We were in Hawaii driving the Road to Hana.  When we passed this waterfall pouring down a gash through the mountainside, my family was content to just stop for a moment to take a few photos.    But I was feeling squirmish-- yeah, this would be a cool picture when uploaded on social media or whatever, but not too long afterwards a photo was all we would have! this small pause on our journey would not be enough to imprint on our memories.
  Ditching my shoes and stripping to my swimsuit, I decided in this moment of joyous spontaneity to be adventurous and hiked all the way to the bottom while the rest of my family stayed above.  Eventually Adam and Dad joined me, but I had long been swimming in the refreshing water.  How I felt alive!  with the roar of gravity-caught water and the rough showering on my skin and the serenity in the mist.  I absolutely could've cried when mom yelled down for us to get back in the car.

  So why is it that the times when we shrug aside the expectations {my mom had really not wanted me to climb down}  and decide to be a little wild that we are the happiest?  This has occurred several times in my life, when I've been with a group of people and been the first {and often the only} one to actually live the adventure, the beauty, the world, not just see it from a safe and comfortable distance.  Even then, being crazy isn't the same as being stupid; I didn't run down the slippery mountain pathway to the waterfall.
     My mom told me that she wants me to be a strong woman.  We know too many people who got married young, before they even had the time to be out in the real world and discover who they really were.  I don't wanna be that girl.  Yes, my absolute dream is to get married and raise a family from home, but how can I possibly raise strong children if I myself am a weakling, quiet and content to endure whatever happens to me?  I can't just endure!  I have to live a life where any hardships thrown at me can make me stronger, where I can stand on my own two feet and know exactly who I am in all circumstances and follow my dreams.  I want to be fearless and full of adventure, ready to ditch the norm so I can create memories like those at the waterfall with every step leap I take.

  Time is a strange thing.  Splayed out, never ending in either direction,  and slippery like ice in your fingers.  The present clings to reality for a split second before moving on, leaving the just-current moment but a memory.
  If I ground my foot and snatch a hold of the present, my life presents inself as that of a sixteen-year-old girl halfway done with high school, at that point where the world is fascinating and terrifying all at the same time. If I glance behind my shoulder, I am ensnared by exciting memories of an adventures of being small.
  But then my eyes flutter shut and I visualize that which does not exist yet.
  The future.  The new horizons.
  I imagine submersion in whole new cultures.  With a battered passport and small bag and just enough money, I want to ditch my comfort zone in order to explore the world.  It has so much more to it than Little Hometown with its Familiar People and Culture; to die snuggled up in the same old place that offered a birthplace and living space would be a slap in the face to the all the wonders of the earth.  I want to reach out and finger the unfamiliar lifestyle that other souls are familiar with, to gain a respect and understanding developed by empathy of experience.  I want my eyes to behold the the beauty of God's creations.
  I imagine billowing white skirts and cascading curls and the taste of warm lips as my heart pulses with pure ecstacy.  Like a young girl dreaming of fairy tales, I want the glory of a temple marriage, locking my hands in his like our eternal fates but knowing for certain that this Happily Ever After is for real.   So lovely would be a small wedding on the coast with a reception of close friends and family joining us on the beach for fine sand between our toes and a salty breeze and the crash of waves echoing on the shore as we dance.  And then an escape, just the two of us, as we douse ourselves in the joy of True Love.
   I imagine fabricating masterpieces.  With my writing and my artwork and my music, I want to blow the kisses of my mind's ideas to the world around me and see if I can nuzzle myself into a little teeny-tiny corner of the earth's Wall of Significance and Remembrance.  If I can find that spark of ultimate creativeness, there are no limits to what can be developed by simply my brain and either a keyboard, a paintbrush, or my voice.  
   I imagine a swollen belly and the realization that inside of me, a new Person is curled up, waiting to emerge into the golden sunlight.  The thought of creating another human being, half of my own self even, dazzles me.  I wish to be that mother whom her children cling to.  Living in a small home of the East Coast of the U.S., I want my little family to be saturated in memories of holiday traditions and four seasons and bedtime stories and Family Home Evenings that are so fun, the kids wish it wasn't just on Mondays.  I hope to nudge souls into a dark world as beacons of light, knights armed and protected by the knowlege that I've helped them discover.
  I imagine.  The clock ticks.  And I enjoy the moments as they bloom.

  Words.  Trampling each other as they battle to reach the focus of my thoughts, the dance of my tongue, the grace of my fingers.  Ideas that spring forth like flowers after sprinkling of summer rains.   The struggle to conceive beauty, intelligence, and adventure as one.
  Colors splash forth, illuminated by brilliant rays of light.  Music ricochets from every soft tendril of wind, every sapphire wave caressing the shore.  
  No detail disregarded.  One breath, and the whole world is absorbed into my soul.  Eyes flutter shut, and darkness is nudged aside by remembrance.  Recollection of everything magnificent.  I gather, I ponder.
  Erupt, Creativity.

    Someday I will no longer be a crazy teenager.  Someday I will have a husband to cherish for the eternities.  Someday I will have children to come from my own womb to snuggle closely.
  Someday is today, just in the future form.
  It's odd to think that he, my husband, the one, is out there, living, breathing.  Somewhere.  Is he across the world?  Is he in one of my classes?  Obviously he has a name {that will become mine}, talents, a family.  What does he look like {hopefully quite attractive}?  Is he musical?  Does he like animals?  I sure hope he's keeping up with his scripture reading.  Oh, and he better start practicing doing the dishes.
  Just as I wonder about him, I wonder if he wonders about me.  Because of course he doesn't know that his future wife is a short girl whose life is a happy tangle of family, church, singing, writing, drawing, acting, cheerleading, Honors classes, and laughing.
  Whatever the case, we are still connected.  We don't even know it, but our destinies have been forever intertwined. 


  In a couple years, he's probably going to be reading this post and laughing at me and my girly wonderings.  Hmmm.

• I am going to be one of those people who plucks from the sky the stars of the impossible dreams which become reality.  Everything that stands in my way I will spread my wings and soar over.  Who says I can't be a wife, mother, Latter-Day Saint, writer, artist, singer, dancer, actress, designer, reader, blogger, scrapbooker, teacher, missionary, etc. all at the same time?
• I am going to go to BYU, serve a full-time mission, then go back to BYU and get a degree.  
• I am going to marry a guy that's abnormally tall and muscular {because I'm so abnormally small} so that (1) our boys can inherit his massive gene and be football players, and our girls can inherit my petite gene and be gymnasts, and (2) he'll have to lift me up by the waist in order to kiss me.  Oh, and whether it be his dominant or recessive allele, he will have some blue eyes in him so that at least one of my kids can have them like me and most of the Lundgreen side of the family.  There will be six of these kiddos, and some of our kids names will be: Nicole, Isabelle, Ethan, and Isaac.   Oh, and they will be taught both the gospel and music from the time they are young.  I think it would be fun if they all played different instruments so we could have a little band/orchestra.
• The one word I want people to think when they think of me is "creative."  Because I will have published books and a crafty house.
• I am going to travel everywhere.  We have already been thinking of going to Peru; I also want to go to Greece, Italy, Paris, Spain, London, Niagara Falls, Egypt, and return to Hawaii, the East Coast, Colorado, and Escalante in Utah. For some of those places, it will be great because I will be a fluent Spanish speaker.  Gilbert's cool and all, but the world has so much to offer, it would be a shame to only glimpse a few of its wonders!