I don't care if you song a different song just as long as you sing along.

I still can't believe I'm still alive after all of this. 24 and unable to do so much. I was reminiscing about walking in the dead of a snow storm with a bottle of wine a few miles to a friend's house. I didn't quite know how to get there and the snow was too deep to drive. I got lost and ended up cutting through people's backyards to get there. By the time I arrived the wine was almost frozen, it was that cold. I've never had a wine slushie since!

I miss climbing trees. I miss jumping on a horse's back just to see what he'll do, no bridal or anything. I miss jumping courses and learning dressage riding. I miss spending hours out in field service with the pioneers meeting different calls and coming home feeling that incomparable feeling that you just spent your time in the best way possible. I miss getting to know the friends out in service, as well. I miss playing open mike, nights, rocking out on my fender strat playing the songs I'm so proud of. I miss working so hard that I'm exhausted, sweaty and smelly at the end of the day (horse work is only for special people, haha). I miss bringing home a paycheck. I miss helping Dave out financially. I miss washing mud off my boots and oiling them. I miss feeling worth something, feeling useful and needed and reliable.

I don't feel as worthy as I used to. It's been a year since I have. That's why it's so amazing... it's amazing that, in the past, my severe depression has led me on a course of self destruction and yet, with Jehovah, my situation has not deteriorated me to the state of desiring suicide. THAT is mind blowing, to me.

And though I miss all of those things... it's not that heart wrenching/breaking missing, so don't feel bad for me. I hate it when people feel sorry for me. There are people much worse!! At least I'm not confined to a wheelchair! At least I still have a hope of improvement. The radiofrequency has a very good chance of working.

So, I don't feel depressed, even at my worst, or if I do, it's NOTHING compared to what I've been through, I garuantee that! I have learned to rely on Jehovah and I shall never go through that feeling again as long as I live, for that is one lesson I have learned as well as how to spell my name!

I only hope that my effort to get to the meetings (and it has been getting increasingly more painful to do so and I've been spending pretty much all of it in the back room) has greatly encouraged some, because sometimes I feel that's all I can give the congregation and it is very important to me to give something to the congregation, somekind of encouragement. They are my family, my life. I love them like my literal family and Dave feels the same.

That's another thing that kills me. I cannot wait for this weight to be taken off of Dave. I do feel like it has gotten better lately since we have been talking a bit more, but I do hate for him to worry about me. As I said, it bothers me for anyone to worry about me, most of all him.

But if I were to make any point in this log, I suppose it would be that I'm SO glad to have Jehovah and his people, my friends and family. Life would be nothing without them. Forget being in a wheelchair, forget being paralyzed...life could only truly be worse if I did not have Jehovah. Life would not be worth living. It wouldn't be enough.

So yeah. Here's a picture on my husband and I.

-T