As I was driving home from our Young Women's Christmas party last night, tears began streaming down my face. Those tears soon turned to sobs, and I let myself cry freely. My eyes turned Heavenward as I realized that my tears were not those of sadness, but of immense gratitude. I have experienced intense pain and anger this past year, but I have also experienced profound love. The Book of Mormon says there must be opposition in all things; that without pain there is no joy. I know this is true; sometimes it's not a matter of recognizing opposites but cause and effect - there must be pain in order for there to be joy. If I had to put a label on this past year, I would call it the Year of Relationships. Or maybe the Year of Human Connection. I feel like I have rediscovered a lost treasure - something that existed in abundance long ago but has been lost with the passage of time and the advent of technology in our ever-increasingly fast paced world. It is something that I didn't realize I was missing until I experienced it, and then it was so profound and so lovely that I can't believe it's real. It is simply the human relationship. I know that sounds weird but let me explain. This past year, my therapist and church family have shown me that my view of relationships is inaccurate. Because of my life experiences, I have a very hard time accepting favors because I feel like a burden, I'm fearful that those favors will be used against me, and I don't want to be a disappointment or a failure. But it turns out that none of this is true, as long as you're dealing with genuine people. Genuine, kind people will never expect something in return or use those favors to cause you shame and guilt. And they will never cast you aside because of your mistakes. This is the meaning of unconditional love, and I didn't truly understand what that meant until this past year. It turns out that when people are truly genuine - when they are kind, loving, altruistic, and have Christ in their lives - they will love you despite your flaws. They will love you because of your flaws. They will engage in deep, long, heart-felt, engaging, intense, emotional conversations with you. There will be prolonged eye-contact, and laughter, and tears, and they will not be distracted by their phones, or looking for a reason to move on. There will be tough questions and vulnerable answers, and there will be love - so much love. There will be love despite the pain, and sometimes the pain will make the love stronger. The pain is what many people turn away from, which is very unfortunate, because they are missing out on the amazing love that comes afterward. We live in a world of disconnection, depression and anxiety. We live in a world where we place our orders with screens instead of people, where we have our groceries delivered to our doors instead of going to the supermarket, where we get the majority of our news and relationship advice and therapy from influencers on social media. We teach ourselves what we need to know on YouTube rather than asking for help. We even take our college courses online. The cases of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide among people under 30 is the highest it's ever been in all of human history. Why? Because we've forgotten how to have relationships with people. Genuine relationships. Relationships that involve love and laughter and vulnerability and trust and dependability. I cried with gratitude last night because of the love and beautiful human connection I experienced at the Christmas party. I witnessed a room full of teenage girls sitting together - talking, laughing, hugging, expressing gratitude, singing - and not a one of them on their phones. I witnessed adults smiling and laughing and helping each other with children and dishes and carrying armloads of items to cars. I also cried because of the therapy session I had been to earlier that day with a close relative, where we had finally surmounted all the pain we'd suffered this past year. This was how it used to be! This is how we as the human species are supposed to be! We are supposed to be out in the world, interacting with each other, rejoicing with each other during the good times and working through the tough times. We are not supposed to be sequestered inside, spending the majority of our waking hours staring at screens. As much as I love my beautiful relationships here and this discovery of what healthy, genuine relationships look and feel like, I know it was preparatory work for moving to Kentucky. I am moving to Appalachia, where life moves a little slower, where there is more emphasis on human connection and less on keeping up with the world. It will be a culture shock, but I know it will be beautiful. My wish for the human race this next year is that we learn to reconnect, to rediscover what it means to be in healthy relationships with one another. It is the only way we're going to survive and thrive.

My new year's resolution was to set aside at least one afternoon for writing per week. I love submitting to short story and flash fiction competitions! ✍️ So far I've kept my resolution but we're only two weeks into the year! You can check out a selection of my work here: https://ko-fi.com/carrieonwriting and of course I've entered the Biopage contest! 😀 https://www.biopage.com/post/de-dahlification

Three days. That's all it had taken for my luxury life to come to an abrupt end. That's all it had taken for my parents to break up. For them to become divorced. For them to move into separate houses. For me to never be in the same house as both of them ever again. Three days, seventy-two hours, four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes. You would not think so much could happen in such a short amount of time. It all started when I heard the screaming. The shouts that echoed through the narrow hallways of our two story house. The shouting was quiet at first, more like two people trying to talk at once. I thought that my parents must just be having their weekly debate on who was making dinner or who was going to drop me off at practice. They always fought about silly things. I never thought once about their fighting back then. Their constant bickering was just part of our lifestyle. Why should an argument end any different this time? However, this time, the argument was prolonged for much longer than usual. About 10 minutes into the argument, I could begin to make out most of the words from my bedroom doorway. I was slowly trying to inch closer to the stairway without making any noise. I did not want them to know that I was eavesdropping, but I had a feeling they knew that I could hear them. “I had told you! What? Only like, a thousand times by now! I can not pay the taxes if you don't make enough money for me to pay them!” I could hear my mom snapping at my dad. “How am I supposed to make enough money to pay for the taxes and your endless shopping sprees? Don't you know that there are more people than just you in this household?” My dad snapped back. They had been fighting over taxes the whole time. But, once they finished their argument over taxes, even though neither one was happy, they moved on to other topics. Like me. Their house. Their marriage. Who will get the house? Who will make the money? When will the child, me, come to visit? None of the questions made sense to me. Unless, the one thing that I dreaded would happen was finally coming true. Divorce. Finally making it to the top of the stairway without making any noise, I sat down on the top step and thought about what I just found out. I did not even bother listing to the rest of their conversation. The last thing I heard was “I'll call the lawyer tomorrow,” and the sound of my dad slamming the front door. It's been three days since my dad left and within that time, they had gotten divorced and my dad had moved out. I've spent most of the time in my room, eating junk food and watching videos on my tablet. When I was not being lazy and sulking over what had happened, I was contemplating what I would say to my dad when I saw him next. Would I be snotty and tell him that I would never forgive him? Or, should I forgive him and try to keep in touch? I was so busy trying to decide what to say that when the time came for me to see him again on that third afternoon after the divorce, I still did not know what to say. I only knew one thing. He was my father and no matter what happens, he still will be. I should not hold a grudge against him even if it was his fault. I was brought into this world because of him. I still wanted him to be a part of my world, even if we no longer lived under the same roof.

The bare bones of writing comes down to expressing a thought, idea, or feeling. We use it to communicate with others, as a way to convey a message we find important or personal. The bare bones doesn't care about brilliance, complexity, mistakes, or your chosen medium (pen and paper, anyone?). It's significant in only having written your word or words of choice, and the rest—be it a masterpiece, or just a grocery list—is up to you. When I was a teenager, the act of writing was a way to release, and to entertain myself. I wrote stories with characters that accurately, if not dramatically, conveyed the emotions that I had a hard time expressing in my adolescence. The themes crossed paths with things I experienced, and things that I anticipated to experience. It was my world, glittering and bright, even through the dark themes and circumstances that were written. While I didn't know it at the time, it was an important self-reflection through elaborate plot lines and quirky characters. It didn't matter that it wasn't what I had deemed publish-worthy. All that mattered was that I conveyed my feelings, and sometimes shared them with others—and with that, catharsis. I stopped writing like that years ago. These days, writing has become something of a chore. The pressures I put upon myself to just write something good, or even better than good, made my joy burn out like a candle wick. I put writing on hold while my life unraveled into the milestone of young adulthood. Through it all, I'm certain that my life would have a clearer direction, and my soul a happier glow, had I written... anything. No matter what though, I couldn't bring myself to do it, even if it were simply “Today sucked.” The desire to create was burning in my veins, but my self doubt riddled me with a hate plague I couldn't shake. Taking a look back, I knew I yearned simply for life experience. I wanted to experience without reflection, even if that took me through a lot of impulsive choices that I regret now. It also took work to sit down, focus, and write. Now, with the desire to be heard, to be seen as articulate, and with something to offer, I still struggle. The fear of a page written with utter garbage is a greater fear than of an empty one. And I want to change that—even if the page is merely filled with one word, I'll know I've put forth an effort to say something. In today's world, where everyone puts out their best image, their best work, and the edited, filtered versions of themselves—I vow to allow myself to be raw, messy, mediocre, and riddled with mistakes. To speak what's on my mind, to dare to create, to do. It's now my time for honesty, even if it masquerades as a poem, a crime drama screenplay, an essay, or an account of my day. The bare bones are all that matter, and even if to no avail, it all ends up in a graveyard—then, at least for a moment, they lived.