How Life Changes You

I was looking through pictures of myself over the past six years and I wondered how much had changed and what are the things have stayed the same.

August 2010

At the moment, I would describe myself as a full time mom who works part-time as a nurse. I try really hard to cook dinners each night, keep our house clean and take care of myself while chasing Saku around and recovering from my night shifts. I miss sleeping next to Troy while I'm at work and I love calling them in the morning as I'm getting in the car and I hear two excited boys telling me "good morning". Due to my pregnant state, I am gaining weight, but I am currently happy with the way I look and try to run as many days a week as I can. I am trying to care less about what other people think and surround myself with people who have positive attitude about life. I have also learned who are my real friends and who really know me. As the days go by and Saku grows and learns more and more and my relationship with Troy deepens, I am amazed how blessed I am. Life is not perfect. I worry about my siblings, I miss my mom, I am trying to figure out how I want to balance my career and being mom, sometimes I wonder how much people like me and whether I do good enough job with the things that I am trusted with.

October 2009

Year ago, I was a full time mom and still figuring out what kind of mom I wanted to be and could be. I worried about a lot of things that today wouldn't even cross my mind. I wondered if Saku would be one of those "difficult" kids and if people would judge me as a mother. I had started to run again and I was loving it. I cut my hair short and was few pounds off my pre-pregnancy weight. My best friend Heather had to move away due to Paul's training, which sucked because I had imagined doing tons of play dates with her and she always made me feel good about my parenting skills. It took few months for Troy and I to find a balance between our responsibilities, but after we found our rhythm, I felt like our lives were happier than they had been before.

August 2008

Troy and I took our last "no kids" trip to Canada as a graduation present to me. We were officially trying to get pregnant and I was anxious to see some results. It took three months to get pregnant, but to me, it felt like an eternity because we had waited three years to even start trying. For once in a my life, I was able to relax about money and we enjoyed good food, beautiful hotels and fun activities. I was ready to start the final year of nursing school and while I was excited to graduate and become an RN, being a mom was much more exciting to me. It was finally the right time for me to shift gears and focus on family.

September 2007

Second semester of nursing school introduced me to labor and delivery nursing and I fell in love. I was stressed out about school a lot and spent most of my time studying. I worked part time as a PCT at Northwest Medical Center. This was the first year without mom and it changed our family dynamic. I feel like we are still trying to find our places and I learned to adopt more of a"mom" role in the family rather than just an older sister role. This has been rewarding, but also very exhausting.

September 2006

We moved to Tucson and bought our first home. It seemed like a mansion compared to the places where we had lived before. Little by little, I tried to make it look like "our home." We finally made friends with other couples and some of these friends are still our dearest friends. I got accepted to nursing school and worked two jobs while I waited for the winter semester to start. Mom passed away in April and I learned to really rely on Troy and the Lord.

September 2005

Troy and I got married. It was the best "change" in my life, yet it wasn't that dramatic. We had already spent most of our waking hours together, so now we just got sleep next to each other at night. I continued to study like a mad woman and little by little, learned to cook and take care of our home. We didn't hang out with many other people because we both worked, went to school and we just couldn't find "couple friends" who matched us. I changed my major from public relations to pre-nursing after I realized that I didn't think I had the personality or the desire to do PR. I spent my first Christmas away from home and it was rough.

September 2004

I met Troy and everything changed. Starla and I had been attached to each other all through Freshman year and suddenly, I spent most of my time with Troy. We studied together, we ate together, we hang out and obviously went on dates. I loved this part of my life. I was in a happy relationship to a man that I was sure I would marry. I loved the classes I was taking. I was going to the gym multiple times a week, so I looked good and felt good. I was back to being strong in the gospel. While I was happy to get married to Troy, the idea of a family was not close to my mind. I wanted to get through college and spend time with Troy.