It's time to get deep.

Just a warning-I'm going to get all deep and meaningful on you today. I'm awake at 4:30 in the morning which always means thoughtful and in depth posts that call for cringe and uncomfortable feelings. So hold on to your shorts! ;)

I've been thinking a lot about life lately and what it means to spend all this time here on Earth (if you check out here, I understand haha).

It really is such an incredible thing to try and grasp. We spend up to 120 years (if you're crazy healthy) on this planet living and making a life and family. We work so hard to make ourselves and other people happy. We build all of these connections and relationships to last as long as we do, until we don't last anymore.

It's really interesting when you think about it. What is it in us that feels like we need to be so close to each other and have these companionships and friendships throughout our lives? These connections are undoubtably the wood that builds us. Our whole lives can be made by who we decide to let influence us and guide us when we're teenagers and young adults. That fact alone is absolutely crazy to me. We are shaped by other people from birth. We obviously have the choice to allow them or disallow them to do so but we mostly allow them.

We're shaped by experiences and knowledge. Experience is the best thing we can gain to learn what path is best chosen in life and that really is scary to me considering all the experiences I've had in life that could have been pretty awful if luck hadn't been on my side. Experience is a powerful thing and the level of stupidity in those experiences can be frightening. I know I've had them and some things I did as a teenage leave me thanking Heavenly Father he decided to spare me from an awful life or even death.

I'm so grateful for the power of agency. Choice is such a gift when used correctly. It's also incredibly scary knowing that we're sent here with no one MAKING us choose one path or another. It's up to us to learn from our experiences, people, history, scripture, and the older an wiser to make our mark on this world. It can be such a scary feeling, especially when you don't have the comfort of love and support in your life.

My heart aches for the ones out there who have absolutely no direction or love leading them in a positive direction. It's a devastating thought to imagine my life without loving parents and positive influences to get me where I am today. There's no telling where in the world I would be. I'm very very grateful for this.

I was thinking about how blessed I am to have my family. We didn't start out in the best situation. Ive never really realized it completely until today, but Erik could have left me and ruined everything we know to be our life right now. I was 19, in college and relying on my parents when I found out I was pregnant. Erik could have easily checked out and left me there trying to find a way to fend for myself and Londyn if he hadn't loved me and wanted to be there for me. What a humbling feeling.

I'm becoming increasingly aware of those around me who have been in the same situation and have not come out in the same form or fashion. I respect these women and men to an indescribable level. I cannot imagine doing this on my own. I never want to know what it's like to not have my partner in crime (Erik) holding my hand through this journey of parenting. Heck, it's extremely hard and exhausting as it is. I wouldn't trade it and it is filled with so much happiness, but it's definitely not always rainbows and butterflies. Being a single parent has to be the single hardest job available to mankind, in my opinion.

The blessings I've received are so plentiful and humbling. There is an abundance and it fills me with such gratitude and happiness that I was given the life I have. I could have been born into a completely different life in a completely different country with completely different parents. Life could have been a struggle that no where compares to what I define as a struggle now. I'm so grateful for not knowing what it's like to worry about feeding or clothing my kids or not being able to warm our home on nights like this where is rainy and briskly cold outside.

I'm so grateful for living in this country and having the access to the medical care that we have here. There are many people in my life who would not be here without the exceptional care that is so available to us. There are people in my life that will continue to be here and people who will enter my life who will be my "life shaping relationships" that would be rendered non existent without medical care. It has saved my life and I'm sure it will again.

If you stuck with me, I'm impressed! Thanks for listening to my ramblings :) Have a great week and remember to hold onto and cherish those so close to you.