It's been a month, and I'm long overdue for a little vent... :)

Ok, so not so much a vent, as a catch-up session.

First of all, Yellowstone was AMAZING! No offense for those of you who couldn't come, but, it was the perfect number and group of people. We had a blast, and completely enjoyed our 36-ish hours there. I'll post the play-by-play on that one when I get all the pictures, which is hopefully soon... ::cough, cough - John::

Next, a note on motivation. In my last post I mentioned that my blue personality often motivates me to devote all, or at least most of my time to people or things that allow me to build relationships. True, sometimes I drop all responsibility to go play with friends, but, still, we know what motivates me. But this last weekend I have been contemplating what motivates me when the people motivation is gone.

So, "let me 'splain. No, there is too much, let me sum up." I guess I should start with my complete emotional breakdown on Friday night. I will honestly say that I haven't cried that much or that hard in a long time. I spent the entire day (9-5) Friday in meetings, which, while we got things accomplished, and overall I felt better about a lot of things. But for those of you that have been in meetings for that long, you know how draining that can be. Plus, I was faced with taking my brother to Idaho, which, was not awful but 9 hours alone in an unfamiliar place while he took a class didn't sound particularly appealing when I could have been at a football game with friends. There were plenty of other things that had me emotional in both positive and negative ways. Tuesday I had gotten to see a friend that I hadn't seen in months, and whom I missed more than I was willing to admit, which had me feeling really excited and happy. It didn't hurt that this friend picked up where we left off at the peak of our relationship (before things dwindled before he left), and seemed pretty darn excited to see me too. It was inexpressibly nice to have him back in my life. There was also the fact that I don't have a calling yet in my new ward - which feels very weird after having one calling or another for four years straight in my previous stake. To be honest, I'm having a really hard time getting to know people and liking my new ward. All of that coupled with less attention than desired from a particular gentleman I happen to like, it was all a little much on Friday afternoon, and I broke down.

Now, by no means am I vying for sympathy here. I believe such occasional break-downs are healthy, or at least can be if handled appropriately. There's another thing that kind of bothers me and makes it hard for me to enjoy my new ward. Now, I understand that I can't expect people to come to me, and introduce themselves and want to be my friend. And, going out of town can't exactly help either. I know I have a good bishop, and a good relief society president, I'm just having a hard time meeting new people. This isn't exactly made easier by the fact that my roommates due to circumstances or personal choice are pretty sporadic about attending church and ward activities. Don't get me wrong, it's AMAZING that we all get along so well and have bonded so well, but, it's hard to break into a ward alone. I just wish I had someone to go with, because contrary to popular belief, I am actually a shy person when it comes to getting to know others. I like to have at least one other person with me when I'm meeting new people.

I don't know... I'm just having a hard time with that. And now that I've reconnected after having a long discussion with a parent and realizing why I love my job and why I do what I do, I've completely lost my other train of thought. I guess that was basically it. I just realized yesterday that I don't really have that human motivation for going to church anymore because I don't feel like I have friends there as much anymore. That is forcing me to find other reasons, perhaps what have always been my real reasons for going in the first place. Perhaps that's a good thing.