Where you gonna go with a heart that gone?

This week I experienced 48 hours of WIN! Perfect days are rare, I need to chronicle this glory before it fades.

*I thought the drive down here would get tedious (especially because I was alone) but it was actually such a lovely, introspective time for me to take a dive through my thoughts. There have been times in my life when I've felt steeped in regret, aching so much for my mistakes that I felt paralyzed. Right now I feel like running everywhere, there's a delicious freedom swirling through my life that makes me feel like all my dreams are on their way. I don't hate myself for being so impossibly old, for the gradual descent into the life I never meant. I did mean it. I do.

*I made it to Phoenix on time to attend a panel my professor was having in another class of hers--on human trafficking and survivors of prostitution. It was heartbreaking and fascinating--I learned so much. One of the speakers was a vice officer whose perspective has changed from seeing prostitutes as criminals--now he understands that they are victims. One of the women who is a survivor explained that after awhile the drugs don't work anymore, you can't get high enough to help you forget or feel good, and that the "little box" you have in your head where you store all the horrible things that happen to you starts to overflow. She had sold or lost everything. All the hideous things that you can imagine happened to a human being happened to her over and over again...and when the only way out was up she was not strong enough to take charge of her own healing process--she had to be carried. Now she works with the DIGNITY House that helps women involved in prostitution and carries other women through. She said that now she is addicted to service. When I left that night I couldn't stop thinking about them...I see the world so differently and there is so much ugliness out there that has never touched me. It's so important to remember that so many people walk through hell every day...and that even people who have been so badly burned can change. It was horrible and hopeful at the same time.

*It's such an unusual blessing to feel at home with someone else's family! My aunt and uncle and cousins have been so amazingly good to me. From the moment I got here they were like ants of kindness swarming all over me, chattering, carrying in my stuff, showing me around. I love having scripture study with them every night (they have an unbroken record of study every night for 10 years!), exploring the pond with my little cousin Jared and talking to Mikey, Matt-Matt and Grant. My aunt Carol loves to tell stories just like I do and my uncle Lee is loving and strong like all the Pace men. I'm so lucky to be here and they tell me all the time how happy they are to have me. It's a good situation.

*I have a Batman blanket. I think that was a goal I had at one time and I have suddenly achieved it.

*In my room I have a skinny mirror like the one in the Fairbanks apartment on my mission = great for the self esteem :)

*Coming out of the back apartment in the morning with the pool and the sunshine makes me feel like Ryan Atwood on the O.C :)

*My soul loves all the sun! There is a different brightness here than in Utah.

*I'm usually easily lost anywhere I go, but I've had an unusual ability to go directly wherever I need to go...even by accident! Yesterday I was driving to school from Mesa to Phoenix and I had decided just to follow the mapquest directions backwards...I thought I needed to get on the East 10 but at the last minute I wrenched the car out of the exit lane for no reason. It was completely unconscious, then I thought: why did I do that? Now I have to find another exit and I'll be late for school! Then, to my shock and delight I saw that the next exit was for the very street I needed to go straight to the downtown Phoenix campus. I'd had no idea! I think Jesus took the wheel so I could make it to class on time. CHAS GRACIAS!

*When I got to class my professor handed back a log I'd written the week before and told me that I was an excellent writer and that I should consider doing research. !!!! :) :) Then she lowered her voice and said, "I haven't told anyone else that this semester." I'd been anxious about my first paper at ASU and hadn't thought it was my strongest, but that's always so nice to hear. It gave me animo.

*I can't explain what a flood of joy it is to be back in school. It's like my mind is jumping back into activity after months of laziness, this glorious stretch! I love learning about social work and don't even mind the 8-hour classes (much). The class is challenging and my professor is engaging. I've started thinking that if I never have a family I'd like to get a PH.D in a few years.

*I love having friends from my class now to go to lunch and walk out with. The first day I thought I would feel so isolated and lonely, but there is warmth and camaraderie. I just feel good here. I made friends with the people who work at the Subway near the house of my tios and talked to them for a long time. They told me to come back and see them often.

*I'm so glad to live near the fabulous Emily Brems again and spend time with her and Rob! 6 years later it's still a party!

*Exactly one month after I left my job at NuSkin I was offered a part time position at My Sister's Place. It's not a ton of hours unfortunately, but I'll love working at a DV shelter again and they are offering me $14.80 an hour because I speak Spanish!!! Que milagro! It's in Chandler, 15 minutes from where my tios live and depending on how it goes I could potentially keep the job when school starts full time in the fall.

*Oh and also! Apart from all the good school stuff I get to read, I started East of Eden, I'm in the middle of En El Tiempo de Las Mariposas, and my estimado grandfather sent me a book by the wonderful Barbara Kingsolver called Bean Trees about a (barren?) girl who goes to Arizona. How terribly blessed I am!