whos insane? oh me? right right i know your right

ya the past two months has been crazyness.. the first month out here was great because I got to see my friends alot and they were fun but my best friend was so preoccupied with her fiance leaving for afganistan i was alittle attention hungry and felt like I was just in the background but I was at least not a crazy person at that point. Then right when he left I started being crazy. literally not myself. I also wasnt too concerned with attending church because the weekends were the time I could spend with my friends. which is terrible because that was seriously one of the only things i felt before i came that i needed to not compromise my priorities well i didnt listen to that and i think that is partly why i started letting myself get crazy. I also started to have some pretty strong passionate feelings for my friend who I was in love with a few years back in NY. and that always causes problems because he is not interested like that back at all. He loves me as his friend but we really would not make one another happy at all. he also pretty much only knows crazy mckenna rather than the fun loving, easy going, confident mckenna that i can be. but that caused some problems and i just went down into this spiraling pit of depression. I felt guilty for puting church on the back burner and I was mad at myself because I thought i had made all these efforts to be a 'differen't person the kind that doesnt flip out over stupid things and is confident and here i was being worse than ever. and I felt guilty because i didnt want to go to church and so I wasnt reading scriptures or really praying hardly ever and i was letting so many fears enter my head, like the fear that katie and ben were going to get married and then me and katie wouldnt be best friends anymore and the fear that all my friends out here would go away and not be my friends anymore because I was still this dramatic crazy lady and on top of that i had to face the reality, for the second time, all because of me which didnt help my depression, that the man i was letting myself be in love with again will never work out with me. plus i was doing everything wrong not once did i do something right. everytime i went to see him we had to have some stupid chat and I ended up making stupid little things a big deal. which then after we chatted and i felt better about what we woudl chat about i would then only feel more guilt for having to have done that and not just having fun. so i was starting to feel pretty shitty. and i didnt know how to stop. I felt like my friends were frustrated with me and sick and tired of my crap and fed up with trying to tell me how to fix it because they did try but it was like i heard them but couldnt figure out how to just DO what they were saying. the other night was pretty bad i havent cried so hard that i thought i was gonna throw up but i did that night. and i understood a sliver of the ugliness you have to feel when you consider dumb things like suicide and what not. i wasnt thinking of doing it just i understood the mindset a pinch of what it takes. it was bad.

i also have been dealing with church stuff. i think because i have been doing all the right things out in logan, temple weekly scriptures church firesides all that crap it was a huge thing to have something so drastic happen, even tho it was my fault it happened. but i was so unhappy and my friend suggested that it was my faith that made me unhappy, so i thought fine im gonna put it aside and live life like its not there. i didnt go get drunk and do drugs or have sex or anything but i didnt think about god and i didnt read or do church.. and can i tell you it was worse. it didnt get better. i bore my testimony in church because katie went with me and she was like are you gonna get up there? are you? and i was like dang it fine ill get up there and it was pretty much a confession that nothing made sense to me anymore and all i knew was that i had missed some of the foundational things like my relationship with god and christ and that that was where happiness comes from. eternal happiness i think is what makes our religious gospel so true, but happiness here in this life i dont think has anything to do with the gospel you affiliate yourself with its about your relationship and honesty with yourself, the world around, you and you father and brother in heaven. i realized that i still cant answer like any questions about anything that my friends ask me because i just cant remember or learn every little thing about our doctrine of why we do what we do, but i do know that it brings happiness to me. it doesnt make things perfect but it makes me happier if i go and try my hardest.

i am such an extremest and a exactest..everything i think in is extremems and many things are black and white which is hard to live with when life is not that way. its the way i am i need to work on being more aware of that.

i think my guy friend and i will be ok i just hope that it doesnt take the rest of the time i am here for us to be ok. i want to be ok now. i am ready to be normal cool kenna again, but im a little affraid that he might have a hard time and hesitate with me, which i mean who wouldnt i might explode again right? ha ahahaha but im not worried that i will because i wont, i just want things to be ok again.

i realized i care so passionately about so many things, but most of them are the wrong things to care about... and i dont care passionatly enough about the important things like family, or time. i care about whether my friends lets me sleep next to him, or if he calls me or if he texts me or stupid bull crap like that.. life is so fragile and i spend it being dramatic and insane and immature, and selfishly and its just dumb. i hate it. i really just want to be done with it all.. and i guess you could say that i am, but there is still some fear there. and i wish there wasnt. but ya thats all that has gone down. went to church in the hollywood ward today in LA and it was awesome i liked it alot

today

its been a little bit since I have updated this. Lots has happened. But today something worth recording happened within me. I was reminded of me. Of God. Of love. Of the life I have had. Of what works. Of what I know. I spent the last bit pushing for what I want. The man I love to love me back the way I want, to be able to do whatever I want with no responsibility, to ignore the things I know hoping they don't matter, bathing in the tub of self pity and drama hoping to receive the attention my brain convinced me I was lacking, etc. Today I walked into church and looked in the classrooms around me, and you know that part in movies that are good, the ones that tug at your heart, not because they are cliche or anything but because you see that part of life that we all seek for, the part of love and family that people in the movies sometimes find. The feeling portrayed through written scripts, hours of hard research and individual actors efforts, the skill and training of filming and technology, and the finished product of many peoples hearts and beings put together to form something that represents that part of life we all see flinting glimpses of and then spend the rest of our days looking for. That joy. The joy some find in their parents love, or the love of their brothers, or the joy found in the bibles words, or the joy you feel on a sunny day in a park filled with happy children, or the joy you see in a father and their daughter hugging, or the joy portrayed when a fathers son catches that football he has been tossing to him, or the joy driving down the coast with the windows open and great music blasting, or the peace from the waves at the beach endlessly splashing along the sand, or the beauty of a young girl walking down the street with confidence in herself, or the brightness of a man sharing his success with his loving wife and children. TV shows, movies, books, music, art etc. all of these expressions seek to hit this spot. That spot of joy and peace and love. I saw this as I walked into church today and peeked into the classrooms filled with friends, and families, and little ones crying for parents, or singing to the children's songs. I realized that there it was right in front of me in real life. Not in a movie where the scripts were written or the sculpture of a hard working artist, but in life, real and tangible life. and that it had always been right in front of me, and whether it was the lack of a movie trailer, or the glamour of famous people, I had missed it, I hadn't seen it before, and I now saw it and it hit me how attainable it all was, for me and for those around me.

I realized then that all my 'weaknesses' had come from the insecurities in my world. The fear, the lack of faith, the drama, the addictions, the immaturity, the selfishness, the inability to listen, the mistrust, the disbelieve, all came from the insecurities in myself. I sat down on the familiar bench and instantly felt the guilt over the past two months. The endless reactions from those insecurities, that had interrupted the potential of joy, peace and that love spoke of above. I felt the regret of forgotten security. I was reminded of my beauty. I was reminded of the worth I had found in the things I know. About me, about life, about my family and friends. I was, not with words or even just emotions, but with something else I was reminded of life. Of living. Of the joy I had seemed to not see from before. I saw the walls shielding the sun those walls I had put up myself, with the illusion from my own lies, and from the expectations one feels when they spend life wanting more. It became clear to me that I was seeking that sunshine from inside, expecting to stay inside the walls I had created and still somehow feel the warm rays. It sounds cheesy but its how I can express it.

Why do I forget what I know? Who I am? The truth around me? in those in my life, and in life itself? one could say I like to forget, or that I don't really know, or that my beliefs or the way I live life doesnt 'fulfill' me or isn't me at all, or that I am just lying and that it's reality hitting me when I 'forget'. My heart knows it doesnt matter. It only matters that I continue to remember when I do forget. It only matters that today, today I felt what we see in those movies and entertainment and art. It matters only that I step outside again, expecting nothing, because once outside you instantly feel that warmth, and therefore no longer need to expect to find or not find it. you only need to feel it, and be grateful for it.

I found some of me today. Some of me that was always there but who I was ignoring. I thought for a moment my religious beliefs were not the path to my happiness, I saw today that my happiness is not contingent on anything outside of me, the organized religious affiliation/s, friends, family, money, weather, or belongings. It is only contingent on me. Adam fell that men might BE, and men ARE that they MIGHT have joy. I felt the truth of that today. I am sure there will moments I want to run inside again, when I feel like the sun is shielded by a storm cloud, or when I sit outside so long and the sun turns to night time, or when I simply begin to seek instead of just be, when I begin to think and live in my head rather than living in the truth of reality, or life. But today I found some clarity. I felt that clarity and for the first time since coming to california, I felt love for me from me, and from my father above. for the first time I felt the fear in me AND STILL smiled. It wasnt something someone said at church, or anything, it began with a simple pray. and the opening of my door. Some might think this is unnecessary to share with those of you have read this, but I am interested in you and your journey, I am interested in being me with you, and all this because of the Love and peace, and joy I felt today for me, which in turn makes me feel that for all those around me. I share this because I hope you will share your findings/realizations/experiences/joy with me also. Thank you for all your patience with me and with yourselves. And I thank whatever it is that led me to this day, for all of it, and mostly for the unconditional love of those who truly love themselves, and who truly love me, I hope to gain that ability more and more as I progress.