Let's Hear it For the Boys

It’s my Dad’s birthday today. It’s also two o’clock in the afternoon on a Monday. I’m curled up in my room watching the rain fight not to freeze as it lands on my window outside and I know I should be doing homework but I just wanna write.

A week ago today, my favorite boy in the world got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. As I said “yes,” I fell to my knees too and grabbed his lovely face to kiss him a zillion times because I was too excited to even wait for him to stand up.

            Let’s hear it for the boys.

            I’ve had a lot of really great boys in my life that have, whether or not they realize it, lead me to the boy that made me the happiest girl in the world last week as he (and then I) knelt down on one knee. Between everyone from past dates and boyfriends to my good friends, uncles, Grandpas, brothers, and especially my sweet Dad and my wonderful fiancé, I’ve had really great examples of what wonderful men can be like and create for their families and lives. Without these examples I know I wouldn’t have been able to find, value, hold, and keep the boy I’m gonna marry.

So, boys—here’s to you.

            Here’s to the dates that taught me how to be confident enough to hold a good conversation. To listen and learn about someone else. To break the silence. To be polite. To have fun together. To smile through really awkward circumstances and to embrace each other despite sometimes major differences in opinions and personalities. Thank you.

Here’s to the boyfriends that taught me how to love. How to love through service and understanding. How to respect and be respected. How to be a listening ear. How to invest time and energy into something and how to be really emotionally vulnerable. How to hold a hand, and to be there. How to understand what a good relationship is and isn’t like. How to be loved, and how to love myself and someone else better and more fully. Thank you for all you ever did for me.

Here’s to the friends who have always been there to just be with. To talk about dates with. To give advice to and receive advice from. To eat pancakes with on Saturday mornings in our pjs. To watch good movies with and to feel no pressure to impress. To have so much fun with. Thanks for everything.

Here’s to my uncles. For cracking cheesy jokes and being too loud when you all get together. For teasing me about everything and for being so freaking funny. For letting me watch you marry my aunts and love them and your children. Thank you for being a part of my life.

Here’s to my Grandpas. For loving my Grandmas for all your lives and for giving me great big hugs. For babysitting me and giving me too much candy as a little girl. For always being there to talk to. For sharing your light and your wisdom. For attending all my high school plays and always supporting me. For making birthdays and Christmases memorable. For loving me since the day I was born. I’ll always love you.

Here’s to my brothers. The days you were born were some of the happiest and most memorable of my life. You guys will never know how much I love you and look up to you. Thank you for giving me advice and accepting my advice. Thank you for making fun of me daily but also wanting to tell me absolutely everything. Thank you for calling me when you were having a hard time. Thank you for letting me help you with girl troubles and giving me your more than honest opinion about every date I ever went on. Thank you for watching and quoting movies with me when I had no where to go on Friday nights in high school and thank you for being my best friends. I love you.

Here’s to my sweet Dad. There’s nothing wonderful enough I could say to describe how important you are to me. Thank you for being the best example I could possibly have grown up with. Thank you for loving God and teaching me His gospel. Thank you for praying with me. Thank you for holding me as I’ve cried and smiled and laughed. Thank you for being there for everything. Thank you for loving my Mom so happily and sweetly. Thank you for working so hard every single day. Thank you for loving your kids, even when we’re not always particularly lovable. I wish you knew how much we love you right back. Happy Birthday.

And here’s to my fiancé. Thank you for being my world. For ensuring my happiness and giving me absolutely everything and more. For being everything I need and want and for allowing me to experience a kind of love I didn’t know was possible. For being mine and allowing me to be yours. I wish there were words happy enough to say more. I hope someday you’ll realize how deeply I love you.

Here’s to the boys who have played and play important parts in my life. Thank you for everything. Let’s hear it for you.

-Jess

My Sugar Plum Fairy

My mom was born on Christmas day. Considering her personality, this is very fitting. 

My mom is all sparkles and ribbon.
My mom decorates two Christmas trees every year, both of which are extremely tastefully decorated in a very, to use a word of her own, "matchamatic" way. One of these trees is blue-themed and therefore obviously cascades over neatly wraped blue and white presents like an icicle on one of those bright blue winter evenings. The other is red-themed and therefore shines like the bold stamp of approval you always hope my mom will place on everything from what you're wearing to what you're doing; you see, she has really good taste.

My mom makes everything beautiful. 
When I was in jr. high and high school, I would often hear girls complain about how their moms had "such bad taste" and how they hope their moms will just take them shopping for their birthday or Christmas rather than trying to pick out clothes to give them themselves. I, on the other hand, have always gone right to my mom for fashion advice. She knows way more than I do about how to be fashionable. She has the best taste. She is fashionable and in style, yet creative and artistic. You can always find her wearing classy bright colors and probably a broach of some sort if it's a particularly sparkly day. She decorates everything and everyone with a zest that is so unique and beautiful. She likes pretty things and makes everything and everyone feel beautiful. 

My mom makes every event and occasion so special and important. 
Ya know how in the movie "Elf" Buddy spends all night dolling up the department store with sparkles, ribbon and love to the point that it looks like a dream come true that only Santa Claus himself could have? She basically makes our house look like that at Christmastime. And if you come over for dinner at any time during the year, I guarantee the table will be all decked out with cute tablecloths and place settings. She makes everyday fun, but makes special occasions truly fun and memorable with her great decorations, food, outfits, happiness, and love.  

My mom gives.
On one sleepy morning in the middle of this semester, my dear friend, Emily, informed me that she had a dream that my mom drove up to our apartment to "give us our Wednesday treats." This dream was hilarious because that's not even too far out for my mom. She would drive an hour just to bring us treats. In fact when I told my mom about Emily's dream, her response was "oh how cute! Next Wednesday I'm definitely bringing you treats!" My mom loves to give presents. It's adorable how excited she gets about it. She is always giving people beautiful things, and always knows just what to get. She is so generous and kind. She spends her birthday giving gifts to other people. 

My mom is extremely Christ-like. 
It is so fitting that her name is "Christine." My mom truly rejoices in the Lord, Jesus Christ. She finds her light through Him and exudes it through her ceaseless generosity and creative kindness. She loves Him and testifies of the true meaning of Christmas through His spirit. 

She is my sugar plum fairy.

Happy Birthday, Mama. 

Find the Radical Truth

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

-Aristotle

I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (I’m a Mormon.) Years before I went to college, people much older and wiser than I in my church circles would often warn me that once I head to a University, I’d better be careful and stay true to my beliefs. They’d warn me to live my standards even when I wasn’t living with my parents anymore, saying things like “remember who you are” and “remember what you stand for.” They’d also often (kind of humorously) monologue about how “blasted liberal” professors would be, and how hard it would be to maintain any sort of conservative, Christian values during “those crucial college years” and such. I didn’t think much of these comments, seeing as college was quite far off for me. But as it turns out, nothing is ever as quite far off as you think.

So here we are at the all too soon now. I’m an undergraduate student, studying English Literature and Philosophy. I still get the same “remember who you are” comments that I’ve received for years, but due to my choice of study, they are accompanied by more specific comments. Often, when I tell church friends what I’m studying, they immediately say something along the lines of “Oh, be careful with that stuff!” or “Don’t leave the church!” or “Well, just make sure you’re studying those scriptures too,” as though the fact that I study Liberal Arts (or whatever) automatically implies that I must also be struggling with my testimony of the gospel I’ve grown up with, or that I will soon start to re-evaluate that gospel entirely and turn to completely contrary theories. When I first began to be on the receiving end of such comments (so basically when I declared my major), I was a little bothered. It’s one thing to tell a fourteen-year-old girl that when she goes to college in forever and day she’d better live her standards and stay true to her religion, but it’s another thing all together to tell a nineteen-year-old girl that the subjects of which she is passionate about could presumably lead her to not just confusion about her religion, but anti-religion entirely.

Now, we can make fun of the uber strict, religious person that would be wary of ever studying anything even slightly contrary to religion all day. We can also be critical of religious people that may be far too quick to judgmentally assume the spiritual down fall of a church going girl simply due to her choice of college major. But let’s not. Instead, let’s consider where people are actually coming from (a sadly uncommon activity) because really, these comments come from the most loving kind of well-intention. They are meant to be warnings and advice rather than judgmental assumptions. I’ve also come understand that such advice is entirely legitimate—it seems to be in fact trendy for a college student to abandon their “restricting” and “simple-minded” religious belief system once they learn of the hard facts of life on a university level, perhaps particularly through a Liberal Arts education. But I’d like to point out to both the advice giver and the student that such abandonment of religion needn’t be assumed and needn’t be done. Specifically, and bluntly, the advice giver needn’t assume that all Liberal Art studies are immoral and degrading, and the Christian student needn’t abandon Christianity to study philosophies contrary to it. In fact, if anything, studies of various ideals reconfirm the truth in the beliefs of the faithful.

          I feel that sometimes people have this idea that Liberal Arts, specifically Literature and Philosophy, are full of immoral messages. It is as though they read of the immorality in The Great Gatsby and think that Fitzgerald was promoting such vulgar and obsessive behavior, when he was obviously telling a story that honestly portrays the consequences of good and evil, as well as by-standing in between. Such people may hear any word, phrase, or argument against their beliefs and immediately feel as though they are being attacked. I hope to in no way discount the idea that this is a better way to live than entertaining ideas contrary to one’s beliefs for many people, but I do hope to point out that studying ideas contrary to one’s beliefs in no way ought to diminish them. In fact, in 2 Nephi 2:11 of the Book of Mormon, it says that there must needs be opposition in all things. With that in mind, according to basic philosophical logic, considering the opposite of a belief if anything reconfirms the truthfulness of a belief—if all things must have opposition, and this thing does, it must be a true thing. To make this perhaps clearer, doesn’t it often seem like every true, good thing in life is challenged by some sort of opposition? It’s a universal law, it’s nature—there must be opposition.

You’d think that universal laws wouldn’t be so difficult to accept, but this concept can be hard to grasp, specifically when sitting in classes that teach everything contrary to what you’ve always believed in a way that, at least logically, makes perfect sense. I sometimes feel as though I am forced to question and then reconfirm everything I believe so often that I should be wondering if I even really believe it. I worry that all the pieces of advice and all the warnings I receive from worried unsolicited advice givers are more like prophesies, as though I am doomed to lose faith because of what I study (dramatic, I know, but thoughtful or something). I promise that this needn’t be the case. Questioning is not the equivalent of doubting. On the contrary, questioning is a way of showing more interest and greater desire to learn. I am very encouraged by Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount “ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find” (Matt 7:7), the key word being ask. We must question; we must ask. I would even say that religion is all about having questions to find answers to. In fact, the entire restoration of Jesus Christ’s gospel started with a boy asking a question! Questions are the basis of religion because, as we went over earlier, you must have questions to be able to find the opposite—truthful answers.

Funny enough, questions are the basis of Liberal Arts as well, such as, for example, Philosophy. Without questions, philosophy couldn’t exist, let alone be at all relevant. Philosophers crave answers because they have questions. Jesus Christ Himself, among many things, was a philosopher—and quite a radical one at that. Think about it—a King will be born in a Stable, a virgin shall give birth, the meek shall inherit the earth, etc. It all seems so contradicting and implausible (just the type of thing a philosopher would love to think about, yet so many seem to deny before giving it one true thought). “True thought,” in its purest religious form, can’t be attained without faith. How unfortunate it is to be limited to philosophical arguments to prove everything you believe when faith is the source of ultimate proof. One simply can’t prove the existence of God or a Savior with an argument—They and Their gospel are beyond the limiting structure of an argument for truth; They are truth itself. And from upper division philosophy classes to Sunday school, Their truth is manifest in all things. I’d urge everyone to live as a true artists, true philosophers, and true children of God, and find it.

“He who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer.”

-Socrates

Everything You Need to Know About Emily

Okay, this isn’t actually everything you need to know about Emily, (I don’t have time to write everything, it’s her birthday, people. We are way too busy having fun) but here are a few quick things.  Plus, one thing about Emily is that she’ll appreciate a good attempt at an alliterative title, or something like that. She’s cool like that. She is also my best friend.

Emily’s birthday is today.

Emily and I were partners in a very cute ballet recital when we just four years old, dancing to “Love Me Do” by the Beatles.  Ten years later, we somewhat randomly decided to be eighth grade locker partners.  And now, another five years after that, we are rooming in a very festively decorated apartment together at college.  I kind of know a lot about Emily.

Emily is there for you, even when you don’t really deserve it.  Emily has your back.  When we were locker partners at age fourteen, we would get to our locker in between every class and explain all the embarrassing things that happened in that class to each other, so as to laugh about it all together instead of feeling stupid about our entire existence, as most fourteen-year-olds would.  Emily’s laughing support through eighth grade classes has beautified into a kind of support that only a true friend would have to offer. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, part of what we promise to do is to “mourn with those that mourn” and “comfort those that stand in need of comfort.”  Emily has been my main source of understanding and comfort multiple times during our fifteen-year friendship.  She is angelic that way.

Emily gets it.  She gets things.  She’s really intelligent, both academically and spiritually.  She’s always striving to understand more and think more, while still maintaining a joyful attitude. So many people want so badly to not be ignorant that they like to think about deep, dark things and be really concerned about the state of humanity and stuff.  I myself am guilty of this! But Emily is able to think and live on an intellectual level, while still being so happy. She has the most encouraging “it’s gonna be okay” attitude ever.  So here I am, worrying about everything from the current joke of a political situation to the fact that I probably ate that entire sleeve of Oreos by myself, and there Emily is, telling me everything is going to fine, and reminding me that it’s okay to not be so serious all the time. This is not to say that she blissfully ignores the hard facts of life, but that she focuses on the good.

Emily has the gift of hope. In fact, her very countenance exudes it through her ceaseless optimism.  Like I said, she focuses on the good.  She does good, exudes good, and truly has a desire to continue doing and spreading good.  I love that about her.  After spending an evening with Emily, I drive home with this tingling glint of excitement.  I remember on one particular occasion, Emily and I had just seen a very well-advertised chick flick that was everything we hoped it would be and more, and as I drove home I attempted to pin point why I was so excited. I didn’t have any particular reason to be excited! Nothing uber great was coming up in the near future; I just had to go to work my really kind of boring summer job the next day. But I was so excited, as though something great was coming up.  What was that about?  After a few minutes into the drive, I realized that I was so excited simply because Emily reminds me that there is always a lot to be excited about.  With her glittery eye shadow and zest for life, she spreads joy to all around her.  And there’s just about nothing more delightful than the way she smiles and laughs.

Emily is the type of person that does thing like jump for joy at a cute dress.  She glows with excitement at a particularly informative verse of scripture. She loves God. Emily is prayerful and joyful. She loves people and works to love them more. She is a beautiful person all around.  In fact, C.S. Lewis once said, “In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few year’s difference in the date of our birth, a few more miles between certain houses, a choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ who said to the disciples, ‘you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,’ can truly be said to every group of friends, ‘you have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.’ The friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauty of others.”
I wish that someday Emily will know how thankful I am to her for teaching me the meaning of true friendship, true fun, true optimism, and really, true love. Happy Birthday, dear friend.

A New York City Sidewalk Year

It’s June of 2014.  I’m walking down a side walk in the middle of Manhattan.  Having grown up in a small town and not being accustomed to the busy noise of cities, I will remember this moment very clearly. Around me is total chaos.  People are walking in all directions on all my sides with masks of very distinct purpose and position. They are all so busy and determined! Everyone seems to know exactly where they are going and what they are going to do there. In their masked midst are screeching cars and beeping cabs that too seemed determined. So determined, in fact, that I’m concerned they may run into each other. Above me, the clouds even seem to fly. Their wisp and rhythm that back home seemed so peaceful and drifting, here appears to be running away from the hot sun, as it is making the wet, heavy air so hot that the whole island seems to be less of a city and more of a boiling pot of people and cars and noise and chaos.  In the midst of it all, I stop in something like awe just to take it all in.  But before I can take in the around and above, the below starts to (if you will) rumble! It honestly scares me a little at first, but then I realize the rumbling below me is the subway. So not only the above and around me, but even the below me is speeding chaotically.  And here I am, in the middle of it all.

It’s June of 2015. I’m walking down an overrated isle to shake hands with men and women I’ve never met before—my high school administrators. I receive a piece of paper in a faux leather case and then sit down, a chorus of names being read in my ears, to only perk up at the names of my friends or at least acquaintances. I then wave to and hug about one million people and take about one million pictures with everyone from my best friend and boyfriend to the guy I went to Prom with 2 years ago and the girl I sung next to in choir. To all these people, I smile. In all these pictures, I smile.  Based on everyone’s figurative and literal photographic memories of this day, I am so happy and excited. But that’s kind of not the case.

That June day of 2015 felt much like the June day of 2014 that has been described above.  Besides having an awful cold that made me feel dizzy and tired, having had little to no sleep for the past month (and essentially three years), and having had to wake up extra early that morning to take my long procrastinated senior pictures, which by the way had induced a terrible, mean fight with my Mother, I really was just kind of sad.  Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t have been happier with the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to wake up the next Monday morning for my 7:30 a.m. first period Physics class; and I was thrilled to never again have to deal with the pressures of everything from Prom dresses to AP tests.  But I had just had so much fun in high school, particularly my senior year.  When in the middle of my senior year, I was also in the middle of age 17 (one of the better ages, dancing queen, etc.,) an amazing group of friends, some really great classes and teachers, a super cute boyfriend and young happy love, a cute car to drive to school, rehearsals of plays that I loved, and so much support.  It seemed like my whole life I had been auditioning for a Hollywood movie and had finally got the chance to shine on the screen.  My life was perfect. I even remember thinking that: “my life is absolutely perfect right now. Seriously nothing is wrong.”

So. Clearly graduating from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. schedules, awkward avoided 15-year-old cuddles, and an environment that often seemed to be centered around insecurity was great. But graduating from literally feeling like a movie star was not great.  Walking down the overrated isle to do the most anticlimactic thing I’ve ever done really did feel much like walking down the side walk in New York.  We all seemed to have actual masks of distinct purpose and position plastered on our faces as happy smiles, when really we were all at least a little scared.  We all walked like we knew exactly where we were going next and what we were going to do there, as if any of us really had that all figured out.  Everyone and everything around us, despite being a unique and new distraction that we yearned to figure out, was treated as a mere obstacle.  I felt that the sky was hot and the pressure was on.  I was no longer going to have the wonderful security of great teachers and mentors, awesome friends, carelessly fun nights, a lead role in the play, and a wonderful boyfriend to have fun being and dancing with at every event and party.  Graduation meant that teachers and mentors that had told you what to do your whole life were now asking you what you were going to do with your life.  It meant saying goodbye to your best friends, as you all went on missions or to different colleges.  It meant that now you had to be much more careful on your carelessly fun nights, as all the sudden you were responsible for a lot more than just being home by midnight.  It meant you weren’t the star of the show anymore, as it turns out the world is much bigger than your high school.  It meant you had to make decisions bigger than you’d even ever thought about.  And it meant for me that my boyfriend was leaving for two years to serve a mission.  I really wasn’t very excited about graduation.

It’s June of 2016.  I have had a bit of a crazy year—a New York City side walk year, if you will.  It has been full of new people and new things and new decisions and this chaotic impulse to want to understand it all despite the fact that it seems I’m being pushed to walk too fast to even decide where to go next.

June of 2016 began what will forever be known in my mind as a summer of thought (or something like that). And now, August of 2016, I’d like to talk about some of these thoughts.  You see, one learns a lot between the summer they graduate high school and the summer after that.  And before that summer ends, I’d like to list and expound on some of those lessons.

1.    Odds are, you already know a lot of things. In this summer of thinking and attempting to list the things I’ve learned, I’ve realized that much of what I’ve “learned” are things that I’ve always known.  Your teachers and mentors want to ask you what you’re going to do with your life because they simply want to see what you’re doing with what they have been teaching you all along.  It’s okay to feel confused and frustrated, but it’s not okay to use that as an excuse to not move.  So many people my age like to just pause game because they don’t know what to do.  But the fact is, nobody ever knows what to do until they do it.  You learn by doing.  And from a religious perspective, if you ask, God gives you the knowledge that you need the moment you need it.  Hence, you already know all that you need to to start moving.  So move.

2.    As expressed above, you’ll never know what you’re doing.  You always think “by the time I’m this age, I’ll be ready for this.”  When in Jr. High I would think “when I start dating, I’ll be so smooth and know exactly how to act and what to say.” When I was in high school I would think “when I’m 18 I’ll totally be ready to move out and go to college, I’ll know where to go and what to do” and “when it’s time for him to leave on his mission, I’ll be ready and know I can do it.” Well, I quite frankly didn’t feel ready for any of those things.  And I have no idea what I’m doing.  So at this point I’m trying to push away the “when I’m engaged I’ll be ready to be a wife” and especially the “when I’m pregnant I’ll be ready to be somebody’s MOTHER” thoughts.  Because let’s be real, I won’t be ready.  I’ll feel completely inadequate and ill-prepared no matter what it is and how old I am.  But I think all of us feel that.  And the fact is you can learn as you go, and really therefore always be ready and prepared.  We’re all just faking it till be make it.

3.    It’s okay to not know what you’re doing.  This is one that’s been really hard for me to accept.  I’ve always been the type of person that likes to have a plan, but recently I’ve become a much more spontaneous person (a quality I’m happy to have recently developed).  I’ve also always had the worst decision making skills, but am also getting better at that (another very good thing).  I think these recent new traits are side effects of my current state in life.  Everything I do seems to be spontaneous.  I have to quickly make decisions and just go with them.  I really can only plan for the next 4 months at a time, and that’s only because that is the length of a semester!  I often feel like I have a better idea of what my life will look like in 10 years than in 10 months.  World, I have no idea what I’m doing.  But I’m doing it.  Go team.

4.    Also though. God really does give knowledge when it is needed for those that are prayerful and worthy.  When my little brother was about 10 years old, he got really in to sports trivia.  And seriously it was impressive.  You could ask him random questions like “who was the quarterback of the University of Utah football team in 1982?” and he’d know the answer.  It was kind of amazing.  He seemed to remember and yearn to talk about all things sports related.  So my Dad, really wanting to connect with his son, did his own sports trivia research simply so that he could ask my brother questions like “how does this team compare to last year’s?” and “who do you predict will win this tournament?”  He so wanted to talk to and connect with his son, and that was the best way to do it.  God is our Heavenly Father.  He loves us more than we can imagine.  He yearns to speak to us and hear from us.  He will speak to us in whatever way he can.  And whether it be by an angel or a bumper sticker, we better listen.

5.    You pretty much have every reason to feel really confident.  Don’t be selfish and cocky.  But be confident.  I spent lots of life feeling pointlessly insecure, as many teenage girls did.  What a waste of time!  Not to sound like a motivational speaker, but (*proceeds to sound like a motivational speaker*) the world is a beautiful place full of beautiful people and you are one of them.  Get to know people, and get to know yourself.  I grew up singing the song “I am a Child of God” at church every Sunday, and am just now really realizing the magnitude of that. God is the ultimate artist, and He created you. What more do you want?

6.    Religion is more important than you might think.  I’ve grown up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  We often talk of “ward families” in our church.  I’ve always appreciated the friendships, support, and comradery that comes through being in a ward family and being a member of this church, or I’m sure any church for that matter.  But it wasn’t until my first semester away from family that I realized how truly important it is.  A religious group can become a family away from your family.  People need each other.  People need friends, support, and help, and I really am so thankful to be a member of a church that gives me all those things.  And above that, knowing that there is a God Who loves you is necessary to experience the fullest kind of happiness.  Which is a really bold statement.  I’d encourage everyone to think about that one.

7.    Things really do work out.  They just do.  I don’t know how, but they do.  You simply need to be good and do good and love, and they work out. 

8.    Remember We Bought a Zoo and “twenty seconds of insane courage?” The majority of decisions are like that.  I expressed this one earlier, but I feel like all my decisions these days are totally spontaneous and then I just have to go with them.  I’ve always tended to think of decisions as these big, grand masses of intimidation that need to be pondered and then re-pondered and then re-pondered again.  And don’t get me wrong, many decisions do need to be thought through thoroughly.  But when it comes down to it, it takes twenty seconds to declare a major.  It takes under twenty seconds to say yes and become someone’s fiancé or SPOUSE.  Which makes everything feel really impulsive.  But you have to remember that you’ve been thinking about these decisions forever, now you just have to make them. And it only takes 20 seconds.  And ya know, twenty seconds of insane courage just isn’t that much to ask.  Decisions can be made.

9.    You know the stupid, cheesy saying “friends come and go, but families are forever?” Well, it’s true.  When your best friends all go their separate ways, and even your closest friends at college you’ve only known for a few months, it’s simply the best thing in the world to just plop on the couch to watch Forrest Gump with your family. And that’s all I have to say about that.

10. People mean well. Even annoying people.  Here’s the deal—clichés are cliché for a reason.  Ever since my senior year of high school, at least 5 or 6 people a day have given me some piece of advice.  Whether it be my Grandpa or the random lady behind the counter of my summer job, everyone has their two sense to share with you.  Which is all good and well, but they all seem to share the same things—very, very cliché things.  Seriously most everyone’s two sense could also be found on one of those Pinterest quote things with a picture that has absolutely nothing to do with the quote.  When this cliché, unsolicited advice giving began to be a thing, it really annoyed me.  I thought, “why are all these people saying the same things? And why do all these random people that have never taken any interest in me all the sudden want to give me advice? If I wanted advice, I’d ask for it.”  And then later, getting more annoyed, I thought, “ya know, all these people really do just say the same things.  It’s like they honestly don’t have anything genuinely productive, helpful or thoughtful to say, so they just say whatever they are supposed to say. People don’t even care enough to think of something personal!  They just give you these recycled ‘it’s a hard time, but a good time,’ ‘make every moment count,’ ‘just work hard, but also have fun,’ and ‘be yourself’ comments and it’s like, “well no duh.  Thank you though, I guess.” 

Earlier I mentioned that I feel like I’m “learning” things that I’ve always known.  It’s as though I’ve learned a lot, but am going through a time of life in which I’m actually realizing all that I’ve learned.  I have probably seen thousands of cute Pinterest quotes (seriously though, I was a 14-year-old girl when Pinterest became a thing), and as expressed above, I’ve heard thousands of people reiterate those quotes to me as though they were deep and important.  And yet now I find myself deeply and importantly thinking things like “every moment counts,” “everything happens for a reason,” and “you can learn something from every person you meet,” and then shortly after realizing that those aren’t deep thoughts, I’ve heard them from everyone all along! But they are important, because they are all true.  And that’s why people say them all the time—they mean them. Granted, sometimes people are just talking with zero substance or thought.  But more often than not, they mean what they say.  They care about you so much that they want you to remember even the tiniest details.  They want you to “remember who you are” ;). Clichés are cliché for a reason.

11. Little things are important.  Just because you can stay up all hours, skip class, eat whatever you want, sleep through church, never exercise, etc., really doesn’t mean you should. You should have fun.  Be spontaneous.  Skip class to go hiking, go on unplanned road trips, and watch movies till 3am on a Tuesday with your roommate occasionally.  But generally speaking, still do good.  Still work hard.  Little, basic things like sleeping at decent times, exercising daily, eating healthy, going to all your church meeting, and doing your homework are actually essential to happiness.  People didn’t tell you to do all that stuff your whole life to bug you, they told you to do those things because they want you to be happy.  Health is still a thing, even when your parents aren’t there.  You’d be surprised at how many people I associated with at school didn’t seem to understand all that.

With that being said, I’d also like to mention that on a deeper level, the little things are important.  Humans structure our lives so intensely. We have strict schedules.  Which, as expressed above is a generally good thing.  But I think many people get too caught up in the mundaneness of it all.  Even on a strict class to class or work to work or this to that daily schedule, one can experience a sense of wonder and awe.  Allow yourself to feel true joy at a perfectly soaked bite of cereal and how blue the sky is.  Think about life your soul and the deeper pieces of it all.  There’s a lot more to life than a schedule.

12. Everyone has something to offer.  One of those clichés ;).  But seriously.  I have had opportunities this summer to associate with people that in high school, for example, I would have immediately judged as annoying or rude.  And now I realize that one can make at least some connection with everyone they meet—even people you don’t necessarily click or vibe with.  You can learn something from everyone, people.  This is a very simple thing that I wish I had learned earlier in life.

13. You can do things that a year ago you would have thought would be impossible for you to ever do.  You just do it.  Again with the 20 seconds of insane courage thing.  I remember always expecting certain things in my life to come/end with some kind of pizazz.  But let’s go back to graduation.  It was the most anticlimactic day of my life.  Life continues.  You can do big things.  A dear friend reminded me today that time goes by anyway, so you may as way fill it instead of just dreaming of what it will later be filled with.  Human beings are capable of doing really hard things.  So much so that even the seemingly hardest can turn out to be not just possible, but really quite simple.  You can do it.

14. Jesus lives, and God is good.  None of these lessons matter if you don’t remember those two things.  Jesus Christ lives.  He loves you.  He is the only begotten Son of our Heavenly Father, our God.  God is good and wants the absolute best for you—a best that can’t even be imagined by our little human minds.  They love us.  They know us.  They are involved in our lives and yearn to help us, we just need to be prayerful and worthy for such help.  And not only does God have a big plan for the vast scales of all humanity, but He has a plan for you individually.  He loves you individually.  Even if you were His only child, He would have created all He created and did all He did even still.  Let me repeat a previous comment: Knowing that there is a God Who loves you is necessary to experience the fullest kind of happiness. So learn it. Know it, and walk down the sidewalk.  

The Frustrating Nature of the Unnecessary DTR

In thinking about humans, I've come to the logical and legitimate conclusion that we all think we are idiots. And because we think we are idiots, we have this sense of responsibility to define most everything as a means of thorough preparation. I do understand that planning and defining how we should act in certain situations, what we should say when a certain thing happens, and what to do at various times of day, etc. to some extent is a healthy way to maintain organization and in fact sanity. 

But. 

It has occurred to me that when we are entirely enthralled with defined plans, it becomes a form of borderline insanity itself. We define to the point that when an event that doesn't usually happen (and therefore the emotional response and physical action to said event hasn't been planned) happens, we become very frustrated and afraid. Hence, we strive to define what to do when even the once in a lifetime and extraordinary happen. This, my friends, is where the "borderline insanity," ("insanity" in the sense of acting like someone or something that you are not to the point that you become that thing), becomes a concern. 

I bring this up because of some recent events in my personal/dating (yes, I know) life that I should probably explain. A certain special guy in my life is currently serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints—a whole new story/blog post waiting to happen all together. For those of you unfamiliar with this circumstance that I happen to be in, let me explain. Members of our church, generally from the ages of 18-28 or after they retire, have the opportunity to serve as missionaries, preaching our glorious gospel to different parts of the world. Young men, based on if they are worthy and able, are specifically are asked to leave their families, educational opportunities, and everything else in their life—*cough, cough* including their certain special girls—to serve as a missionary for two years. This calling has left me and thousands of other girls writing letters and sending packages to our loves all over the world. Obviously, along with letter-writing and package-sending, a lot of personal assessing goes on during the two years your dearest is away, including deciding whether or not to faithfully not lay an eye on any other young man, or to date others while he is away, with the risk that you will start faithfully dating someone else before his two year service is complete. As you can imagine, this leads to a lot of fake promise making and heart breaking. As for me, I plan on being available when my missionary friend comes home, but not dating anyone else for an entire two years seems a bit ridiculous, does it not?

So.

I've been going on what to me are for the most part very casual, non-committal dates with various young men. Dating is...dating, right? Let's just talk about dating for a minute. I don't want to sound all negative, dating is often fun and always interesting. I’ve met many of my best friends through dates. Getting to know new people and make friends through dating is wonderful. But if we're truly honest with ourselves, does anybody actually like dating itself? Not really. We like the friends, sparkly feelings, lipstick, potential relationships i.e. MARRIAGE, and conversations of dating, but dating itself is mainly just confusing and time consuming. Even if one is entirely in love with the person they are dating, they still want to be done dating and just be married to that person! But still, it appears that the above mentioned benefits of sparkles and marriage out-weigh the confusing time-consumption of dating. 

And so, we date. And really, we learn to love it. Through the conversations of dating, we learn to embrace the charming awkwardness and laugh at the incompatibility of ourselves and literally every single person we date except for one, and we learn to find the beauty in each other despite that incompatibility. Through the time spent dating, we form, if nothing more, wonderful friendships. We learn to love, serve, and respect others emotionally and physically through the romance of dating. And we discover a lot about ourselves as we learn to love ourselves as well as other people by learning to love dating them and dating in general.

We also, however, learn to hate it. We learn this through various heart-tormenting experiences, but the one I’d particularly like to address at this time is the experience of being the recipient of the unnecessary/un-called for DTR, break-up, or unofficial marriage proposal. Having been the recipient of all of these tidings in the last six months of my life, I'd like to express my opinion on the matter, an opinion that I really think should be a given:

You can't DTR with, break up with, or propose to someone you were never actually dating.

That's really not that much to ask, right?

In looking at some recent experiences of mine, it would appear that apparently it is a lot to ask (?). A couple recent random, unnecessary DTR talks brought on to me by boys I was never dating have reconfirmed to me that DTR talks are the actual worst. Regardless of how much you have dated, they are the worst. Yes, it's important to tell a romantic interest, lover, spouse, date, friend, or anyone significant in your life for that matter, how and why you feel about them, and what the both of you are going to do because of those feelings. But if you have to sit down and have an actual conversation in which you define your relationship and what it is you are doing/feeling with a single term such as "just friends," or even "boyfriend/girlfriend," odds are you really don't have that much of a relationship to define. For if you had a relationship to "define," you would already know exactly what it was based on the feelings, moments, conversation, service, contact, and time you have shared together. Previously mentioned terms such as “just friends” and “boyfriend/girlfriend” ideally should be the product of the feeling toward each other, rather than the defined dictator of the feeling toward each other. Hence, generally speaking, I think that only someone who doesn’t really have a relationship with you is the one to propose that you define the relationship with them.

As un-dated boys asked me to be their “girlfriend” or “insert cheesy defined title here,” and I said no due to the fact that I had been on at most 2 to 3 dates with these boys and had in my mind expressed no romantic interest in them, they obviously felt it would be right to break up with me (again: ?). I think that stems from some desire to not be rejected—how dare I say no to being their “whatever,” so they must formally tell me that they reject me so as to win the “breakup” when, again might I emphasize, we weren’t even dating. This is actually a common occurrence in my life, being broken up with by guys I was never dating. It’s happened quite a few times. And every time it does, I get this odd feeling that I guess you would get when broken up with; feelings of guilt and hurt and inadequacy flood my mind for about two minutes and then my heart for about four seconds and then I realize—I wasn’t actually dating this boy, making this breakup absolutely hilarious.

Marriage proposals, on the other hand, really can’t be taken lightly enough to be thought of as hilarious. Marriage and love are the most sacred of human experiences. Therefore, bringing up marriage and falling in love with someone that you aren’t even really dating and therefore don’t even really know is, in all seriousness, quite frankly absolutely immature and incredibly disrespectful to all things Holy, as Love is the ultimate manifestation of Divine Holiness.

As stated at the beginning, people think they are idiots, and therefore want every occurrence to be pre-planned so as to not look like an idiot when it occurs, causing the sparkly feelings of a couple of dates to be confused with love and unnecessary and/or inappropriate actions to follow. For the betterment of experiences with love and relationships for all, I’d like to make my own proposal. I propose that we remember that the best things in life are rarely planned and hardly ever entirely defined, but rather simply felt, earned and intrinsically known. We must learn to trust our Divinely innate capability to know, to feel, and to love.

The Tenacity of Time

As an early philosopher, Saint Augustine pondered many concepts of the universe with much success; his writings have very heavily influenced the progress of western Christianity and philosophy. There seems to be one concept, however, that he could never understand, and that is the concept of time. Augustine once said that he knew exactly what time was until someone asked him to define it, at which point he was at a loss for words. It would appear that to him the concept of time was like the concept of being. It is impossible to define what being is, because the very definition includes the concept itself. To be is—it just is. Time is—well really it just is. But I, being me, have attempted to “define” time. 

I've noticed that people who like to think tend to enjoy venturing on journeys such as "defining time" all to end up close to where they started—with still no definition but even further confusion. I'd still like to take this venture because I believe in the importance of thinking about things that effect our lives so very acutely, as time clearly does. Time, at its most simplistic and childish definition, is thought of as the ticking of a clock, the hour of the day and p.m. versus a.m. But, based on how much we value, plan according to, and yearn to fill time, it is clear that it means much more to us than a clock; time itself still exists in this world, regardless of how we choose to or choose not to measure it.

Everything we do centers around time; we are constantly talking about time. We talk about "spending time" and "having time" and "giving time" and "taking the time," as though time is some physical substance that we can spend, have, give, and take. Time is obviously not a physical substance. We talk about other physically non-substantial things in a similar manner as well. Take love, for example. We talk about "giving love" and "having love," as though love is a type of physical matter. The difference, however, between love and time is that love has emotional substance, and therefore may at least feel like it has physical substance entering the soul as well, whereas time doesn't even have that. Time is neither a physically or emotionally substantial form of matter. So why, then, do we think of it as such?

My answer to the question above lies in the tenacity of time. Time is persistent. Time is determined. Time is constantly gripping upon us to be felt, heard, and filled in such a way that generally speaking only something with physical or at least emotional substance could. Time is perhaps the root of all insanity (tick, tock, tick, tock); time demands to be filled with rational, emotional, physical, or spiritual activity and if it is not filled with those things it will be fill itself with anxious and eventually insane activity. 

Ironically enough, as we fill time with activities, time itself governs our activities. We plan everything from when we will eat and sleep to when we will fall in love and get married according to the governance of time. When it is the appropriate time of day, we sleep, just as when it is the appropriate time of life, we fall in love. We hesitate for seconds or years to do certain things because we think and/or we plan that we will have time or it will be time later.

It is as though we can't decide for ourselves when things must happen and must be told by time so we don't jump the gun or fall behind. For this reason, I would propose that time is laughing at us. Ticking on, dreadfully and carelessly, time tortures us by captivating our actions and consuming our thoughtful need to plan, all the while perhaps chuckling at our obedience, waiting for us to do something about it. We far too often remember to follow set schedules simply for the sake of following time and far too often forget the beloved advice from the movie We Bought a Zoo that “Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Just literally 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery and I promise you, something great will come out of it.” I would propose that actions performed in a random 20 seconds of unplanned, unprepared, embarrassing bravery are the soulful man’s way of stealing 20 seconds away from time—exactly what time itself has been waiting for us to do all along.