manifesto: life is {not} easy.

i was the kid that grew up doing what my parents told me to. i threw wild {WILD!} tantrums when i didn't get what i wanted {but... in my defense, i was a tortured sister in a sandwich of brothers} i went to church every week. listened to the teacher in sunday school. i grew up watching the terminator series, among other r-rated movies... but we read from the scriptures as a family - followed by sunday evening sumo wrestling on cable.

my life was good. {it still is good.} my parents made home a happy place. we lived what we were taught... and i thought that was how life went for all mormon families.

i think i thought that way until... until i met jen. then - i learned that not everyone's lives are as "charmed" as mine. sometimes people do things, despite being "raised better". i learned that hard things happen to people - whether it be self-inflicted or as a victim. i learned that sometimes, people who grew up learning the same lessons as i did and were afforded the same luxuries and opportunities as i was... sometimes did drugs, went to jail, and lived for years on the ever-so-limiting thing called probation.

but, whoa baby... most of all, i learned that the spirit is waaay more powerful than the body. this mortal bod of ours has NOTHIN' on our divine spirit. drugs? psshh... a real testimony can kick an addiction's trash anyday.

my sheltered outlook on how life worked didn't teach me that pretty people went to jail. but jen did. it didn't teach me how to make homemade tattoos, hairspray, or birthday cake. but jen did. and it, FOR SURE, didn't teach me how repentance or the gift of the atonement worked to their full extent. patience, n' all. but jen did.

aside from being an excellent shopping companion, ri-diculously funny cable watching friend, and partner in diet coke crime, jen entire life is an object lesson. now, after 100 hours of community service, collecting 213 boxes of tampons, 15 false alarms, and trudging, against all odds, along the road less traveled... my dear friend jen is...

OFF PROBATION!

now, that calls for celebratory chicken nuggets and diet coke.