind man.  The man who has shown me that I can still be an individual while being in a relationship.  And his two kids added to mine made a family with six kids.

And I some how landed a job with the Attorney General's Office.

I went back to school.

And I found me.

Before when my life did come close to resembling that picture above, the only difference was that there was no smiling.

Now, we're crazy and running around in all sorts of different directions... and I realize that in all of that, I've found what I was aiming for in my life.

Because now there are smiles.

And that's pretty good.