the day you start thinking that love is overrated is the day that you're wrong.

When Royce and I got engaged it was such a whirlwind, and not for the reasons you might think, just five days after he got down on one knee I left to spend a semester in the Dominican Republic and although the experiences that I gained there were incredible, it was the hardest thing that we have ever done. I didn't get much time to play bride-to-be, since I was terribly busy teaching underprivileged children English in a third world country. Upon arriving back to America with twelve days left till our wedding, it all went so fast that before I had a chance to adjust to hot showers and frigid cold weather it was December 30th and I was showing up at the temple to get hitched.

The whole day was such a dream, and it flew by and will always be one for the record books, he makes me happier every day and hot dang! I hit the jackpot, this guy is amazing and puts up with my cold feet and constant need for treats and he's pretty cute too, I guess. Anyway, stay a while, swoon over our pictures, I know I have been.

Saying Goodbye to The Dominican Republic (For Now).

I remember the first day we got here so vividly, some days it feels like just yesterday & other times it feels like a completely different life. Walking down the streets for the first time, as everyone stared at us & dirt sprayed the backs of our legs & engulfed our feet. It was so hot, but the humidity was so thick it made it hard to breathe. I was in shock, I couldn't even begin to grasp the fact that I was going to be living in this place with bars on literally everything & trash piles along both sides of the street & houses that were so broken down I feared a gust of wind would knock it over. I couldn't figure out the grid pattern of our neighborhood at all, it all seemed the same & I was scared to get lost. To be honest, I haven't felt completely safe since getting here in August. Eyes are on us literally everywhere we go, & I'm constantly watching people to see how they're reacting & who's following us for a little too long. From the very beginning I've always said I have too much to come home to to take risks here. But it's kept me safe & it's kept me alive. I've had a lot of Dominican moments that I'll never forget here. Every morning at exactly 7:45 am were woken up by the screeches of pigs being slaughtered in the farm behind us, it used to make me sick but now we just use it as an alarm. Sometimes on the way to school we'll see them carrying the pigs they just slaughtered, split open & dripping all over, still not used to that.  I've only heard three gunshots since getting here & I didn't hear them until recently. After talking with our friend that works on the corner of our neighborhood we found out that gun shots really aren't that rare. Going inside by seven pm every night really is such a blessing, although having so much down time while confined in an apartment with 22 other people definitely has its challenges. I will not miss never having truly clean laundry, or the cold showers with minimal water pressure that make it pretty hard to get the conditioner all the way out. I shouldn't complain about that though since half our neighbors still bathe with a bucket. I'll miss the feeling of accomplishment that comes from hailing down a taxi on the side of the road & squishing eight girls plus a taxi driver into a car that only seats five. I will not however, miss the feeling of your limbs falling asleep on the forty minute taxi ride back home. I won't miss the cat calls on the street, getting hissed at and stared at everywhere we go. I will miss being able to use my second language so much & connecting with all the friends we've made everyday on our walks to and from school. I'll especially miss my niños, holy cow I'm going to miss my niños. They've taught me a lot more than I've taught them & I've grown to love them more than I ever thought possible. The little girls all call me mom & I call them daughter, i didn't really think much about it in the beginning, but the fact that i give them unconditional love everyday & they probably don't receive much of it at home is heartbreaking I never thought at 20 years old I would be viewed as a mother figure, but it's such an honor. I would take them all home with me if only I could. I'm going to miss the colmados on every corner, being able to buy Sprite for fifteen pesos & talk gossip with the shop owners, I'll miss green mango Gatorade & chinolas for breakfast. I will not miss eating beans & rice two times daily. I'll miss the lack of social pressure to have everything & be the smartest & wealthiest & prettiest. It doesn't exist here, at least not in our neighborhood. People are just so grateful to have shoes on their feet & a roof over their heads, can't we learn to be more like them? All I know is I'm feeling pretty selfish to be heading back to logan, newly married, to an apartment with two bedrooms & a living room & a kitchen & a bathroom. More than so many adults here will have after working all their lives. It has made me appreciate all I have and all I've been given so much more. I'm going to miss the beaches here, the crystal clear water & super soft sand. I'll miss pesos, they're so pretty! American money is so boring in comparison. I won't miss pumping my water everyday, or having to brush my teeth with a water bottle. I won't miss the yellow shower water one bit. I will miss sitting on the roof & looking out over Dominica & seeing all the natural beauty we're surrounded by. I'll miss being handed babies everywhere I walk & kids running up to us with the biggest smiles on their faces. I'll miss Coca Cola light & coconut cookies, fresh mangos & Dominican Oreos. I'll miss cabarete with its mango coconut juice & coconut brownies, I'll miss accidentally waking up at six am & getting to watch a bright orange sunrise. I won't miss walking through a misty hot combination of dog poop & flies on the way to school everyday. 

Another thought about the niños, I'm really going to miss them, not in the ways I thought I'd miss them, but in a much bigger way. I'll miss the pure joy that they have in their eyes, the happiness that they have inspite of the fact that they share a one room shack with their mom, dad, dads lover, six siblings, and grandparents. They have so much love for us, & it makes me sick to think that someday these sweet innocent boys that save the stickers they worked so hard to earn, just so they can give them to me, will someday be the pigs sitting on the corner yelling degrading things & hissing at women as they walk by. It's a viscous cycle that these people are in, & getting out is nearly impossible. I know it's a ways away, but I think Dominica has made me a better future mother, I've learned to love & nurture these kids, with more love than I thought you could have for a tiny human, & these aren't even mine. I think about Denisse, how much I'm going to miss her, with her tiny darth Vader breathing, watching her face light up as I walk around the corner after school. Hearing her yell my name as she sticks her arms in the air & reaches for me to pick her up. I'll miss sitting on the porch at night with her family, rocking her until she falls asleep. Even though she has one of the best families in this neighborhood, she still lives in el javillar, she still is stuck in poverty, & I want to take her out & take her home with me. I know I can't, but I think about it everyday. 

So it's all over now, I'm done here, remember the first email I ever sent? I was so terrified of this place, I didn't think I was strong enough to do it, & to be honest if you offered to let me come home at all throughout the whole experience I probably would have. Not because I didn't think I could handle it, but because this is not America & holy cow we really have it so good. I'm so grateful for this island, it's made my life hell at some points, but I've made incredible memories, seen some of the most beautiful places, & grown so much as a person. Being here for four months really is going to make the entire month of December that much sweeter. Maybe I'll come back here someday, I'd like to bring Royce, but more than that I'd like to bring our kids eventually. I want them to see this, see the way people live here, I always knew stuff like this existed but id never seen it for myself, & I think it's something we all need to see. 

So what have I learned here? I've learned a lot, but I think the most important thing I've learned is that God really does love all of His children. Sometimes it might be hard to understand why we got the better hand here, but you need to look for the little things. He loves us, me, you, the pregnant Dominican teenager, & isn't that what this life is all about? Not about who has the nice stuff or who is voting for so & so or who has a nice house with a big kitchen. I'm going to try so much harder to treat people with a Christlike love, it's so easy to do here when people are so humble & have so little. Why is it so hard in America sometimes? 

When we got to New York everything felt right.

I'm currently on an airplane probably flying over Pennsylvania or Michigan or some other state that after a week in my favorite city really seems completely insignificant. So today I left New York City and I'm very upset about it, if you know me then you know I adore that city, but I'm not sure if adore is even the right word. I'm in love with New York City, when I look in the mirror I see someone who belongs there, someone who would thrive there. I'm not really sure when my fascination with nyc began, but I do remember the feeling I had as a junior in high school while sitting on the floor in Grand Central Terminal eating broccoli cheese bread from Zarros, watching the hundreds of people fly past me. Rush hour in NYC was unlike anything I had ever experienced before; cars were plentiful, but the humans that filled the subways were what fascinated me. They moved so quickly, each one with a purpose, each one with somewhere to be, something to do. New York had an energy about it that I had never felt before and I knew instantly I wanted to be a part of it.

As the years passed, I graduated high school and traded my dreams of culinary school in the city for a much more practical degree in business from a much more affordable school in Utah. Approximately ten hours after I graduated high school my mom and I hopped on a plane to jfk and spend the five best days in the city I have ever had. That trip was less about making it to the museums, less about the naked Cowboys in Times Square, and so much more about taking in the whole city. She let me pick local restaurants, visit tiny parks, and just sit on benches and watch people. I fell in love with New York City fully on that trip and when our five days were up and it was time to head home,

I was convinced I had made a mistake in deciding not to attend school in the city. I cried for hours and refused to leave. My mother is not one to take any crap though and knowing me better than I know myself reminded me of all the good I had going for me the coaxed me on a plane back home.

That fall I started college and weeks in began my transfer application to NYU, i started a common application time and time again, only to have to come to terms with the fact that all the reasons I couldn't live in NYC six months prior still stood true. It didn't stop me from staying in love with the city though, and I even prioritized it above things that probably should have been more important, things like dating. There was a boy freshman year, he was tall and handsome and took me on a very nice first date. We quickly hit it off and began dating frequently. I remember one night we sat in my hallway glaring at each other because I told him nyc was more important to me than a man and he told me he didn't want to live in a big city. He ended up leaving at three in the morning, angry at me because I didn't have my priorities straight and refused to admit it. He came back the next day and asked if I'd settle for New Jersey, I was stubborn and told him no but for some reason he still decided he wanted to date me. He left on a mission shortly after & is excited to see the city for the first time when he gets home. It's been fun to watch his love for my city grow as we've written. Maybe he's the one, maybe he's not. But for now, New York is my boyfriend and I'm really okay with that.I sometimes think that my love for New York has hurt my dating life, in fact I know it has. The city for most of the world is not an ideal place to have a family, and coming across a girl who feels so emotionally attached to such an unidealistic family raising place is hardly attractive. Sometimes I think boys are silly, because even after our first few dates during which I express my love for New York, my need for New York, they continue to come around, hoping someday I'll change my mind. When they realize how attached I am (to the city, not them) they are not very happy and that is why I'm single.

I understand a lot of people think I don't understand New York and what it's like to live in such an urban city. To an extent, they're right. But I don't think you have to live somewhere to know that you belong. Others will argue that I romanticize city life, and I absolutely do. Rent in Manhattan continues to rise while salaries shrink, there's crime in the city and constant threats or terrorism. The city is dirty, the public education system is terrible, half a million dollars will buy you a studio apartment if you're lucky, the city smells like garbage half the time, people have to work fourteen hour days just to keep their bank accounts from going in the red. All of these problems are real and I know that. But like all things in life, you have to decide to look at the good, and I'm doing that every single day as I work towards calling New York City home.

New York City is the place to be if you want to work in business, people's careers thrive there. When I visit and walk down Lexington avenue and 36th street, I dream about opening my bakery in that white corner shop with the old windows, of living in the tiny apartment above it. I dream of  having a few children, of teaching them the wonders of the city, of watching them grow up learning to navigate the subways and ride their scooters down the avenues. I think of the culture, of the diversity, of the exposure to every country, language, and race every day. New Yorkers look exhausted all the time, but I want  that look they have in their eyes. They work so hard every day, but they do it because at the end of the day even though New York City takes so much, it gives even more, it makes you more human than you can be anywher else and I want that, I want it more than I've wanted almost anything else in my whole life.

I have to to it, I have to get to New York City. I know that the days will be long, the summers will be hot, the winters will be accompanied by hashtags like "#polarvortex" and my wallet might get lifted on the train. I understand that there will be days when I want to quit, where I'll question my obsession with this city, where I'll yearn for more closet space and a quiet minute. But I can't give up New York to have those things. New York makes me want to be a better person, to work harder, to love more. New York makes me want to think about what's really important in life, and to go after it. I don't ever want to waste a minute and in New York you literally have the whole world at your finger tips. Have a bad day? That's okay, you're in New York. Have a good day? Even better, go celebrate, you're in New York. Want Asian food for dinner? Italian? How about halal at three in the morning? Perfect, you can get it all on your block. Are you frustrated with your high rent and tiny space? Go take a walk through your neighborhood and realize that your rent gets you Central Park, your rent gets you the only good public transportation in the city, your rent gets you the old lady across the hall that smokes too much and the Indian family that cooks too much curry. New York is so much more than a handful of museums and electrifying billboards in Times Square. New York is a place where businesses thrive, and where businesses constantly bite the dust. New York is where eight million people in Manhattan alone call home, and some of them hate it, some of them really want to leave. But most of them wake up every morning ready to face the traffic, the late trains, the six dollar juice, and the long work days, knowing it is all going to be okay because they did it, they made it in New York City.

New York city is for everyone, if you want it and you work hard, you can get there. I want it more than any materialistic thing, more than a nice car or a big house or a fancy job title. If I'm lucky enough to wake up next to someone I love and look out the window and see New York city then I'll have won, I'll have won it all.

So here's to the journey, here's to the triumphs and the failures along the way. Here's to the really really good days and the really really terrible ones. Here's to the happiest visits to New York city and the saddest goodbyes.  I'm not the same person I was before, and I owe it to Manhattan.

Here's to New York City and to someday calling it home. I'll be back.

xoxo.
Sarah

Love is on its way.

Back in 2008 when the Jonas brothers 3D movie came out & my best friend & I shamelessly went to the midnight premier while crying joyous tears over a shirtless joe, they debuted a new song that never really got the praise it deserved. Titled "Love is On Its Way" I dedicated hours upon hours of my time to writing a 500 page fan fiction named after that song. It's funny how seven years later, as a sophomore in college I am still listening to that song on repeat. No longer an avid Jonas fan, but most definitely a lover of all thing love songs, especially the applicable ones. Here's the thing, I'm at this point in my life where everything is changing so rapidly, and every decision I make potentially affects the outcome of my whole life. The biggest of all the life decisions for me, is finding an eternal companion. Dating was really fun freshman year, and it's getting really old now, as date after date we go over the same list of questions only to find out a kiss or two down the road that yet another person is not quite right for eternity. It would be so easy to stop dating, to focus on school & study abroad & be selfish. But I am selfish, and I want that companionship, so I continue to date. I hope that someday soon I'll figure out this whole dating thing, that I'll find a man who makes me blissfully happy and completely challenges me & makes me want to be better. Lonely, I believe that you will find me, & together we will truly see, love is on its way.

xoxo.

Sarah

Optimistic for the unknown.

Today I found out that my application I submitted for Peru back in November never actually made it to where it was supposed to. I spent two months refreshing my email multiple times a day with the hopes that I would finally find an email proclaiming my acceptance into a program that would literally be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I'm heartbroken in a way I never thought I could be heartbroken. I always thought that if I didn't get into peru it would be because I didn't get accepted, not because I never technically applied.  There are so many emotions swirling through my head right now, and I really don't know how to put them into words. I have always said that what is meant to be will find a way, and right now everything is so unknown but I'm trying so very hard to be optimistic about it all. Maybe I'll go to Spain and frolick on the beaches of Barcelona, maybe I'll teach kids English in Mexico, maybe I'll climb Palm trees in Puerto Rico. I don't really know where I'll be six months from now, but I am pledging to be optimistic for the unknown.
xoxo.
Sarah

for high school me

Dear high school me,

You are enough, and you are freaking awesome. The number of lunches eaten in the library alone do not determine the number of people who love you wholeheartedly. Do not worry about things so much, your ten year plan will happen regardless of if you stress about it or not. Just start living life. You will get accepted to colleges, don’t cry over the ones you didn’t get accepted to; triumph in the ones you did. Love yourself, date yourself, take care of yourself, and figure out exactly what you stand for. Pray about what you want in life and know it’s okay to walk away from people who won’t help you get there. Eat that extra serving of ice cream, you deserve it. Kiss all the boys if you want to, or don’t kiss any at all; the number of people you’ve kissed does not indicate your character or self-worth. Fall in love and don’t look back, take each heartbreak and become stronger. Having a man does not make you strong and not having a man does not make you weak. Keep working hard and saving your dollars, you’ll be glad you did when you’re in college trying to buy five hundred dollars’ worth of textbooks each semester. Thank your parents every day, for everything, they make every life decision for your well being. Only surround yourself with the best of friends, the ones that don’t treat you kind are not worth your time. Strive to live life as Christ like as possible every day, be kind and service oriented, put others before yourself. Don’t be afraid to laugh in inappropriate situations every once in a while, and don’t ever grow up all the way. Please do not ever let a boy call you crazy, it’s okay to want to pee on his car when he breaks your heart…just do not actually pee on his car and if you do, don’t let him know. Sing Taylor Swift all the day long, dance in public, and wear insanely bright lipstick however often you please. Don’t worry if you sometimes cry in places one would not normally want to cry in. Spend as much time with your family as humanely possible, they are in your corner forever. Follow your dreams; open a bakery, go to grad school, live in New York City, and do not under any circumstances give up. Life is amazing, it’s hard and cruel and rude and restless and humbling, but you have one life, live it how you want. 

The best pizza.

When I went to New York City last summer, I happened upon a pizzeria in Brooklyn that stole my heart in a matter of bites. Everything about it was absolutely perfect; the thin crust, the juicy san marizano tomatoes, the fresh basil and mozzarella, all baked to a bubbly perfection. I ate half the pie in one sitting, and was left wanting more. It was undoubtedly the best pizza I have ever eaten in my whole life. When we returned home to Minnesota the following week, I met up with a friend at our local pizza joint, one that weeks before was what I considered to be the very best pizza, but after my trip to NYC, the pie on my plate offered nothing but disappointment. That's not saying that I didn't enjoy eating the pizza of Minnesota anymore, I just knew there was better pizza in New York and for me there was no going back. Fast forward to late September sophomore year of college (aka a month and a half ago), when I experienced the New York City pizza of kisses. This might seem hilarious, "The New York city of kisses?" well, yes. Quite frankly they were some of the best I have ever experienced. Unfortunately, good pizza or not, the rest of the bullet points couldn't line up and I had to stop eating New York's finest and move back to Minnesota. The pizza of Minnesota just wasn't good enough anymore. I keep thinking that someday soon i'm going to go back to New York and get to experience that pizza again. Maybe I will, I do have a flight booked for march and three roommates that love pizza as much as I do. But I keep thinking, what if i discover an even better pizzeria in Manhattan? I hope I do. Maybe the pizza I ate under the Bridge that warm summer day really was the best i've ever had, and worth eating forever. Maybe, the whole time, I was looking in the wrong place for the best pizza. I haven't even been to Italy yet, and Italy is said to have the best pizza in the world. All I know, is there is no better way to find out who has the best pizza than to keep eating all of it.
here's to Italy.
heart heart kiss kiss,
Sarah Leslie