I need to get some thoughts out of my heart.
Through 2011 until now life has been crazy. No problems to speak of, no major challenges, but incredibly crazily busy. I would be talking to someone that knew a piece of what I was involved with, and they would comment that they didn't know how I could do it all. In the back of my mind I would be listing off all the other things they didn't even know about.
Not saying I'm wonder woman or super mom. Probably just some variety of crazy.
But two big things have come to an end. On one hand it's nice to not have the responsibility and all that being "in charge" entails, but on another hand, there are so many wonderful opportunities to learn and stretch with each. I will especially miss all the people. I'm very happy sitting in my little corner of the world all by myself and my family, and really probably do that more than I should. But I love being around great people and learning from them, and both of those involved being around and learning from a lot of really amazingly great people.
Before actually coming to "the end" of each I felt like I was ready, that I had had my time and did what I needed to do. But both endings were a lot harder than I thought. Hard to close a chapter of your life, especially knowing that with one of these things I will never get to do it again.
I believe that this life is about becoming, so why these things at this time? What have I learned?
1. It's always my job to care. I don't need a special responsibility to do that.
2. It's far less about who you are when you walk into responsibility, and far more about who you are when you are done.
3. It's important to have a vision of what you'd like to do and communicate that well. If people aren't following it, it's usually because of how well (or rather, how poorly) you communicated that vision, not that they don't want to follow.
4. It's important to get to know people. What you see and what you've heard usually aren't the real deal.
5. No success can compensate for failure in the home.
6. Prayer makes a difference.
7. The atonement is real, and helps us be far more than we normally are.
Maybe someday I'll write about each of these so you can learn too.