we are OK, we are alright.

I have come to the conclusion that virtually nothing about life makes sense. Even simple things like why I get paid to walk strangers twenty feet to a table or why a hamburger is generally not considered an appropriate breakfast food or why I get along with certain people, but not others. It just doesn't make sense when you really think about it. I know what you're thinking: Jeez, Maddie, get with the picture! What's taken you so long? But, I guess it's not that I didn't before realize that life is full of things that can't be explained; I just have a different understanding of it now. I don't mind so much.

Where would the fun be if we didn't have to figure things out on our own sometimes? We would miss out on so many adventures and so many opportunities to grow if we lived like programmed robots, mechanically taking the "proper" steps to reach "proper" goals. Everything always in order, file it away neatly in slot A, tab B and it's done. Don't get me wrong, I like order. I like doing the proper thing in the proper situation. But a little chaos on the road to organization and control never hurt anybody.

I don't think that we were meant to understand everything. If we were, we'd have each been handed a blueprint for our life as soon as we were born. But we weren't. We have guides--parents, prophets, scriptures, and teachers--but no detailed step-by-step instruction booklet to Life. There's no wheel we can spin to tell us what our next move should be; life isn't an elaborate game of Twister--left foot red, right hand blue. We get to make our own choices, our own moves, and therefore, our own mistakes. But if we always look Up, we have the amazing opportunity to right our wrongs and learn for ourselves how to do it correctly. And as we do that, we gain tiny bits of knowledge that help life make more sense. And as we keep striving to learn and grow and understand, our buckets of knowledge will grow heavier and heavier with information and insights we've gleaned through hard work and dedication. How much sweeter that knowledge is when we have to labor and search for it, instead of having it handed to us without the blink of an eye.

We will understand what we're meant to understand. Sometimes we don't understand until long after we want to or think that we need to. And that's OK. I am the poster child for "Well, it's doesn't feel that way in the moment." But I speak from experience when I say that it will feel that way eventually.

I don't know exactly what triggered this post. Or if it is anything more than a jumbled mess of slightly coherent thoughts. But I do know that it felt so good to write something again, even if it didn't make sense. I've tried for the last few weeks to write something, but clearly never succeeded. Maybe this isn't a success to anybody else, but it is to me. And that's enough.