In case anyone is wondering what this quote is in here for just know that it pretty much describes how I’m feeling currently. Yesterday I went in to Paul Mitchell hair school and had my roommate cut my hair. I was apprehensive about doing so but Kirstin has been saying that she needs people to come in and have her cut their hair so she can have the experience and get her hours in and all of that. I hadn’t had my hair cut since August and it was getting to be too long to really deal with. So, I agreed that I would come in. I definitely picked a bad day to go in since my hair had been getting on my nerves during the week because it was so darn long (my hair has been the longest it’s been in my entire life) and I really just wanted to get some of the length taken off. So, when I went in we started discussing length and she at first suggested below my shoulder blades. I told her to maybe go a little shorter (since it does take me about 8 months to go in and get my hair cut) and we agreed that we’d go about halfway between the bottom of my shoulder blades and my shoulders. Still really long, but not as long as it’s been. So, she started cutting… and cutting… and cutting. Then when she finished cutting it we started to go for the layers. I hadn’t yet realized how short it had gotten and so we cut the layers. When all was said and done all of my hair was above shoulder length (she says she had to keep evening it out so that it would be straight… apparently for like 2 inches!) and the short layer is about chin length. Now my hair is only just long enough to go in a ponytail. I know I shouldn’t be really upset about this, but I am. I HATE MY HAIR SHORT! I took soo long to finally get it to a length that I really liked and now it’s gone. I literally called up my mom last night and cried to her on the phone for half an hour. She keeps saying I should go to a professional salon and have them fix it… but the hair cut itself is really just fine. Kirstin did a really good job on the actual cutting… it’s just so short. Unfortunately, there’s not really anything I can do about it now. Just wait a few months while it grows back in. But maybe it’s good. Maybe like Jo, the character in Little Women (which, p.s., was one of my favorite books growing up), I needed to do it so that I could get my vanity in check. I don’t know. It’s not that big of a deal. In a couple of days I’m sure I’ll get used to it and be over it. In several months (ok, maybe a lot of months… I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve had my hair this short since I was 15- and I look at those pictures and cringe) it will grow back. It’s just hair. I just wish I could press rewind, go back 48 hours and decide to go to a professional salon and just get my hair cut right. But it’s too late now, no use living in regrets.

Speaking of regrets, I had an interesting conversation with my mom last night. She was saying that last night was one of very few breakdowns I have had in my life which have ended with me crying. Which was almost true. I hadn’t realized that me and my mom had never really discussed the emotional hell I went through a little over a year ago. I guess last night I told her for the first time how I spent nearly an entire semester crying myself to sleep every single night. Somehow I thought she already knew that, but I guess not. It sparked an interesting conversation. The events leading up to that semester came from a lot of choices that I had made. Some choices good, some bad, and I got into some situations that I simply wasn’t ready for. At the time, they were things that my mom didn’t approve of but that I felt very strongly about. We finally had to agree to disagree and just not discuss it. So finally a year and a half later it’s all far enough in the past that we could talk about it. My mom asked me if I were to go back if I would do things differently. It’s something I’ve considered a lot so I didn’t have to think long about my answer. It was “absolutely not.” Which perplexed my mom, as much as it does most people. See, I don’t believe having regrets. By that I mean like life long regrets, not like regrets of cutting your hair too short which will last a few days. Of course, I have to qualify that. If I were to go back, and knowing then what I know now, there’s no way I would do the same things over again. That would be nonsensical. But that’s just the thing, I didn’t know then what I know now. From that experience I think I learned more about myself, and relationships, and life then I could have ever learned any other way. Yeah, the experience was, as I said, an emotional hell. But I wouldn’t trade the things I learned for anything.

It’s like it says in the scriptures “where much is given much is required”. I think that works in reverse, where much is required of us, much is given to us. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without those experiences, and I treasure them. I know that sounds weird to treasure them, but it was a time where I grew a lot and changed and learned. Yeah, growing up hurts, but we don’t need to fear pain. It’s part of life. It’s part of making us who we need to be so that we can return back to our Father in Heaven. “…For if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet—” (D&C 29:39). I can’t imagine regretting something that I worked so hard for.

I think it’s part of the real beauty of the Atonement is that I don’t have to live my life with regrets. If I make mistakes, and I learn from them then I can repent. I don’t have to go through those experiences again because I learned the lesson so I don’t do the same thing again, but I am not eternally stuck out of the presence of Heavenly Father. I can still return to Him, if I continue on trying my very best. What an amazing blessing!

Sorry for those of you who don’t believe the same as I do, this was as much written for me as for anyone else (as is I suppose the majority of my blog), it’s just been something that has really had me thinking lately.

I have more that I want to write, and more space that I’m sure I will fill up in the next little while with some things that I have been kicking around in my head and really need to get out on paper (or my blog) so that I can sorta finish thinking through them. But for now, it’s 2am and I really need to get some sleep. Good night! 🙂