One of those Days.

Well, it finally happened. Kudos, immune system. You put up a good fight.
Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough.
So, here I am, eating chicken noodle soup and surfing Youtube for awesome obscure music.
Im actually hoping this sickness will make its way out of my system before it starts snowing. Because honestly, Im going to be spending all of my free time outside playing in it either way.

Have I mentioned that I'm super pumped for Christmas? Im obsessed with this time of year. When the house always smells like someone's baking. Christmas music is playing on a loop quietly in the background, (or really loud when we feel like rocking out.) When I watch the snow fall from the window with a cup of cocoa in my hand and my favorite blanket. Ahh. I don't know what it is about December, Christmas, or the sudden high people seem to get on from their New Years Resolutions, but it just makes me happy.

Fa la la la la...

If you could just stop running and take a second to breathe it in.

I just want to say thanks for telling me I'm beautiful.

I don't like to look back on the past, Im scared to look ahead to the future, but maybe God's trying to send me a message: Focus on this moment. Here. Now. Make it the best you can possibly make it, then the future will play out better than you think.

If you could only just stop stop stop running,
If you could only take a second to breathe it in.
Everything that you know would be beautiful like you.

Writers block.

My apologies. Im sorry I haven't written sooner. I'd like to just tell you that I've been busy, or that I had some super important things to take care of, but the truth is,
I just haven't had inspiration for blogging in a while.

I hate this about being a writer. Writers block is one of the worst feelings in the world. When you have a million bajillion thoughts bouncing around in your head, and you're too unfocused to get them down on paper. Or when you try to think of something deep and motivational and you come up with nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
It makes me feel super productive, let me tell you.

Anyway, I'm sure when I have some epic life-changing experience I'll totally tell you all about it. But as for now, my thoughts are too chaotic to share at this moment in time.

Lots of love always,

Me.

You've always made me proud.

Remember that post "I'll make you proud one day, I promise"? Well, I was thinking about that post at my swim meet yesterday. *Warning*: Another swimming story. Brace yourself.

It was the Utah County Invite. Pretty important meet, I would have to say. My coach put me in the 100 free, expecting me to win it with a 54.9. I was hesitant, wondering if I was even capable of going that fast this early in the season. I gave him the usual high-5 and walked towards the blocks. I stood behind lane 4, stretching, warming up, focusing. When I dove in the pool, I just let my body do what it knows how to do best. I swam.
When I finished, I was so pumped to look up at the score board and see a.......
55.9.
Wait, what? Wasn't that supposed to be a 54.9? Judging by the way my body ached and it seemed like I couldn't get air in my lungs fast enough, that should've been at least a 55.0.
I tried not to let it get to me. But I could feel that horrible sense of disappointment creeping up behind me as I walked over to talk to my coach. When I approached him, he looked at me and said "Sit down, Sammi."
I sat down on the cold bench and looked at my coach while he told me
"You don't want it bad enough."
The rest of his words were all blurred and hazed as my mind spun out in 50 different directions.
What the heck does he mean by that?
How could he say that? 
What makes him think he has the RIGHT to say that?
RUDE.


I walked away from him with tears stinging my eyes, his words still fresh in my mind
You don't want it bad enough.

I went outside to collect myself, and started doing some serious soul searching. My hair was wet, I was in my parka and slippers, it was raining, and I was a mess. After all of these things happening with swimming, I was really starting to question whether or not it was even worth it. I never seemed to be able to make anyone happy, no matter how hard I tried. Simple and plain; I just wasn't good enough.
I pulled out my phone and started reading through my blog, trying to find some sort of inspiration from my past self to pull me through the rest of the meet.
Then I saw the post "I'll make you proud one day, I promise."
I read through it. Then I read through it again.
And again.
I got that drive i needed to finish the meet out. I walked back on deck and prepared to swim my last race, a relay. Me and 3 of my best friends were going to finish this meet out with a vengeance. I was determined.
I was leading off the relay, and as I got on the blocks in that same old pool I train in every day, where I've felt victory, disappointment, loss, pain and laughter. In that moment when everyone was silent, and the world seemed to stand still for just a fraction of a second, a voice said to me

You've always made me proud.


I'll save you the sob story, but we won the relay by 4 seconds, and Lone Peak ended up winning the entire meet. But I'll never forget that moment on the blocks.
I'll never forget the feeling I had when I knew I was important to someone. And that that someone is the most powerful being in the universe.

And strangely, in that moment, I knew everything was going to be okay.

I believe in the underdog.

Early this morning, around 5, I was swimming laps in a steaming pool with dim lights. The sky was black, the moon was full and all I could see, taste and smell was chlorine. I was tired. But it was that different kind of tired, that sinks into your muscles, and makes your eyelids heavy. That kind of tired that puts a haze around your frame of mind, and makes others voices sound slurred.
I guess I just wasn't all... there.
I was thinking about school, and college. I was thinking about family and my future. I was thinking about pretty much everything but swimming. It wasn't until I missed my goal time on my timed 50 free by .1 that I was quite rudely slapped awake.
C'mon, lets think about this. .1? .1 of a freaking second. wow. Only in swimming would a tenth of a second wreck your entire day. I've been in races where 1st through 5th place have been separated by only a second. Funny, isn't it, how a tenth of a second can make a girl feel so insignificant.
Sometimes I feel like it's always like that. That I'm almost there, almost, almost... aaaaa...nope. It reminds me of when someone you like is about to give you a hug or a high 5 then they're all "Psych!"
I feel like that .1 of a second is all "ha ha, sucker!"
Is it  bad to want to swear at .1 of a second? Cause I want to.
I was really frustrated after morning practice. Tears were stinging my eyes and my muscles were all tense. Then I remembered something my mom said last night at dinner.
"I believe in the underdog." I thought about that for a second, and after shouting "BLOG POST!" in the middle of the restaurant, I kept thinking about it.
Aren't the stories we remember most the ones where the losing team comes back and wins? Or the basketball player who never thought he'd play, then scores 20 points in the last 4 minutes of the game?
Then I noticed there are quiet underdogs. Ones who don't gather as much attention, or praise. They struggle in their own way, then over come it.
I believe in the underdog.
So, in a way, aren't we all underdogs? Granted none of us are perfect. We all have our own unique trials and probably most of us feel that we've been dealt the raw hand in life.
Well, incase you're struggling,
I believe in you.
I believe in everything that you are, and will be. I believe in the fire and the drive that I know you have. I believe that the blood, sweat, and tears you put into everything you do will put you on top in the end. You're stronger than you think. You have more potential than you know.
You may be the underdog; but the underdog will relish success because they know the pain it took to get there.
I promise, it's worth it.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Gandhi.

Grow old with me.

If there's one thing I've learned in all my 16 years, its that things happen for a reason. People change so we can learn to move on, happiness in one thing dies out so we can find joy in something better. We cry so we can relish peace, and we build walls to find out who cares enough about us to climb them.
It seems to me that the only constant thing in my world is change. Kind of ironic, isn't it? I've discovered that there are lots of factors to this thing we call 'change.'
Death changes people. No one knows that better than me.
Growing up changes people; in crazy ways I've discovered. I look at kids my age who pretend to be all tough and Im all "uhh, no. You ran around in my backyard sprinklers screaming at the top of your lungs in nothing but pants when you were like 3. Stop."
Time changes people. In obvious ways like wrinkles and laugh lines. Or the old couple sitting on the park bench, content with nothing to say. Because everything that could've been said in that moment had already been shared countless times. Or the old man who spends his fall evenings in the cemetery, talking to a best friend lost long ago, with wilted roses in his frail hands.
I've discovered that love changes people. I find that it shifts feelings inside of you, so a light shines through. The right kind of love, that is. The love of a family, a best friend, or a lover. I've seen love create and destroy. Lift up and drag down. Succeed and fail, but one thing that I've learned in all of my oh so wise 16 years is that
True Love Never Fails.
I believe that. I believe that with every part of me.
I want to go through all the changes that being in love brings. I want to fall in love with a returned missionary, worthy priesthood holder who loves me almost as much as I love him, cause i'll always love him most. I want to get married in the temple, and buy a pretty white gown and have my best friends in matching dresses. I want to dance with him for the first time to a slow country song, looking into his eyes and think "Forever," over and over.
I want to rock our baby on the front porch, watching the sun go down, his hands on my shoulders. I want to tease him when he starts getting gray hairs. I want to help him fix up the house, or work on the yard. I want to cry with him when our kids graduate from high school, and then when our first grandchild is born. I want to grow old with him.
I want to be in love.
Because no matter what changes around us, he will always be the same.
Cause True love Never fails.
I trust that love will always find a way, a path to me in the darkness. And maybe one day, a silly boy will love me so much that he'll want to spend eternity with me.
I want to be good enough for that.

Change happens.
But it happens so we can move forward.

"Without change there wouldn't be butterflies."- Anon.

P.S. click on this link; HERE. I know you want to.

Restart.

It's funny how I keep thinking things will get better- but then they always take a turn for the worse.
I keep thinking I'm strong enough to handle things, but night after night tears find me again.
I keep thinking the smile I plaster on my face is good enough, but everyone sees through it.
I keep thinking things will get better- and in the back of my mind I know they will- but right now it just seems hopeless.

I have this habit of portraying that I'm strong. That people can lean on me if they need to- because I can help them. I'd rather be helping other people than worrying about myself.
I've never been one to submit- to conform. I've always been weird, quarky, awkward, you name it. I've just always been.. different.
Lately I can feel myself slipping under the waves. Fitting in, blending in. Giving up.

It makes me feel angry, because all this time I've made a big show about never giving up and slapping failure in the face , and I'm not even doing that. I'm being such a hypocrite.

I've always been fond of individuality. Being who you are, and not being anyone else because everyone else is already taken. So why do I want to change so bad? Why do I want to be like all the people that surround me? I feel so insignificant. Lost. Inadequate.
Maybe its because I've been fighting that feeling for so long.
Maybe its because I've been pretending to be strong.
Maybe its because I've just been trying to convince myself I was someone I'm not.

For that, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't given you my best. You deserve it. You deserve everything good and beautiful in this world and I promise I've been trying to give it to you.. I just failed. My perspective was so off.
We're going to restart though. Pick up the pieces and try again. I won't mess up this time. I can't take seeing the hurt on your face when I do. From now on, the only thing I will see in your eyes is pride. I can't thank you enough for the second chances, the 'I forgive you's' and the un-judging eyes. I find strength in those eyes.
So, Lets start again shall we?
Hi, my name is Sammi and I haven't achieved anything great or awesome; not yet at least. I love eating Nutella by the spoonful and I cry when I hear beautiful music. I watch the movie Spirit at least once a week, and I have a pitiful habit of telling half-truths. I mess up a lot. I take two steps forward and one step back. I'm an average 16 year old girl trying to balance High School drama and her own mistakes and still getting out in one piece.
I find strength in friends and family, and in the scriptures. I see hope in sunsets and stars. I feel destiny push me forward when ever I step foot in a pool. I see darkness more often than light, but I crave light more than darkness. I fight and hold grudges, I cry but don't let anyone see. Im unstable and crazy, but somehow a bustling enviornment makes me calm. I love driving with the windows down when its 44 degrees outside, and I love feeling the sun on my face.

Hi, my name is Sammi and I look forward to a brighter tomorrow.

Spirit.

Yesterday I was feeling kind of gloomy. What did I do? I put in my all time favorite movie.
SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON.
Oh freak yes. I love that movie. And I love Bryan Adams, who does all the music for it. So it's basically a win win. 
I advise you to go watch it immediately. Because I cry every time. But then I feel better because (spoiler alert!!!) Spirit wins in the end. But aren't all cartoons like that? There's a song in that movie for every single one of my moods. ready? write this down. You'll love them.


"Sound the Bugle"- Pity party song.
"Can't take me"- who do you think you are? Let me be myself.
"Get off of my back." - Swimming song. Enough said. Cracks me up every time.




Life has presented me with new challenges that I didnt expect lately. Yeah, it's hard, but guys, don't worry. Spirit is keeping me going. 
Fact: Life is hard. But so worth it.