Caught up in the Tornado

It seems I was sitting there enjoying my summer vacation, then school starts and its not too bad, then I hear this rumble and it's getting closer, and closer and then what hits? Life. I have something planned every day of the week. Even now I am not supposed to be typing this blog, but I feel like I need to get one post in here since I haven't written for so long.
When your little your birthday is a big occasion but as you grow older you realize that life goes on. The end of the term is coming up and I have three big tests this week, on my birthday, it's just the way it works. Adults are always telling you to grow up, and in the end you don't really have a choice. You get caught up in the crowd pulling you along through life and your sort of forced to forget how it felt to be carefree. During the teen years you seem to be in between adulthood and childhood. I'm transitioning from having nothing to do but watch T.V. to having too much on my plate that I can't eat it all.
I have compared life to an airport. How much it can be like one! It is an organized chaos of people all pushing and bustling around to get somewhere. It's hardest when your one of the people without a real purpose yet, when your still trying to figure out where your headed. My best friend is moving an hour away. It doesn't seem too far but it is still really hard. Right now I feel like I'm caught in a never ending tornado that just keeps picking up more problems as it goes along. I feel like if it could just stop, for one day, I could get things in order. I wish life could just halt for a few hours so I could learn what it's like to do nothing again.

Blue Eyes

A few weeks ago my great-grandma on my step dad's side died. I only knew her for a year and loved her dearly, still though I did not feel sad when they told me she died, I knew she was old and lived a good life. My grandpa said he could hear her talking to her husband, he said that her husband came to get her and she went with him. It's funny but the days before she died I cried when no one else did, when my step dad told my family that she was gone it seemed I was the only one who didn't feel sad.

The reason I bring this up is because I wrote my great-grandma a poem I never got to give to her. I wonder if she can read it from heaven, if she can know that I wrote this for her. The poem may not be that great, I wrote it on a whim one night when I couldn't sleep. Anyway here it is.

Blue eyes

By: Elizabeth Leatham

Dedicated to my great-grandmother Pala who

I was lucky enough to have as a part of my life.

What secrets do those blue eyes hide?

Tales of heartache, pain, and sacrifice.

A person hurting deep inside.

What secrets do those blue eyes hide?

What heart is that that feels for me?

A heart so true, of noble breed.

Loving, deep understanding.

What heart is that that feels for me?

What lips are those that call my name?

What secret prayers,

Said with no shame.

What lips are those that call my name?

What person is that who loves and longs?

Wisdom of years,

And courage so strong.

What person is that who loves and longs?

Why who can hold secrets behind such eyes?

She who will reveal the story’s behind.

What heart can love with such freedom?

The same who now dwells in God’s kingdom.

What lips can call so many names?

She who loves them all just the same.

Why what a person can love and long,

Is she who has an Angel’s song.

Come tales of heartache, pain, and sacrifice.

What secrets do those blue eyes hide?

Names

Imagine being up in the mountains. There's the wind in your hair, the smell of smoke on your clothes, a fishing pole next to your cheap folding chair, and the sound of eighteen kids screaming and running in the background. For the majority of our week long camping trip we had only eleven kids, but for one night we made it all the way up to eighteen. I'm starting to get used to my big family, in fact I even could say at times that I enjoy it. There's always actors for a movie, or inspired characters for a book. You can always find someone to read your school essay or to tell you how you look.

Sometimes, though, when your trying to get to sleep in a thin sleeping bag on top of four rocks in a thin tent and the sound of the crickets is drowned out by six boys voices carried over from the other tent, yes at those times I wish I was an only child. Really the camping trip was quite enjoyable, but the ratio of eighteen kids to seven adults wasn't very good odds. Once I learned the art of hiding and reading the trip was more fun I could say.

I had another experience this camping trip. I've been called many names before. People have called me pretty, cute, weird, strange, and random people have often times come up to me and called me beautiful. It's sort of a strange experience but I suppose it's always flattering. This trip however I had the chance to overhear a couple of boys calling me hot. Well now I figure I've been called practically every name to simply describe a person. Something my dad always taught me, though, was that you can never get caught up in names. Every girl should always believe she is beautiful but the moment that a person starts becoming vain and thinking that they can get anything with their looks is the moment they fail on a very important test. The test of the heart. It's our spirits that really matter, our bodies only last for this life but our spirits go on forever. My dad told me once that he had met many beautiful woman who had such ugly spirits on the inside. I never want to become like that. Sometimes I even try to bring myself down which is the other extreme that can't be any better than vanity. My grandpa told me this trip that one day I would have to realize I'm beautiful and stop trying to make myself not. I think he meant the way I always try to criticize myself to prevent from getting to caught up in my looks. I'm trying harder to just expect myself and stay at a happy medium. I am still young, growing and learning. I want to become as beautiful on the inside as others see on the outside. The world tests us all with its views on how people should look and behave. I will hold to my religion and my standards, for they are the only true firm things I have.

Mother

I've decided to post a few of my favorite poems that I have written.
I'll post them in time so that there is not an overwhelming amount of new text here.
This first one I wrote for my mother for mother's day.
This is dedicated to her.

Mother
By: Anne Ivy

A darkness deep,
Surrounds my child,
In restless sleep,
Lost and tired.

There is a light,
A beam of hope,
To give sight
To a world unknown.

A smile, a sigh
A lifelong friend.
A loving angel
I will send.

To bless, to help,
To save, to bring
All my children
Back to me.

Through lives trials
My children will fall
She is a soft pillow,
To catch them all.

She will never be
As any other.
My dear, lost child,
I send you a mother.

I am so grateful for all that my mother does for me. Every child deserves to have a mother, even when at times a teenager would wish they didn't, just ask the orphans or those who have lost mothers, I bet each one of them wishes they had one. This poem is written from God's point of view in case you were wondering.
Thanx to those who read my blog, I enjoy sharing with you.

Getting Somewhere

Life can be compared to an airport. It is a chaotic organized jumble of people all trying to get someplace in the world. The planes are each leaving to a certain place in life, which places the passengers are trying to reach.
One passenger has awaited his flight his whole life. He arrives at the gate hours early and simply waits. Another passenger never really cared where he was going and made a last minute decision to board the plane. He arrive barely in time.
Now the third passenger flys standby. He arrived at the airport with only an idea of where he might be going, yet he might be the most prepared. He will go through the airport checking boards, making phone calls and gathering information before he selects his flight.
There is no telling which of the three will be more successful with the direction they've chosen. It might be the man who took all the classes to be on that flight, if he fails he has no other choice, or maybe it will be the one who didn't care about his class selections and simply picked a random place. Possibly it could be the man who took every class available to him. The man who, though he did not have a ticket upon entering the airport, took the most time in making a wise decision.
I do not know if or when I'll get married. I don't know which college I'm going to. I don't know which teachers I'll have next year or how they will affect later decisions. I do know that I am entering that airport. I only have a few small bags but I am ready to fill them with knowledge. I will travel through the halls for as long as it takes to find my place. I can use my talents to help influence my decisions so that one day I can walk up to a ticket agent and say, "I'm ready to board."

Rainy Days

It’s been days of rain both outside the house and in. Grey days have hit our home. Days when you cry yourself to sleep while listening to others tears. Every family goes through hard times, no marriage is perfect. Every time my step dad and mom have a fight I get afraid that maybe this time it won’t be okay. The past has shown me, that with the sun comes happier faces, yet the fear that happiness won’t return can be terrible. My brother resolved that he would not go to sleep until the fight ended, sometimes I stay up with him and listen.

I just want to march up stairs and shake my step dad and say, “Listen, just listen to her, just hold her, just tell her you love her that’s all she wants!” Maybe to him it isn’t so simple. I understand my mother because me and her have very similar personalities. I know from myself that when she cries she just wants to be held. In this troubling world there are so many days when your hurt, or stressed, or have just had a bad day and sometimes the whole world seems to press in on your chest, and the tears don’t seem to ever stop. It hurts, and sometimes it feels as if your heart really has the capacity to break. At times like these you cry, you scream, you complain, you yell and somewhere inside you all you really want is to be held and told your loved until it all goes away, until love washes the pain right out.

This is something my step dad doesn’t get. I don’t think he likes to see tears much. I have never seen or heard him cry, I don’t even know if he ever does. He doesn’t like any of us to cry outside our rooms. When I came to this house I had to learn to cry alone. It’s terrible to bear all the pain of tears and sadness until it passes. Sometimes you need someone there to share the hurt with you. I hope that one day when I get married I won’t have to cry alone any more. I hope that my spouse will know what pain is like and that he will hold me as I cry. I want my mom to have the same thing. I just wish my step dad would understand, but he doesn’t.

Of course I know that neither of us really do cry alone. God is always there listening to our silent prayers and watching each tear fall. I know that he cares for us, but he can’t be here. That is why we were given families, so that they could love and comfort us when our heavenly father cannot. There are many different personalities. I sometimes envy my sister for her ability to hide all the pain, as if it never existed. All hurt seems to pass through her as if she were immune to it. I sometimes wonder if my step dad is the same way. 

Honestly when I think of my step dad the first thing that comes to mind is a rock. I’m sure he has to cry sometimes, maybe, but it just doesn’t seem like he really ever feels sadness, hurt, betrayal, or pain. I know he must feel emotions as all humans do, but I don’t know how he cannot show them. Me and my mom express our emotions freely, that’s not always a good thing and many times I wish that I could hide my emotions as easily as some do. Isn’t it true that the silent child is the child every parent wants and the opinionated child is the one they hope they don’t have? It seems that way. 

At times I feel this blog a good way for me to write what I am feeling. I don’t want to offend any one or make my step dad look bad or anything. It just seems like peace is staring him right in the face and he won’t take it. I’m sure he has his own point of view on why he won’t just simply hold my mother, all I know is that I don’t understand it. Loving someone seems so simple, loving someone who is crying and hurting may be more difficult but I know it can be done.

From feeling the nothingness and empty pain of crying alone I wish that every one can always have somebody to hold them while the tears flow. I don’t know of any one who wants to feel sadness, but we all feel it anyway. Hopefully the sun will shine tomorrow both outside and in, it is late and I will hopefully sleep. Now I say goodnight to the constant stars if only life could be like them, bright and steady.

Death

It doesn't really seem fair, death. It swoops in and takes people you love away when you least expect it. It is so strange, and incomprehensible, it is something that we as mortals may never understand. Today I learned something new about death. In the past I have had people die. People who lived near me, or people whose families I knew, but I was either too young or not close to the person. I never understand before.

Much had I contemplated death. All the time I think about the eternities and heaven. I thought it would be okay, I have the knowledge that God lives, that we can return to him, that we will be able to see our family again. I thought it silly why people were sad, when I was certain that if someone I knew died, I would not be sad, but happy. I was wrong.

  A boy in my ward died today. He was my friend. He was a sweet, kind boy, and funny too. It's so hard to think that I won't see him in sunday school anymore. It's hurts to know that he won't be walking the halls at school. I think about it, and it makes me cry. It's a type of sadness I've never felt before. A type of sad that you don't notice hunger, you don't want to talk about it, but at the same time your soul is dying to let it all out to someone. Mainly it hurts. A burning feeling in your chest that all is lost. I couldn't imagine feeling this and not knowing that boy is in heaven and that we will see him again, it would be so hard.

Everyone wants to be understood, but in truth no one can ever fully understand another, because we are all different. The thing about death is that no one can say they understand until they've experienced in close hand. When I was about seven a girl my old-old ward died, she was thirteen. I thought it was sad, but nothing more. Just last year an older boy whose family I once knew drowned, I thought it was sad, nothing else. I know now. When someone dies who was close to you, you feel that sadness. My brothers and sisters see nothing wrong. My mom tells them a young boy in their ward dies and they ask why I'm so sad, because they don't understand. I was like that. I could never know how much death hurts, until it is hitting me in the face.

Yes, maybe one day I will get to see that boy again, but for the rest of my mortal life I will never see his smile, watch his eyes light, see him joke around with the other boys and tease him. I can't even begin to comprehend how his family is hurting, but I know how it is affecting me and it doesn't feel good. I wonder if he's up there now, I wonder if he wishes we wouldn't be sad, if he wishes we would know he's okay and happy. I think, though, that it is part of a human life. When we cry it lifts a burden off our shoulders and so we cry and cry and eventually accept the truth.

Death is something I thought much about, but never felt. Death is something that I will never understand. Death hurt me today as it hurt many others. When people mutter I'm sorry for your loss, I don't know if I could ever say such a simple thing again. Death hurts much more than a simple sorry could ever cure. Only time, tears, and faith can cure the sadness of death.