A Look Into the Past

Here I go at my first attempt at blogging! I figured since I haven't talked to a lot of people since high school my first blog would be an overview of the last 8 years of my life. It has been full of a lot of ups and downs and tons of drama!
During my last semester of high school I had a lot of health problems which caused me to basically be bed ridden from Jan-April. I was totally lucky that English was the only class I had to graduate and I had an awesome English teacher that allowed me to do everything from home. Since I wasn't attending school at Provo High this allowed me to start college at UVSC at the beginning of May.
I have always known that I wanted to teach so I started out in Elementary Education but quickly got bored with those classes because they couldn't keep my attention. My favorite class was both an education and a psychology class so I decided to give more psychology classes a try. I fell in love with them so I switched majors.
In Jan 2003 I met Sean in one of my classes. There was something very unique about him and he had a way of drawing me in. We began dating in Feb and got engaged in March of 2003. I ended up going in for a pre-marital exam and was told that if I ever wanted to have kids that I needed to have surgery so at the beginning of April I ended up having surgery. It was from this point in time that our relationship started crumbling.
While I was drugged up on pain killer he decided to take advantage of me. This was the beginning of an extremely unhappy marriage. We ended up getting married on April 26, 2003. I won't go into a lot of details about it (if you want details just ask) but would love to say that the best part of my marriage was on Aug. 28, 2006 (the day that my divorce was finalized)...
While being married we moved from apartment to apartment because he was never satisfied with anything, and I graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in Behavioral Science with an emphasis in Social Work.
After graduation Sean decided that we were going to move to St. George. I found an amazing job at a youth facility and I totally loved almost everything about living there (my husband being the only exception). We lived there for 6 months before moving back to Happy Valley.
I got a job as an Office Manager at a counseling clinic. For the most part I loved my job there but felt something was missing. One day towards the end of May 2006 I felt a prompting that I needed to quit my job. I had no idea why but did it anyway.
For the next month I spent a lot of time at my parents house (which Sean had no idea about because I was not suppose to have contact with my family) looking in the paper for jobs. At this time my dad had been diagnosed with having bronchitis and was home in bed. I spent a lot of time hanging out with my dad and our relationship improved dramatically.
Towards the end of June my dad was not improving any so my mom took him back to the doctor's and they told them that he had Chronic Heart Failure, which by the way was not life threatening and could be treated by medicine. They got him to see a specialist the next day. My mom was not sure if she could take him so I agreed to take my dad to the doctors. My mom ended up able to come but asked me to come along anyway. The doctor requested that he go to the hospital so that he could be monitored and given the right medicine.
Once getting to the hospital they told my parents that he would have to stay a few days. My mom stayed with him until late that night and then came home. Around 2 am he went into cardiac arrest and was put on life support. He was moved into intensive care and they put a balloon pump in and we were told that if it didn't work he would need a transplant. He was transported to LDS hospital up in Salt Lake. By the time my family made it to Salt Lake we were told that nothing more could be done. This came as a total shock to my family. Taking my dad off life support was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.
We were given the choice of whether or not we wanted to be with my dad after shutting all the machines off. I knew that if I wasn't there that I would regret it for the rest of my life. I held my dad's hand until he passed on. This was one of the most spiritual experiences I have ever had. There was such a peaceful feeling in the room.
While losing my dad has been a huge challenge for me and my family we have also seen a lot of blessings. The night after my dad passed away he came to my uncle in a dream. He told my uncle about all the abuse that my husband was inflicting upon me (something that I had never told anyone about). He told my uncle that I needed to get out of the marriage. The next day my cousin confronted me about my marriage and we had a good talk about everything and I decided that my dad was right. I moved home a few weeks after the funeral and within two months of my dad's death I was officially divorced.
I have been so much more happy over the last 15 months but still I find myself going through a lot of ups and downs as I heal from the abuse I went through for 3 1/2 years. You would think that after being divorced for over a year that the drama would end, but Sean still comes around and tries to control my life.

Now for some good news:

On my 25th birthday I was able to go through the Provo Temple and take my endowments out. This was the best birthday present in all the world! I love the temple more than anything and am grateful for the blessings that I have received that are associated with going through.
This past summer I was fortunate to be able to go on a girl's vacation. My mom and her sister took all of us girls on a trip to Kansas City and to Nauvoo. My
family had never been back there and we had a ton of fun. The best part of the whole trip was temple day. My mom, aunt and I were able to help out down in the baptistery while my 2 sisters and 3 cousins did baptisms. After this we went and did an endowment session. The spirit was so strong! This was the best week ever!

Since the trip I have just been working at UVSC in the Intramural Department and trying my hardest to figure out what I really want out of life and putting my life back together. This is a lot harder than it looks. It has taken me a lot of counseling to get myself to where I am at the moment. I still have a long way to go!

Well.... this has been my life in a nutshell