Nae's Thoughts

These past few months have been history making. These are times I will someday tell my kids and grandkids about. And I've often found myself in the past months wanting to be on the right side of history. I didn't want to look back and be a part of the problem. I know I'm just one person but aren't we all? And I can't control anyone else and their choices but I do get to control mine. Which brings up the question, which side of history is the "right" one? If you ask facebook you will have a variety of opinions. I have scrolled through them for hours. I usually find myself to be a very opinionated person. But that's when I feel like I have the facts. In the word of social media the facts can get a little jumbled. And my brain started to feel A LOT a bit jumbled. It's like we want to make this situation so black and white when I honestly believe there are a million shades of grey to consider. Especially in the past few weeks as riots and protes...

I almost quit my dream job earlier this year. Let me explain. I have wanted to be a teacher my ENTIRE life. (well besides when I was 6 and was for sure going to become a famous singer and a short time around 9 when I considered being a dog trainer) But from 10 years old on there was no other career in sight. By the time I was 14 I had decided that I wanted to teach Kindergarten. I babysat more than any of my friends, benefiting from being one of the few teenagers in my neighborhood. I taught preschool in high school, job shadowed for a Kindergarten classroom for my senior project, took 3rd in the state at the FCCLA competition for early childhood education. While my friends worried about college majors and careers, I selected one of the best teaching programs in the state and only applied to that university. I never, ever second guessed my choice. Not once. Even when I took a break from school to serve my mission I always knew when I came back I would finish my degree and go teach...

I learned something super important tonight while sitting in the temple. But before I get to that let me tell you how I ended up in the temple tonight. If you know me then you know that I often joke that I am the definition of the word single. And I'm VERY good at being single. For a long time now my family has been trying to "help" me in my dating life. I have been very stubborn and said, "no thank you." Well a few months ago my older brother decided to take it upon himself to become my dating coach. At the same time that my therapist decided to start talking to me about opening up and being vulnerable in relation to dating. At the same time that I started to get these subtle feelings that I needed to start dating more. (this is just an example of how I am super stubborn so God has to send like A LOT of messages to me to stop being so hard headed. This happens to me more often than I care to admit....) So my brother took over my dating life. And all of...

Asking for help gives me major anxiety. Offering help to someone else, easy peasy. But for some reason reaching out and admitting to someone that I can't do something makes me short of breath and queasy. You're thinking to yourself, "Denae, that's kinda weird, and also makes no sense. If you can be compassionate to others and want to help them then it should logically make sense that receiving help doesn't make you "weak" or "spoiled" or "less than". It doesn't define you as a person." You could say that and you would be 100% correct. Would I believe you? I mean I would pretend to believe you and say, "oh ya! For sure" But then I would continue on with my life never admitting to anyone else that maybe I wasn't as fine as I told them. And maybe I was "faking it 'til I made it" like all the time. Recently God (with the help from my amazing therapist) has been teaching me first off, that it...

Hey so if you have interacted with me any time in the past, oh six or so months you might be aware that my body has been having a rough go. If you haven't been around or even if you have let me just take you on a quick recap. Denae is in lot's of pain. No one knows why. She convinces herself it's all in her head and she needs to stop being stupid. Pain does not care and continues to be a part of her life. She goes to lot's of DR and they run lots of tests. She comes to find out that her tum tum isn't fully functioning but should be fine with a few different suggestions from the dr. Still having pain. Goes to more Dr.'s. Learns that she has a mild form of PCOS. Still having pain. Things maybe it's anxiety?? Finally decides to try counseling. After a lot of promptings and internal struggles I reached out for help. I've experienced anxiety before, as I'm sure we all have, but I never would say that I have anxiety. (kind of like how we all go throug...

When I was little I had HORRIBLE handwriting. It was not cute. When I was in second grade my teacher sat me down to have a quick one on one chat. She didn't start out by telling me that I had awful handwriting and needed to fix it. She instead said that she had something that she wanted us to work on together. I don't remember her exact words but I do remember how she made me feel that day. She made me feel like we were a team, and that as a team we were going to work hard so that I could have neater, nicer handwriting. And it worked! I left that little student teacher conference so excited to work on my handwriting! Today I would like to think I have pretty nice handwriting. At least I hope I do, since I regularly teach small humans how to form their letters. The point of the story isn't about my handwriting. It's about a teacher who empowered a little girl to be better. It's about how she took the time to help me improve. I was a pretty smart kid in the secon...

 I have a few pieces of advice to share that maybe will help others to see my perspective as a happy, single mid twenties YSA living in this wonderful place we call Utah County. Let's just set some ground work here before I write out my thoughts and feelings. The first one is that I am very much single. Second is that I am in no way shape or form writing things as an excuse to complain to the world about being single. Last night my amazing roommate and I had this beautiful vulnerable discussion about being happy with being single. During it I said to her, "you know it's just really hard sometimes because I feel like I'm stuck in this weird place where I am so genuinely happy being single but I also have the desire to take those next steps of marriage in my life. And I don't know how to help other people see and understand that balance of how I feel." These feelings are rather hard to explain and I honestly think they are hard for anyone outside of this ...