Story Time!

alright friends, gather round, it's story time.

this story is called "Journey to Joy: Hannah Runs"

I may be biased but it's a great one.

this past May an all-staff email was sent out to Franklin Smith Elementary, where I work. 

the email was asking for anyone who would like to volunteer to be a Running Buddy

 for Girls on the Run.

Girls on the Run is a program designed for 3rd-8th grade girls that teaches them just how valuable they are as human beings/girls, and how important it is to practice healthy habits in their every day lives.

I had asked around about this program was already semi-interested and after reading this email, something in my brain twitched and I knew I would regret not seizing this opportunity.

I volunteered.

I was set up to run with a 4th grade girl and my journey of running and inspiration began.

my duty as a Running Buddy was to run a 5K with my girl and I was terrified.

running is not my first choice for exercise - ever.

but this program focuses on more than just running and that is what I love most.

these girls are learning how to be okay with themselves and how to create stable and lasting relationships. I would have LOVED this sort of thing when I was their age! (omg, I'm old.)

we did the 5K and it was awesome. so many girls cheering each other on and being supported by their school's staff and family members. it was exciting and loud and FUN.

a week before we ran, my pastor at church randomly came up to me and said,

"you look like a runner!" 

I laughed in his face.

he then introduced me to a guy about to do a talk on World Vision and the running team our church was going to put together. 

they showed this incredible video of people in Africa receiving clean water for the first time because a person in American ran 13 or 26 miles. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUoLG8uYgrMtbiZdJTKHf9xw&v=6dimArp2TxI

how great is that. talk about a win/win situation. 

soooo after trying to ignore Jesus tapping on my heart and then giving up with that,

I signed up for the half-marathon.

that's 13.1 miles.

insane, but God's plans for us were never meant to be boring friends. 

He plans a life for us that is abounding in adventure and joy. 

I've been training since mid-June and tonight I ran the most I've ever ran - 6 miles.

my dad has been running with me and it has been so good.

he knows me well and knows how to push me and has been such a great piece in my journey!

I still need to raise money. the goal is $1,310 and I've got $100.

fundraising is scary but doable and I'm praying daily that I find the courage to ask my loved ones to contribute - it's going straight to someone in need!

THIS is my fundraising page.

if you would like to donate I will love you forever and you are helping change lives!

(if you decide not to - I still love you.)

race day is October 17th - the day before my 24th birthday. 

I can't wait to say goodbye to 23 - a year of crazy growth and experience by doing something I never thought I could do and by helping people across the world.

also this fall I am an assistant coach for Girls on the Run.
I get to spend 2 days a week with these girls, learning and growing right beside them.

it is going to be a fantastic adventure. 

please keep me in your thoughts and prayers these next 2 months!

training continues up until the day of the race and you can donate anytime before then. 

as always, thank you for reading my words.

it's so fun to share with you and I'm excited to do so more often.

xoxo,

H

Once Upon a Time...

as our beloved friend Sebastian the crab from The Little Mermaid said oh so eloquently, 

"the human world...it's a mess."

a'int that the truth. 

our world..our nation..even our state is a wreck.

I was originally planning on writing about Robin Williams' death. I was going to selfishly remind you about my own journey through the dark tunnel that is depression. I was going to remind you of the things people who suffer from depression HATE to hear. I was going to give you the perfect and simple tools on how to be a good friend to someone who is Sad. (capital S because I hate overusing the word "depressed.") But I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to keep shoving words about this awful thing down your throat like so many people on social media networks have done (myself included..) 

Instead? I'm going to tell you a funny story. you may not actually laugh out loud..but if you crack a tiny smirk? that's better than reading an article and walking away feeling like someone punched you in the stomach/soul. (that's how I've felt for the past few days.)

Okay so growing up my best friend Jessica and I did pretty much everything together. one summer we went on a trip to the great state of Iowa to see and spend time with her grandparents that live there. there are many parts of this trip that I will never forget - an INSANE amount of flower gardens, sleeping (kinda) in the back seat of their truck with my legs intertwined with Jessica's, giggling at night listening to grandparent snores that LITERALLY sounded like a chain saw, etc. 

the one event that I will NEVER forget happened the day her grandparents dropped us off at a small water park for the afternoon. we were so excited. FREEDOM! we made the rules, we decided what to do, and we got to flirt* with cute boys.

*stare awkwardly at boys until they caught us staring then giggling and looking away*

*also kind of follow them around at a safe distance but act like we weren't*

we felt so old, independent, and ALIVE.

the park had a wave pool - so fun! so we hung out in the wave pool when we weren't going down slides or following cute boys. if you paid extra, you got a wristband and you could use an inner tube in the wave pool. we did not have wristbands, but because we were on our own, making our own rules, we decided to REBEL and surreptitiously float on a tube with our wrists in the water so the lifeguards couldn't see that we in fact, did not have permission to use the tubes. 

living LIFE on the EDGE, people. 

as brilliant as our wrist-in-water plan was, it did not work. we got caught and yelled at which I absolutely hated. so we were now Those Girls. the Fugitives. 

we decided to stay in the pool and just swim around. at one point I decided to start being a mermaid - duh - and began diving in and out of the water picturing my wildly beautiful fin behind me. 

Ariel would have been SO jealous of my sweet mermaid moves. 

the next 2 minutes (probably not even that long) are going to be burned into my memory for the rest of life. 

I was under the water. swimmin' along, feeling the simulated waves push and pull me through the water. I had my eyes closed - I hated when they would get red from the chlorine - and I was just the happiest little mermaid. the need for air came upon me so I started to swim toward the surface. (as I'm sitting here typing these words I am literally giggling from the absurdity of what happened next.) I can tell I'm almost to the surface when I feel myself having to push against something. in my head I'm thinking, "oh I must be right in the middle of a fake wave and that's making it more difficult. I should just keep pushing because man, I need to breathe." so I go with my gut and keep. on. pushing.

when I get to the top of the water, open my eyes, and look around I am super confused. right in front of me are a pair of swim trunks/legs that are attached to the torso of a boy my age. behind his torso I see the yellow colored inner tube that Jess and I tried to float on earlier. then I see that the torso is connected to a head of one of the cute boys were flirted(ish) with earlier. then I see the look on his face that read, "what are you doing?" then I hear his words, 

"ummm.....I was here first."

I was in his inner tube. my head had popped up from the water INSIDE HIS INNER TUBE. he had just been laying in his tube, enjoying the push and pull of the fake waves, when suddenly this girl's head POPS UP FROM THE WATER INSIDE HIS TUBE. 

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word "mortify" is defined as "subject to severe and vexing embarrassment." there could also be another definition added - 

"like the time Hannah Morgan's head popped up in cute boy's inner tube"

I don't really remember what I said to him. I probably stuttered an apology. I then quickly went back under water and desperately searched for Jessica and my dignity. 

I found Jessica.

///

I tell you this story because I still crack up just thinking about it. 

I tell you this because it truly is my most embarrassing moment, and sometimes it's good to be vulnerable and be open about the times you wanted to crawl into a hole and live there the rest of your life out of sheer humiliation. 

I also tell you this to hopefully lighten your day/afternoon/evening.

 I hope that you laughed or least smiled. 

I love making people laugh. I think besides showing people the love of Jesus, teaching, and being the best mom to Monster, making people laugh is one of the most important life goals I have. 

I love you. Please go have a fantastic day. if the headlines, articles, etc. get too heavy for you - take a break. put your phone down. log off Facebook. go outside. take a deep breath. think of 3 things you are thankful for, and then move forward. I'm definitely going to try it! 

xoxo,

H

A Day of Rest and Reflection [and chicken nuggets]

Hello, you.

Today has been a pretty okay Wednesday. After a therapy session [I'll explain, don't worry] this morning, an hour in Barnes&Noble, and one 10 piece chicken McNugget later I am sitting on the couch listening to my Bon Iver Pandora station. I'm pretty content.

Now about that "therapy" thing I mentioned .5 seconds ago...

On February 5, 2013 I officially decided to leave my beloved home at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO to come home home to live with my parents in Lee's Summit, MO. This decision was one of the hardest and yet easiest decisions I have ever had to make. I had gotten to a point mentally and emotionally that I knew it was what I needed most, but it was also so incredibly hard because I was leaving behind a group of people that have found a place in my heart.

[I'm about to get real with you for a couple of minutes. Take a deep breath and keep reading. Or not, that's totes up to you.]

Near the end of October 2012, about a week after I turned 21, I took a step toward Getting Help by going in to the school's health clinic and being prescribed medication to help with my depression. I was seeing a therapist at the time, and she recommended trying something generic to get me to a more stable place.

Let me help you understand my depression. I've heard many times that people who suffer with depression are just "lazy and want to sleep all the time." or they "just can't deal with life so they decide to be sad over little things." Um, let me just tell you right here and now that those statements and the others like it are completely and fully false. They are lies. They are nothing even close to ways of describing those who suffer. My therapist in Springfield put it in a way to which I can really relate.

"Imagine if life is like telling someone who is standing on a dock to get up everyday and their only task is to swim from one dock to another dock across the lake. Most people can do this. They make everyday tasks like getting up, going to class/work/the store, etc. look like it's a piece of cake...they just swim to the other dock. Now, a person dealing with depression has this same task, but they also have on jeans, hiking boots, a big coat, and life jacket on. Can you imagine swimming with all of those layers? It makes the task of swimming to the other side [going to class/work/the store] look and seem terrifying and awful." 

Welcome to my world. 

There would be days during September - December of 2012 that I never left my bed. I would skip class, skip social outings, etc. I wasn't sleeping at night [another "symptom" of depression] so when I finally fell asleep at 6 am, I was dead asleep until at least 1:00 in the afternoon. If I did decide to get up after that, I had to take a nap probably 3 hours later. I was exhausted from swimming with all my layers on. This was the darkest time in my life/depression. The endless feeling of guilt for not getting up and facing the world kept me in bed longer. I had to make myself get up and just tried not to dread the next couple of hours, looking forward to crawling back into bed. This is what I would label a Bad Day. They were not always like this.

On Good Days I could get up, make my bed, and function like normal and be totally okay. I would come out of my sad little shell for a 12 hour period and suddenly have a new outlook on life and be excited about it. Sometimes I had several of these days in a row. That was always really nice. It made life so much easier when I didn't dread leaving my blankets behind. 

I began to use alcohol and other substances to escape my Bad Days. When I got drunk or high I didn't have to focus on how crappy I felt. I didn't have to face that I had some real issues going on. This only ended badly for me. It ended in waking up the next morning hungover or full of guilt for giving up control of what I was doing. This was not the life I wanted to be living. I know for certain it was not the life I was and am intended for. The Lord [oh yeah, I really love Jesus...I'll write about that soon.] has bigger plans for me and I was letting my decisions cloud that fact from my mind. 

I felt trapped, alone, and desperate for a way out. After some other not-so-pleasant experiences that I'd rather not share to the entire interweb happened, I made the decision to end my life. [Obviously this did not happen. Thank Jesus.] I could honestly find no other option that would provide me with rest and happiness. I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to not worry about anything. To not dread anything any longer. To get rid of the guilt, shame, and emptiness that had made its home in my mind/body/spirit. 

*If you have ever had thoughts like this please please PLEASE tell someone about it. I don't care if it was a one night thing or something...someone needs to know. You need to let yourself be vulnerable for a short time and let someone in. Sharing is a step toward LIVING. You are loved. Never forget that. Find someone who will listen. Who will hold your hand as you cry. Who will hug you. That person will help in 1,000 more ways than you know. * 

I was talked out of this action by a friend and Jesus. I called home, told them to come get me and they did so. I dropped out of school, packed my room/life into a Uhaul, tearfully said goodbye to my loves, and left Springfield. 

It's been 2 weeks. I am not fixed, but I am on my way there. I am being taken care of, looked after, and hugged every day. I did not intend for this to bum your day. I do not, let me repeat this, do NOT want you to feel sorry for me. I DO want your thoughts and prayers, though. I want you to take a close look at your friends and check in with them regularly about how they are really feeling/doing. I did this to answer some questions that people may have. I also did this for me. Writing has proved to be a really great tool to get my thoughts of out my mind. Sometimes when they stay up there too long, they get all dark and twisty and no one needs that. Also! If you do have questions for me, ask. Don't feel weird about it and it won't be weird. I'm good at talking. ;)

Okay. I'm done. It's out there. From now on I plan to be witty and hilarious about my every day life. Get excited. Just know that if you read this, you are loved. and worthy of that love. 

Love,

H