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.

my rules for living // facts i've discovered about life

∴   love yourself. unconditionally. speak kindly about yourself, be patient with yourself, believe in yourself. enjoy yourself. spend quality time with yourself. enjoy your quirks, idiosyncrasies  and uniqueness. value your health above wealth. treat yourself with the highest respect--physically, spiritually, socially, mentally, emotionally, all of the above. self-respect and self-love are the bottom line for every truly good decision anyone will ever make. they are the key to achieving world peace.

∴   do things that scare you. if something scares you, it's a good idea to try it out. do one small thing that scares you daily, something a little bigger weekly and monthly, and one big scary thing a year. daily, try a new food or greet someone you wouldn't have dared to before. weekly or monthly, attend yoga in the park or ask for a raise. annually, we're talking make that move you've dreamed of, go off the grid, apply to grad school, write a book, get out of that abusive relationship, buy a house, make that career change you haven't stopped thinking about since you visited disneyland three years ago.

because it's not the extra money from the raise that will shape who you are so much as the courage it took to ask for it, or what you learned about yourself in the process of facing that fear.

∴   be fearless. this is different from just doing something that scares you. being fearless isn't just going through the physical act of doing something scary, it's a mentality that has made it's way into every mundane or routine thing you do.

you unexpectedly see a co-worker outside of work while donning gym clothes, sporting no makeup and nappy hair and you have a choice. you can avoid the interaction and lose the experience altogether or you can face the fear of whatever whoever might think about you and put on a smile and engage with another human. we lie or hide who we are out of fear. living fearlessly means being confident and courageous no matter who or what might come of it.

∴   one of the most profoundly human things you can do is talk to someone instead of about them. even in neutral or non-gossip circumstances, talk to someone instead of about them.

∴   time enjoyed is never wasted. we are willing to go through hell for ten minutes of doing something we enjoy. we are willing to pay huge amounts of hard earned dollars to enjoy wearing a pair of shoes a few times or enjoy eating at a fancy dinner for an evening. but then when we find whatever it is we enjoy, we guilt trip ourselves out of the experience. if you can find something you enjoy, even if it's as simple as watching your favorite movie or reading a good book, enjoy it.

finding something you absolutely love can be rare. if not for you, then you're a lucky one because for most people, it's hard to find anything to go crazy for. if you've found something positive that you enjoy, enjoy it. guilt free.

∴   people are humans. every single person who has ever intimidated you, been your boss, been cooler than you, or more famous than you, made more money than you, or been more achieved or successful than you, or been any other thing that has made you think for a second that they are better than you, or even just meaningfully different from you, is a human.

they all poop, they all get hungry, and they were all a dumb kid once. they have been rude, or stupid, or awkward. people who you think could never understand you or your humor also watch the same tv shows you watch, follow the same blogs, even have friends in common with you that you have no idea about. the truth is that people are humans. no matter what other title they carry, they share one really important title with you: human.

∴   give yourself permission to feel your feelings--all of them. this is so stupidly obvious yet rarely happens most times. we don't let ourselves feel angry because bad or out of control people are angry. we don't let ourselves feel sadness because distraction is easier. we don't let ourselves feel happiness because we are so spoiled and already have too much. we don't let ourselves feel jealous because admitting we don't have control over someone else is pure anxiety.

instead we fabricate emotions that we pretend to feel when it's the 'appropriate' time to feel them. we tell people we are happy when really we are only half-fulfilled. we tell people we are disappointed when really we are frustrated. we tell people we are excited when really we are scared shitless.

in childhood, every one of us had someone tell us to stop crying when all we needed to do was cry. as adults, we desperately need someone to give us permission to feel our feelings. the truth is that the best person to grant that permission is ourselves. you're not angry because you're a terrible person, you're angry because you are.

∴   be okay with things. it's okay to be okay with the world. be okay with the fact that you aren't exactly where you want to be at this exact point in life. if you are doing your best, be okay with that.

∴   find what you love and let it kill you. probably the most surefire sign you've found it, is if you find yourself lying in bed, an hour after you turned off the lights, excitedly thinking about whatever it is giddy with butterflies. if at any point you experience this, throw your whole life into it.

if whatever 'it' is, isn't so obvious for you, keep searching. those little moments of clarity, or thrill, or vision, those moments add up. and if you peg them when you experience them, by writing them down or if you're good then by making a mental note, you can begin to discover whatever 'it' is.

if you know what it is, or you think you do, and you're worried about losing whatever it was you are working on now, ask yourself, 'was that project letting me sleep soundly at night?' if the answer is yes, it should probably go.

∴   embrace the linear timeline of human existence. one day, twelve years from today your kid may wake up and realize what you've been trying to teach him these last few months. you don't have to wait twelve years to feel good about your role as his parent. you can feel good about that today, because today you are doing the best damn job you can.

and if one day, twelve years from now, all the hard work you've put into a relationship, or work project, or church program suddenly repays itself, don't wait twelve years to let yourself feel fulfilled about that hard work. let yourself feel fulfilled right now. because it's today that you are committed and it's today that you are working hard.

∴   if you stop growing, you die. it doesn't matter if you reach the point of bill gates rich or miley cyrus famous, you will never reach a point where fame, wealth, success, or even positive accomplishments can keep you truly alive. you simply cannot stop reaching, learning, or growing. you are only as good as your next project.

note: the day after writing this list, i randomly watched swiss-miss's '11 rules i live by', which is surpisingly similar. any similarities are purely coincidence. but make me happy nonetheless.

my parents taught me the value of hard work, especially my dad. from a young age, my siblings and i were woken by my dad around five am to deliver newspapers. we had about seven neighborhood routes, which resulted in about three hours of work for roughly five people every single day. we didn't get weekends off, no, instead, weekends were harder than ever because the sunday and sometimes saturday paper was triple the size of the weekday paper; more wrapping, folding, bagging, and heavier deliveries. it didn't matter if it was snowing outside, he didn't let us fall behind schedule. essentially, my dad successfully ran a small newspaper business, working with children and teenagers as his employees and dishing out a hundred percent of the profits to the staff.

through the years my parent's financial stability has fluctuated, as most do. in past years, they had more money than they do now. at one point of greater wealth, they took the opportunity to reserve vacation time shares in a handful of cities around the world. this summer they came upon two resort suites in park city they had booked years ago. each suite slept six and they had the rooms booked for a whole week. they invited my seven siblings and spouses and i up for any portion of the week that we liked.

the bed was king-sized, the bathroom had enough room to sit forward facing on the toilet, the bathtub was free of creeping black lines, a bowl of pricey chocolates sat on the kitchen counter asking to be eaten, and the pool was crisply cool in the july heat. after spending the weekend in the five star, central air-conditioned, fridges fully stocked, multi-hot tub resort for the fourth of july weekend, jared and i headed back home to be ready for work the next day. interestingly, while we were there, i came down with a mild case of feeling useless, empty, and uncomfortable as we lounged on the giant memory-foam mattress eating unlimited amounts of smoked gouda and fresh snap peas. i was restless in the abundant undeserving circumstances, the plethora of unearned goods bred the beginning baby feelings of depression and anxiety.

to save money, we left the window AC units off in our top-story apartment while we were gone. when we walked in the door, the apartment was exactly three degrees hotter inside than it was outside, a whopping 108°F. we flipped the AC units on, blasted the freestanding fan, stripped down to our underwear, and poured a few glasses of ice water. for dinner, instead of multiple choices of high quality meats and cheeses to choose from our fridge, we had the options of canned chili or tuna fish. that night, we crawled into our full-sized bed with packs of frozen peas melting onto our foreheads and cooling our toes. in the dark, we laid talking about how we were going to pay our phone bill..and auto insurance..and the power bill. i noticed the knot in my stomache was still there, but it was a happy knot. it was a nervous, excited, fulfilled, healthy, important knot. it was my reward for the responsibility i was shouldering.

the comforts we experienced in park city were not inherently bad. but the fulfillment of hard work is robbed when the reward is just handed over; more than that, the reward turns sour, and breeds weakness. i have to thank my dad for teaching me the value of hard work and what it means to be strong.

as a sidenote, i just have to add that jared's take on the weekend has a much different spin. he's still talking about that king-sized bed, and really, i can't say i blame him.