Your Path

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future." - Oscar Wilde

One time in institute, our teacher asked us who we thought was better: someone who had sinned and repented or someone who had never sinned. A girl answered that the person who never sinned was better, and the teacher concurred.
This bothered me.
Don't we believe that the atonement is powerful enough to make us completely clean again?
It is definitely safer to stay on the straight and narrow. You protect yourself from the pain and sorrow that comes from sin. However, everyone steps off the path at some point. None of us are flawless. Some get back to the path quickly with only a splinter to heal from. Others must fight their way back through briers and vines. They will be hurt, but their wounds will heal. Their feet will become tough and calloused, their wounds will scab and scar. They will be stronger from the journey. Whoever makes the journey, however they make it, can be embraced by our Father.

We will be judged not by what we have done, but by who we've become. 

For so long I thought if I didn't beat myself up about everything I wasn't doing right, I wouldn't become any better. This is not true at all. It made me feel guilty and depressed. It made me feel like giving up.
I am good enough as I am right now.
I can be better because I want to, not because I'm not good enough.
My Father knows my heart.

I want to share this song with you. It makes me cry every time I listen to it.

Honey, don't jump the gun
There's a life worth living on
When the world comes crashing down
In God's arms you're safe and sound
Let the love of new life spread
In the light you'll walk 'til death
Then arise a forgiven soul
As Daddy says "Welcome home, job well done."
Oh, honey, don't jump the gun.

For Granted

This week... well, let's just say it's not going so smoothly.
Over Thanksgiving break I recieved a call from my bishop. "Are you sitting down?" he asked, and sent my mind racing. He explained he was standing in my bedroom - in a foot or so of water. My clothes and shoes were being taken to the laundremat and I was told I could be compensated for any damage.
I wasn't fazed. They're just THINGS, I told myself.
I knew it would all work out.


But it's been hard. I came home Saturday night to a room full of fans and clutter - and no coats or shoes or blankets. Everone I asked seemed to have a different answer regarding where my things were. Some of those things were so pretty, and I loved them so much.
Why did it take a disaster to make me realize that? Why wasn't I grateful before?

"Humans have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted" -Aldous Huxley

It's something we're all very good at. We adjust to ups and downs in order to reach a homeostatic norm, which is good when we're facing lots of downs, but it minimizes our ups as well. We should magnify every up we have, we should delight in simple beauty and exude effortless charity.

There is so much good here.


I will not take these days for granted. I will not continue to sit in my musty apartment hiding from the cold and my own insecurities.
(I will sit in my musty apartment and try to eventually get my homework done... But after that? I'm going to carpe freaking diem. Or noctem, as it were. )

Oh and my sister is getting married! I'm so happy for her!

Let me count the ways...

"Whatever you are doing, love yourself doing it. Whatever you are feeling, love yourself feeling it."
- Thaddeus Golas

I've been doing a lot. I'm taking eleven classes (five of them are dance classes, so it's not THAT crazy, but it is time consuming) and just when I thought I had finished my midterms, another wave hits. I have three next week. Sometimes it's hard to love what I'm doing, and then we learn a beautiful dance or I find a pretty leaf or I watch a thought provoking play and I love it again.

I've been feeling a lot, too. Fear of inadequacy, homesickness, lonliness... and love and strength and bliss. My roomate must think I'm bipolar, I swear.

Sometimes it helps to recognize what I love about myself, because I forget to love myself.

I love the calluses layered on my feet. They break and peel and build on top of each other and look completely disgusting, but they tell a story of steps and leaps and spins.

I love the shadow my lower lip casts on my chin. I only recently noticed it, and it's a unique and beautiful thing.

I love my hair (sometimes). It's thick and wavy and naturally blonde. I'd like it longer, I'd like it less frizzy and dry, but I take pride in my mane. It's wild.

I love that I can run four miles. I used to die running one lap in high school. (One year I asked my teacher if I could try skipping instead and she let me. I felt like a fairy.)

I love that I have opinions. I love that I can sometimes manage to voice them eloquently and convincingly.

I love that I am alive.

It seems like I'm still waiting for the sun

I'm not going to lie, I thought college would be different.
I thought I'd have a job by now.
I don't, but not for lack of effort.
I thought I could handle eleven classes.
I can, but barely.
I thought I'd have tons of friends.
I'm still working on that.

Some days are harder than others. I've always taken it for granted that I had friends from many different places - CYT, school, church, dances - and that any given weekend, if I called enough people, I could find someone to be with. It never took much effort, and my method led to much on-demand companionship. Some of these companions turned out to truely be my friends.

But, like most things, you don't miss something until you've left it behind.

So I'm making more of an effort than I've ever had to make before, and I'm afraid I'm not doing very well. I'm more shy and insecure than I thought I was. Every invitation I extend feels like I'm bracing myself against rejection. I truly empathize with the complaints of boys who struggle asking girls out. I asked boys out at home more than I was ever asked out, but I always knew before I asked that they would say yes, that they wanted to be with me.

I don't know that here.

I don't know who I even am right now. I'm "in between" in so many ways, and sometimes I catch myself, like Lot's wife, looking back longingly. I just want a friend who feels like family, who I can talk to about my thoughts and feelings and insecurities and delights and discoveries without feeling like I have to create a persona for them to be enamored with.

The truth is, there's a lot about me not to love and I'm sick of pretending there isn't. But that's how you make friends, isn't it? You talk about nothing of lasting importance. You pretend to be fascinating and cool until they figure out you're really just spacy and hyperactive.

Is it normal that the reason I'm looking forward to Christmas break isn't that I want to see my friends but that I want to be home? I miss my brother and my family and my room and the ocean and I want to go on long walks in the canyon with Wibby and bake things from scratch and spend way too much time at the Mitchell's house?

Gracenotes

I see a lot of balance in my life. Every day seems to wobble with little joys and setbacks, but ultimately reaches stability.
Today was full of wobbles.
In tap we prepared our routine for our upcoming test, and I struggled to keep my hands from flapping awkwardly and my face from becoming a mask of concentration. This made me anxious and overconcious and prone to silly mistakes, which are not easily masked in tap.
In tap I built up a growing friendship.

I tried to go to devotional, but there wasn't one. The girl I went with left me sitting alone.
They played an old devotional from 1994, and I felt inspired.

I took my American Heritage test today. I was really nervous. I got an 82%
That was worse than I wanted but better than I probably deserved. I'm so grateful for the help of my Heavenly Father with my studies.

I went for a very long exploring walk today.
I gained a few blisters.
I shed a few worries.
I found peace.

I tried to go to the temple today, but it was closed.
Instead, I had a scintillating conversation with a new friend.

It really made me think.
And I am grateful.

I am grateful for the people who have been sent into my life.
I am grateful for my opportunities, for my talents, and for my time.
I am grateful for a loving Father who knows what I need even as I whine to Him about what I want.

So are you guys, like, best friends?

The answer to this question, suprisingly, is no.
We're not best friends.
We're something better.

Carissa was the first person I met when I moved to San Diego. She has been a part of my life ever since. We have so many inside jokes, it almost feels like another language, and I can be myself around her. We were always friends, but never Best Friends. She wasn't the first person I would call when I wanted to hang out. I didn't gush to her about everything going on in my life. I probably took her for granted a lot, but she was always there.

Sometimes she was the only one there.

When we went on the East Coast Trip, we ended up as roomates. We didn't really plan on it, but we both signed up late and decided to go together. That's pretty much what happened with college. We didn't even consider rooming together for the longest time.
I'm so glad we did, though.

College has been a bit of a shock for me. It's not what I expected, but it's what I needed. The same could be said for rooming with Carissa.

I expected midnight gigglefests and secret sharing. I expected long talks. I expected deep philosophical conversations that shifted our paradigms.
There has been some of those moments, but they have not been the most important moments.
That has never been the basis of our relationship.


I don't have to pretend for her. I don't have to act like I have everything together. I can fall apart in front of her and she still loves me.
I struggle to show her that I appreciate her. I often express how glad I am that we decided to room together, but the sentiment is probably drowned out by other words. I talk a lot more than I listen. I complain and I rant and I whine.

I treat her like I take her for granted.

I hope she knows I don't.
I hope she knows that there isn't anyone else in the world who I would rather room with this year.
I hope she knows that I think she is one of the strongest, most grounded girls I know.
I hope she knows that I look up to her.
I hope she knows that I love her.

So I talked with another counselor today

It's been a long journey, and I haven't even begun yet.

I've pretty much known what I want to do since I was in middle school.
Well, I've always known I want to be a stay at home mom, but everyone needs a backup plan.
My back up plan has been unfolding for a while. In middle school, I decided I wanted to be a psychologist. I love learning about social trends and cognitive patterns and using that information to better understand myself and to more effectively love my friends.
By my Freshman year of High School, I knew I needed to work with children. I thought about working with LDS social services. Later, I took Child Development. I interned at several elementary schools, preschools, and daycares. I disagreed with some of the disciplinary choices made by the daycare providers. I realized I would never be satisfied being a child psychologist if I couldn't gaurentee that I could alter their home environment.
I decided I wanted to work as an advocate for children with learning disabilities. As an advocate, I would be working with parents who wanted to take action and to do as much as they could for their child. As an advocate, I could make a tangible difference.
To become a legal advocate involves lots and lots of school. Law school. The more education I sought, the less accessible I would become to the parents who needed me most. I would most likely be working with affluent parents against the already floundering school districts. I most certainly wasn't aiming for that. However, I could choose to be a public interest lawyer. I could represent the school districts in a plea to the state. I could write for grants. I could fight for better programs, more individualized teaching styles, even throw in some fights to keep the arts in schools.
I could make such a difference.

Turning Leaves

Classes start tomorrow, and I find myself thinking how much has changed in just one year.
I'm in Utah! I no longer tell directions by the ocean, but by the sunset and the mountains. Being a Latter Day Saint doesn't make me unique. [Heck, being an opera singer and fluent in French wouldn't make me unique here]
I've been eating healthier, and I feel great.
I'm growing closer to my Heavenly Father every day, and I love it!
I'm trying to be less superficial about how I choose my friends.
I'm finding peace in silence.
For the first time in my life, I'm actually looking forward to school starting!

Bubbles and Squeak

Today at the fair this woman was telling me how she loves going to this restaurant and ordering bubbles and squeak, which is a stew made from odds and ends and leftovers.
This post is made up off odds and ends and leftovers.
I hope they manage to come together and form something substantial.

I feel like I am happiest when I am gathering anecdotes.
I guess euphemistically I could call this Going On Adventures or Making Memories, but I love the storytelling almost as much as the adventure itself. I love how, as you tell a story, you are totally in control of creating this world. Without lying or exaggerating, you can make a story intense or boring, monumental or forgetable. It is an artform that takes courage.
I always feel guilty monopolizing conversations, and cut my stories short.
I wouldn't want to bore anyone.

Also sometimes I see talking to people as just a practice run for the real thing. Every time I tell a story it gets a little clearer in my own head. Details are removed or inserted to edit or clarify. Even when I rant and argue now, I'm creating ruts in my neurological pathways that I hope to easily access again when the topic returns.
Anybody else feel the same way?

My mother says I have an attachment disorder. I think she may be right.
My sister takes a long time to love someone, but when she does, it lasts a long time. She still has her Cuppy that she used to drag around everywhere. When I was little, since I've always looked up to her, I tried my best to emulate her. Time after time I would promise myself and whoever happened to be listening that this stuffed animal would be my best friend, my Cuppy, and that I would take it everywhere. Fifteen minutes later, the bear [or dog or lamb or bunny...] would be nowhere in sight. But for those fifteen minutes, I loved that stuffed animal with all my heart.
I do the same thing with friends, sadly. I get distracted. New friends are so interesting and fresh and intriguing, and I forget. Luckily, I have friends who, unlike my poor stuffed animals, pick themselves up and come looking for me.
I don't know why I'm so blessed to have met the amazing people who love me even when it's not easy to love me.

I've put off writing for a while, even though I have more to say.
I expect too much of this.
In books, in movies, and in music, we reach a level of perfection that we can't reach in real life.
Everything fits perfectly, nothing is extraneous or awkward.
And it's beautiful.


I accept that I'm not perfect, even though I try to be.
I accept that other people aren't perfect. I don't want them to be.

"Certain flaws are necessary for the whole."
-Goethe

I enjoy awkwardness. It allows a mutual break from stringently fake social conformity, and, when used sparingly, strengthens rather than weakens potential friendships.

I just thought that maybe I could create the illusion of perfection through writing.
I thought I could create this metaphysical sphere where my thoughts were suddenly orchestrated into something beautiful.
I thought I could make sense of the gorgeous mess in my mind.

"My words don't travel far. They tangle in my hair and tend to go nowhere."
-Regina Spektor

I know what I want to say, but when I speak, I over clarify. I speak in circles, explaining in seventeen different ways until nobody is listening anymore. Somehow, after all of that, I still don't get my point across.

Writing helps. It doesn't magically make my thoughts clear and perfect and organized, but if it did, it wouldn't sound like me anymore.
Writing isn't for someone else to speak for me, to make me sound pretty. It's to make my voice heard.

All I can hope is that maybe you can understand me.
That should be enough.

Take my hand and watch the world go by...

Life seems to be speeding by without me.

Senior year is almost over, and I feel like I missed it.

I like being alone. A lot. But I feel like working has taken the place of my social life.
I'm not home that much, and I'm not alone that much, but I'm certainly not hanging out with people.
Which is fine.
It's just hard to catch up with someone, and realize just how much has changed in their lives
and how little is going on in your own.
Outside of books, that is.

I caught myself spiraling in today. I was reading and listening to music, sitting alone at a table in Child Development. Occasionally, I would pull out my notebook and write in it.
I shut people out.
And when I talk to people, I don't ask questions.
I just don't know how.
I tell stories. I ramble. Generally, my friends interrupt.
But the ones who I want to know the most about just let me talk.
I want people to be like books.
If I give them time and attention, they'll give me a peek into another world.
Sometimes I need to ask to be allowed in.
I'm not sure I know the password.

"There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting Monologues. That is all."
-Rebecca West


Also, I found a bouquet of roses in the gutter today. So if you see rose petals scattered along the street or roses playing hide and seek, you'll know why.

"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery-The Little Prince

Friday will be my very last day interning for Child Development.
I absolutely love my children, but every time I start talking about them, I can feel people losing interest.
So I stop.
I do this a lot.
It leaves me with not very much to talk about.
Because a lot of the things that make up my life don't really interest other people.

But I digress.

The most recent site I was interning at is different from the prior ones. It's a daycare "with an emphasis on learning" rather than a school. The children are younger and the "teachers" [read:babysitters] are overworked and underpaid.
When I first got there, I was appalled. I was placed in the youngest age group because nobody else would volunteer, [for good reason! The entire group was crying when we got there.] and I was pretty much dreading the experience.
And it was hard.
And it was heartbreaking.
Because no child wants to be left in a daycare.

Over time, I came to love the children.
[I still don't love the facility, but that's ok.]
They can barely say their names, but I know them.

I know that Isabella loves feeling pretty. That if she's ever crying, playing dress ups will help. She loves the pink knitted scarf and likes to tickle your face with it.

I know that Druv is very aware. He wants the classroom to run smoothly, and he wants to help. He can be a bit of a tattletale, but he's only trying to help. He sees everything. If he's crying, you have to distract him by asking him what color different blocks are.

I know that Hayle is severely attached to her blanket and the doll with the missing eye. She screams easily, but that's a learned defense mechanism in a busy daycare. When she's happy, her smile can turn your world upside down. She's beautiful. She hates getting her hands messy, and has little patience for art projects.

I know Bryan wants attention. He is our little troublemaker. He hits and bites and grabs, [all of which is acceptable at home, and even positively enforced.] but he's also loving and sweet, when he wants to be. He has a hard time understanding social cues and directions, but he's always seeking approval and validation. He seems bewildered half the time that the other kids avoid him.

I could write pages, but I can't imagine anyone actually read all of this anyways.
The point is, you don't always have to talk to know someone.
Or love someone.

"The language of friendship is not words, but meanings"
- Henry David Thoreau


I'm going to miss them so much.

At least out loud, I won't say I'm...

"in love"

Loving is as easy as breathing for me.
When I love someone, I tell them.
Often.
I convince others [and myself] that this is completely fine, because I'm not "in love" with them.
So what is "in love?"
I don't know. I've never been in love.
But I know that when I am in love, I won't be asking this question.
I'll know.

Love is peaceful.
Love is feeling comfortable with someone.
Love isn't clingy. It's a choice, not an obligation.
It is mutual respect for and interest in another person.
Love is the most divine attribute of the human soul.
Ideally, it should be felt toward every spiritual brother and sister.
I know what love is. I have felt it.

I suppose being "in love" is all of this, and more.
It's being so intertwined, that you become one in purpose.
It's growing closer to God together.
It's building a life.
Being "in love" is infinite.
It never stops growing or expanding.
It is the most powerful force in the universe.
It is, I believe, what our Heavenly Father feels for us.
Being "in love" is hardly romantic.
It is the closest we have to magic.

I have never felt this, so I can only guess.

So it begins

"People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say."
-Kurt Vonnegut

When I was younger, I spoke a lot. I talked to hear myself talk, and I talked to be heard. I had a lot to say, and all of it was important. I still have this loquacious inclination, but it has been tempered. I think about what I say for ages before I decide to say it. Usually by then, the moment to speak has passed. So sometimes, I don't say anything even when I have a lot to say, and it needs a place to come out.

This is my place.

I will not be silent. I will rant and I will ramble. This is not for you to read, though you are welcome to read. This is for me. There is power in writing, and I will find that power. I will write because someday I may think something worth sharing, and I wouldn't want to forget how to say it.