on the fragility of life & how this is my favorite photo.

a man fell out of the window one story above us today. it was either a freak accident or a very, very poor lapse in judgment, or a little bit of both. at this point, i still don't quite know.

today ayley tweeted about how movies that make you feel fragile are the best kind of movies. i share her sentiment, they help to propel me in the direction of more conscious living. after today, however, i won't need to watch another one of those movies for quite some time.

where do i begin? last night we left our friend's house earlier than we would have liked because jared was feeling like his inner organs were failing (in more or less words than that). by this morning it sounded like he either had the flu or some form of food poisoning (and all the christmas junk i'm sure didn't help!). while getting ready for church, ingrid michaelson's "breakable" came on, which always make me think about the fragility of life to the point where i get the heebie jeebies and i have to think about something else.

i hate to leave a sick person home alone, but i went to sacrament meeting because he was supposed to say the opening prayer, so i went in his place. our chapel is just across the street from our apartment building, so it was a thirty second walk home after the meeting. as i was walking up the stairs watching each step to avoid an icy slip, i was startled by jared's voice.

"kelli!"

i looked up to see him at the top of the stairs barefoot, still in his sweats, his face pale and his eyes so wide i thought he may have just seen a ghost.

"did you get my text? i'm freaking out."

i darted up the stairs and yanked out my phone. the text read: something crazy just happened. once we were inside our apartment jared launched into the story.

"a guy fell out of the window right above our apartment. i was just sitting here and i heard a huge crash. over in that corner."

he was waving his arm in the direction of the window. i noticed the tv was still paused. everything was fresh. something crazy really had just happened. just happened. jared's eyes staring into the distance as he spoke expressed almost more than his words.

"i ran to the window and the guy was lying on the concrete screaming for help. my phone was dead and i couldn't get it to charge. i panicked but ran to get my shoes. by the time i found my shoes people in the courtyard had already gotten to him. the paramedics arrived within five minutes and took him to the hospital. they literally just left. you didn't hear the sirens?"

i didn't hear anything. but sirens are going so often in our area i really just tune them out. we have a handful of friends and acquaintances who live in this building and immediately my mind was racing. we called a few people and discovered that it wasn't anyone we knew.

we paced and hyperventilated and hugged and took turns passing back and forth disturbed and concerned looks but no words. this went on for probably an hour. we went outside to assess the situation and realized he had fallen out of the hallway window. it was freaking us out so we went up and shut the window. he had taken off his jacket just before it happened and it was still sitting there on the staircase, like it had a conscience, the way shoes and clothes look when they were literally just peeled off and left there pending, waiting to be put right back on, waiting for someone to put them away, give them a home, tell them what to do.

so we shut the window, checked the jacket for an ID or anything, but there was nothing, and decided to just leave it there. we went back into our apartment and decided it was time to pray. it helped. we cleaned our apartment and lit some candles and turned on our soft lamps and cooked dinner and tried to make life feel like normal again. we turned on a sitcom and just tried to distract ourselves from the fact that a few hours ago a guy who lives in our building almost died because he fell out of the window ten feet above our heads.

we don't have cable at our apartment, just netflix, so we didn't have any way of catching the news. my brother called around 9pm because he saw our apartment on tv. he let us know from what he saw that the guy reported to the paramedics he was locked out of his apartment and was trying to break in by climbing through the window. i hung up, turned to jared and said, "don't you ever make a physical risk and put yourself in harm's way to save money on a locksmith. never. never ever." he agreed. we had this exact conversation probably five more times during the next couple hours before bed.

jared padded off to bed about an hour ago and i stayed up writing this. as i'm sitting here typing, i can see the last few flickers of the candle on our coffee table are all that remain. a few hours ago, there was a tall candlestick, and now, a quarter of an inch. this morning, that guy didn't have thousands of dollars of medical bills, or who knows what other health complications, and at the very most, he had his life. i've been praying all day that guy didn't lose his life over a silly misstep.

today, i have my healthy, loving, perfect husband. today, i have a healthy, happy body. today, i have a brain that works and a heart that loves. today, i have a good job and a beautiful, bright future. today, i have everything. i have everything a person could ever need. i have it all. tomorrow, any one of those could be gone. any one of those could be taken from me and it would be entirely out of my hands. i never know what might be there one day and gone the next.

life is fragile. it is soo fragile. our human bodies are breakable. we are made of squishy flesh that rips and tears and snappy bones that break and protrude. our relationships, even more fragile than our bodies. our connections to heaven, likely even more so. it is indispensable that each of us treasure, cherish, deeply value each moment we have, and each person we have the pleasure of knowing and loving.

because tomorrow it could all be gone.

UPDATE 1/1/14: he is alive and isn't paralyzed. he is our friend's roommate and he was trying to break into his apartment by climbing through the window and jumping to the balcony. he shattered many bones in his body and will take a few months to recover, but should make a full recovery.

there is only about 1% of the pink left in my hair and i'm totally sad about it. i wish it was easier to have colorful hair whenever i want. i wish it was easier to travel whenever i want. i wish it was easier to go to college and not be ridiculously poor. i wish making a living was easier. i wish fulfilling careers were easier to obtain. i wish balancing personal and work life was easier. i wish fulfilling friendships were easier to come by.

i'm feeling extremely 99% this week as reality is hitting and we are heading back to salt lake to crappy jobs and utah's upcoming winter. we have an exact number of dollars to get an apartment and back to work to start earning money again. it's not that i'm depressed or negative or ungrateful. i'm just aware and i'm just facing reality. it's okay to do that because anything else is denial and denial makes you feel empty. even if some of the spaces are filled with a few dark spots, at least it's not empty. i don't usually do empty, and for that i am grateful. what would a sunny day look like if there were no shade? i wouldn't like it.

you could try to give me a pep talk about how with the bad comes the good and how there is no fulfillment without challenges and that through opposition comes opportunity, but i'll save you the breath, because i know all that. i am that choir. i wrote that pep talk. i am that pep talk. and i do appreciate that pep talk. but sometimes, just let those low feelings exist for a little bit. it's wholeness i'm going for, and to be a complete person i need to not be robbed of the low feelings. just let me have the low feelings. let me be a complete person. let me wallow in sadness about leaving a city that i fell in love with and heading back to a state i could do without for a while. life's not over. it's not. but there are real challenges ahead and i'm bracing myself, which i would count myself wise for.

i'll be back to the dreaming and loving and hoping and infatuating and all that delicious, whip cream, yummy stuff soon enough.

i have no idea how other people keep their blogs so la vie en rose. for what it's worth, you can always count on me to display the good and the bad. i don't know how else to do it.

our apartment is currently pure pandemonium. we move out a week from today and between work and school and jared's two jobs, we've had little time to pack, let alone with any measure of neatness. so we've been pulling stuff out of closets and shelves and while we have made some progress it mostly feels like chaos.

i was charged as keeper of the storage unit. it was my job to use the three free hours i had to find us a storage unit since jared hasn't had three free daylight hours in weeks it seems. what do you pick, a 10x10 fifteen miles away for seventy bucks or a 5x10 two miles away for the same price? the place with 24 hour access or the cheaper place with only business hour access? who knew getting a storage unit could be so difficult?

it's silly how i can have a zen feeling about a storage unit. i drove out to west valley a few days ago to look at this place that i knew wasn't going to work out and before i even looked at it i discovered they only did 9am-6pm access (?), turned around, got in my car, and drove back to downtown. and i just sort of stumbled my way to the exact storage unit we need without missing a beat. and for some reason it all felt extremely meant to be, acutely and exceedingly cosmic.

on the way back from west valley, the weather did this thing where it was kind of perfectly overcast with just the right amount of sun seeping through and just the right amount of wind and the just the right amount of humidity and the air was this perfect 75°F and the 59th street bridge song was playing in the car (paul simon is the musical genius of the twentieth century. and art his steady companion). and even though i have a strict don't-spend-time-in-west-valley policy, it was the third day in a row that i found myself driving through west valley.

in the midst of driving past strip malls and construction zones, 'now hiring!' billboards and those apartment complexes with the colorful flags out front, i had a zen moment. i sort of knew i needed to drive back to downtown and get our meant to be storage unit. i had this thing where i felt totally okay with where i was in life, even if that meant that i found myself driving through west valley at noon on a friday looking for a storage unit.

and it wasn't exactly because i was totally okay with where i was, it was more so that i was okay with where i am going. tonight while watching how i met your mother, ted summed it up kind of perfectly:


"Kids, I've been telling you the story of how I met your mother, and while there's many things to learn from this story, this may be the biggest. The great moments of your life won't necessarily be the things you do, they'll also be the things that happen to you.

Now, I'm not saying you can't take action to affect the outcome of your life, you have to take action, and you will. But never forget that on any day, you can step out the front door and your whole life can change forever.

You see, the universe has a plan, kids, and that plan is always in motion. A butterfly flaps its wings, and it starts to rain. It's a scary thought but it's also kind of wonderful. All these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there. The right place at the right time."

i turned 25 last weekend. twenty five! how did this happen? is what i've been wondering to myself this week. i've also been wondering about my life's progress and the things i've accomplished during my time on earth. i've been wondering about what is worthwhile and what is not. what is considered a meaningful use of time and what is not? to some, my life is only average. to others, i've accomplished many wonderful things. but i think where it counts is how i feel about my life, and just as important, how God feels about my life.

that i have consistently tried my best to do what He asks of me, i feel that God is proud of my life. that i have spent my life reaching out to Him to open the doorways of communication, i am proud of my life. additionally, i am proud that i graduated high school. i am proud of the friendships i've made and kept through the years. i'm proud of my commitment to college, as much of a thorn in my side that it's been. i'm proud that i spent a block of time dedicated night and day to sharing special truths with others. i'm proud of my marriage. i'm proud that i was prepared to meet jared when i did. i'm proud of the love and commitment we share and the future we will enjoy together. i'm proud of the people we are becoming. i'm proud of my heart's pursuits: beauty, truth, and love. i'm proud of my life, because i have lived the best life i could.

the photos are from my birthday. jared surprised me with tracy aviary annual passes, then we had brunch with my mom and julie, visited hogle zoo, saw ayley for a split second and received a birthday gift from her (the packaging alone was enough to make a girl swoon), visited the chocolate conspiracy where i enjoyed a delicious marshmallow and officially tried the best hot chocolate my tongue has ever tasted, and ended the night with a delicious dinner at caffe molise. spending the day with jared was enough already, everything else was cherries on top. it was one fantastic birthday.

good friends + good food, what more is there to life? lindsey brought yogurt and fresh fruit, katrina brought spinache quiche muffins, and i made homemade liege waffles (using this recipe!). it was some of the best food i've eaten in quite some time.

when i let my life and my mind run amuck, will you all remind me to slow down and carve out a couple hours for a sunny, windows-open-and-seventy-degrees-out brunch with friends? do that for me, please.