Little Toy Cars

Imagine that you have this little toy car (I played with cars as a kid, okay?). It's the prettiest, most wonderful toy car you've ever seen. The exterior design is perfect, the wheels never snag or stick, and you can run it the whole length of your bedroom and back and it's unbelievably easy to imagine yourself as the best racecar driver in the world. You spend hours playing with this perfect toy car. You take it with you wherever you go and show it off to all of your friends.

Then one day, your dad asks you to give him your toy car. Like, for keeps. "But why, Dad? This is my very favorite car. Here, how about I give you this other one instead?" But your dad insists. It has to be your toy car. Your very favorite one. He is firm but gentle in his request and finally you relent and place it in his outstretched hand. He deftly tucks it away and you feel a piece of your heart shatter. You loved that car so much that you can't imagine how you're going to have fun without it. While tears fill your eyes, your dad turns and pulls out something new: A bike.

Not only is the bike much bigger and nicer than your toy car, but it will take you places. You don't have to pretend you're a racecar driver anymore; you can race around on your bike for real. Suddenly your world just got so much larger. You can go farther and get there faster with your bike than you ever could take your toy car. You don't have to ask Mom for a ride to your friend's house. Now you can get there yourself.

Pretty soon, however, your dad comes back to you and asks you to give him your bike. You feel upset. He gave you that bike. Why on earth is he wanting to take it back now? But your dad is so kind and gentle and loving that you do it anyway. And he gives you the keys to your very own motorcycle.

With all that horsepower, you can carry yourself and a substantial amount of weight across incredible distances at incredible speeds. Your world just expanded again.

And so it goes on. Eventually, your dad asks for the return of the motorcycle and gives you a car that allows you to carry yourself, other people, and all of the baggage you all carry with you all over the continent. The world is yours, and now you get to bring other people along with you (and we all know road trips are more fun with other people).

So where am I going with this?

Based on experiences in my own life, and because of things my younger siblings are dealing with, I've been thinking a lot about how the Lord often asks us to trust Him and give up something that we love, and what happens when we do.

Have you ever tried to get a kid to give up his favorite toy long enough for you to give him something new? When they're young, they only really understand what's in front of them, and they don't realize that you're about to give them something better, so giving that toy up is the end of their happiness, at least from their perspective. Our first loves, the things and people that make us feel as though the world will end if we give them up, those are our little toy cars. They are amazing, and they help us imagine great things and chase big dreams. But they may not be able to carry us very far in life. So the Lord asks us to trust Him enough to let Him give us something that will increase our ability to progress.

As time goes on and this process repeats, with the vehicle getting better each time, we begin to see the bigger picture. We begin to understand that He's asking it back each time for a good reason. Something better is in store. And so, each time He asks, we give the vehicle back a little more willingly, having learned from experience that the Lord never downgrades us to something less than we've given up. Eventually, we may end up with a fleet of jets at our disposal, carrying hundreds and thousands of other lives closer to our Father. But before we can get there, WE HAVE TO GIVE UP THE TOY CAR.

Now, I recognize that this is not a perfect metaphor for all aspects of life. But I think it does apply beautifully to the principle of sacrifice as I've come to understand it. Whether I've given up a relationship, a job opportunity, or some other goal or dream because the Lord has guided me down a path that didn't allow for that particular thing, I've come to realize that I always end up with something better than what I've given up and that I've come further in life than I might have otherwise. A bike can carry you across the country if you're patient and smart, but a car will do it much faster with a much heavier load, and a jet even more so. If you cling to your "bike," you'll get to the same place eventually, but it may take longer (and you run a greater risk of giving up out of fatigue before getting there), and you may not be able to touch as many other lives and bring them along with you.When we put our lives in the Lord's hands, I completely believe that He increases our capacity to bear burdens and help others and speeds up our own progress at the same time.

I can't begin to count the number of times this has happened to me. When I was 12, my family moved away, taking me away from my two best friends (one of whom I had a crush on). I honestly thought my world was ending and that I'd never find friends as good as the ones I'd left behind. But then, when I was 14, I met the girl who would eventually become as close to me as my own sister and who, now, 12 years later, is still a person I can count on to love me no matter what. When I graduated from college and finished my internship with the Ensign, I wanted nothing in the world more than to work for the Church for the rest of my life. "What could be better?" I asked myself. It was definitely a worthy goal, and a very clear way to use my professional skills to build the Lord's kingdom. But after a long stretch of contract work, every opportunity for full-time work for the Church closed in my face. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get a job in the one place I thought I wanted to be. Then my current job came along. Among the many perks and blessings that this job has given me, one of the coolest is that I have the freedom to transfer among any of the 90+ offices in the country or work from home: my world just got a lot bigger. I can go anywhere with a lot more freedom now because I can take my job (and all of those other perks and benefits!) with me wherever I go.

It can be so hard to give up something that we love (whether it's a relationship, a job, a home, a hobby, or any other dream or passion). The heartbreak we suffer when we do is so very real. And sometimes, when the Lord asks us to give up something that He gave us and pushed us toward in the first place, the feelings of heartbreak and betrayal can be devastating. But He always does it with a good reason. I'm young, yes, but it has happened enough in my own life that I know that it's true.

So, as you face course changes, redirected paths, and surrendered dreams, have courage. Your Heavenly Father will never make you suffer needlessly. Inside every painful sacrifice is the seed of your own success and ultimate happiness.

Heaven Help Me

I had a date tonight.

It went well.

I fell in love. 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

With the place, not necessarily the man.

I'm sorry, was that misleading? (muahaha) ;) 

The guy was actually really nice. He was one of my better dates so far. I've had a lot of dates that went fine, but I felt really "meh" about afterward. Like, if the guy was persistent and asked me out again, I'd say yes, mostly because I had no reason to say no (incidentally, none of those "meh" dates have actually asked me out again--I guess they felt the same way). I've had a couple where I decided I'd discourage any continued attempts at dating. And I've had one or two where I really wanted to go on another date. This one fell towards the positive end of the scale. I might actually solicit a second date instead of just letting them do all the work (which is a pretty good indication of my interest). 

But that's not the point of this story. The point is that he took me to this little German deli in downtown SLC. 

And do you realize what German delis have???

REAL, AUTHENTIC GERMAN CHOCOLATE! Oh heaven help me, I probably shouldn't know that this place exists, because now I know how to get my hands on the best chocolate (and yes, Mom, I checked--it's not "imported" through Nestle, it's 100% real) whenever I want. I don't have to wait for my sister who is in Germany on her mission to send me some. 

Guys, I'm in trouble. Because it's also walking distance from work.

Oh, and I've actually now had weinerschnitzel, and it's really good. I don't know what it's made of, but it tasted delicious. And this was in my head the whole time:

Sauerkraut (oh my gosh, I am infinitely proud of the fact that I'm spelling these German words correctly without having to ask Google how to do it) is also...not that bad. It was pretty good, actually. My date ordered some and insisted that I try it, so I did. I wouldn't eat a whole plate of  it or anything, but it's a nice side dish/garnish on a savory meal. I get why people do sauerkraut hot dogs and stuff. I might even do that myself someday.

When we were in the German section of Epcot at Disney World when I was 17, I'm pretty sure I either flat-out refused to try sauerkraut, or I hated it on principle. My dad (or Brian, not sure who) tried to convert me and it failed. But in the years since that day, I have discovered that being a picky eater has deprived me of some really good food. I can't believe I lived most of my life without tomatoes or avocados. What a sad, lonely existence I had before. So I've learned to be more adventurous in my food choices, because you never know what might be delicious. (That did backfire once, when we had tacos de lengua (cow tongue) for a work lunch, and my boss asked jokingly, "So who is tasting who?" right in the middle of my bite. I can never do cow tongue again, no matter how good it actually tastes.)

And those are my food-related anecdotes for the day.

The online dating thing is still going well. Nothing too exciting in the "I've met the man of my dreams!" way, but I'm being exposed to new and different foods, experiencing new things, and stepping outside my comfort zone more often. I like it. :) 

And now I know where to find authentic German chocolate. My wallet and my diet are already whimpering in fear.

Well, what else is new?

Oh hey.

It's me again.

I'm going to sincerely try to be better at blogging this year. This could be another of those well-intentioned New Year's resolutions that tapers off by mid-February, but my life has spiced up in some new and interesting ways, so I think I have more to write about, which will hopefully help.

For one thing, I finally signed up for online dating.

I know.

*GASP!* YOU DID WHAT??

That's a slight exaggeration of my parents' reaction. ;)

It's taken me a long time to come around to the idea because, I'll be honest, I was totally one of those people who thought that online dating was for desperate losers who couldn't catch the attention of anyone in real life. Considering the status of my dating life the last four years, that might not be too far off from the truth. :P

Kidding. Totally kidding.

The idea has been growing on me ever since my best friend from college met her husband through online dating. She's definitely not a desperate loser, and she had a really good experience with it. Then it seemed like all of my friends were getting married that way. (The ones who weren't were marrying people they knew from high school and that is not an option for me.) And all of these people getting married were amazing, socially graceful, intelligent people. Huh. Maybe there's something to this online dating thing after all. But I still put it off for over a year. I finally signed up in November.

And guess what?

It's been pretty cool, actually. I like that the whole concept of online dating is that you have a lot of information about the person right up front, and it kind of facilitates a more open conversation about expectations. I like cutting through the mind games and the weird back-and-forth dynamics of trying to show interest without showing interest that we do so much. For example, I've had a couple of first dates where the guy was like, "Well, this was fun. How are you feeling about a second date?" And I was allowed to decline a second date (or encourage one) without him getting all weird about it. The honesty is refreshing. (It has blown up in my face a few times, where someone takes my difference of opinion personally and gets all mad, but those just make good stories later, and it doesn't happen that often, so I don't care.)

So I'm having some fun with that. Plus, I just went from going on one or two dates per year to having one or more a week, and even though it gets a little overwhelming sometimes, I don't mind having that problem. It's nice to be meeting new people and occasionally making new friends out of it.

Out of respect to the guys--because who knows whether any of them may or may not find this blog--I'm actually going to be a little close-lipped about the specifics of my dates. I'm not going to use them as fodder for blogging material (unless I get a story that's just begging for it). It's also better for me to keep my interests and hopes about specific guys a little more private. Trust me, if I find a good one, you'll hear about him eventually. ;)

So yeah. Online dating. It's not that scary. In fact, it's actually been really nice for my self-esteem to discover that there are guys who will pick me out of a sea of faces and pursue me because they think I'm worth getting to know (and the occasional doofus who's like, "Ur hott, want 2 go out?" is kind of nice, too. As shallow as it is, it's just a teensy bit satisfying to know that I'm pretty enough for some of those super shallow guys who don't care about a girl's personality. I would never date one, obviously, and I might be a bad person for enjoying the attention, but there you have it. I'm just a little bit shallow sometimes).

Overall, I'm just happy that I have lots of opportunities to meet good guys. It's very possible that I'll still meet someone at church, or at work, or serving in the temple (how cheesy and adorable would that be?). I haven't given up on that at all. But if by chance my man is living a couple of cities away and wouldn't bump into me on a normal day, well, now he can still find me. That's worth the effort of online dating, in my opinion.

And I guess I'll have to give more updates later. I rambled longer than planned. :)

Hairadventure

So, I've kind of been meaning to post about my hair for awhile now. Yes, my hair deserves its own post. It's that great.

Okay, okay, so I'm kidding.

Kind of.

No, but seriously.

I'm actually surprisingly vain about my hair. It's the one feature that I pretty much always have a reason to be proud of. Thanks to my mother's training, my high-end shampoo and conditioner, and good genes, my hair is always silky and touchable, no matter how many times I've colored it. So yes, I'm vain about it.

But this is not so much a "Ha! My hair is amazing!" post. More a "My hair taught me some lovely lessons" post.

First things first, you should know that I've been growing my hair out for two years now. It's the longest I have ever, ever had it, and it's taken much care to keep it healthy, especially since I blow dry and straighten colored hair.

So I had a little bit of a scare.

Which I brought upon myself.

I dyed my hair black.

Okay, not like, BLACK black, but yes, the base shade is black, objectively speaking. I wanted my hair to be gloriously dark and, well, I succeeded. It was just, well, darker than I'd planned.

And I hated it. For the first time in my life, I hated my hair. I wanted to strip the color out and try again, but that would probably cost me a lot of the length and smoothness that I love so much.

Man, it was eating at me so badly. And I had important things to do. But major self-image distress has a habit of overriding the ability to focus on anything else, and it was seriously distracting.

It sounds silly, but I prayed for help. I wanted to be able to focus on everything else that needed to be done and stop thinking about my hair. So I prayed about it.

Guys. The Lord answers prayers. Even silly ones. And He did me one better than I'd asked for. I went to church, deciding that I would fake it through comments on my hair if I had to, but I was surprised. I got a ton of compliments. No one seemed to notice that it was black and totally out of character for me. Instead, they said it brought out my eyes, set off my complexion, and so on. By the end of the meetings, I felt absolutely beautiful.

Yes, this is a slightly silly story, but it reinforces the point I really want to make: What matters to us matters to the Lord. Even the little things matter. If it comes down to letting you feel ugly and self-absorbed or reaching out and lifting others, He'll even help you feel better about your hair. He's never going to let you feel miserable needlessly.

I don't know if that comforts you or not, but it sure helps me out. :)

Oh, and the hair in question: (sorry for the selfie)

Ugh, and it's a bathroom selfie. But I swear, it was the only place
where the lighting was good enough, and I was at work anyway.
Please don't judge too harshly. I know what I did wrong. ;)
(And yes, there's red in my hair too. Makes the black less...BLACK)

Thanksvember

Yes, I know. I'm terrible at this blogging thing. However, Roommate is doing NaNoWriMo (which is National Novel Writing Month, for those of you not up on the bookish acronyms) and apparently it's slightly contagious, because I got bit by the writing bug again (finally). I probably won't be formally attempting to write 50,000 words by the end of the month, but I'm going to attempt my own form of it by blogging more, journaling more, and probably pumping out a short story or two.

Oh, and I have letters to write.

Plus, it's November, and gratitude is a common theme, both in blogs and on Facebook. Sometimes, it seems a little hypocritical to see some of my highly opinionated and often-complaining friends suddenly switch to the things they're thankful for, just because it's November, but it's better than not doing it. I'm okay with my friends softening up and becoming more grateful, even if it's only because of the month. The world can always use a little more gratitude.

Which brings me to the purpose of my post. Because I'm going to try to keep up with things that I'm thankful for this month, and not just because that's what everyone else was doing. I've been sitting on this for a while, actually.

See, I got a promotion of sorts at work. It's not like I'm a manager, supervisor, or anything that sounds cool. In fact, my job description is pretty much exactly the same. I just get to be the team "mom," which means that I come in earlier, keep more copious notes on day-to-day tasks, and serve as the sounding board for the real supervisor's ideas and concerns. It's quite enjoyable, actually.

It came with an unexpected side effect, however, which is that my days are all blurring together. The earlier schedule takes a toll, and because I still (kind of) have a social life (which mostly involves just Roommate), I don't get to bed as early as I like. Somehow, I've been running around in a bit of a daze, stuck in a monotonous routine of work, home, sleep, work, home, sleep.

So where does gratitude come in? (Because it does.)

Well, the fact is that it needs to, because that's my problem. It's not like I'm out of time, or I'm wearing myself absolutely thin doing a million things. My days are usually quite pleasurably filled, but I haven't been appreciating them.

You know how, when you're really happy, you savor each and every moment? You treasure and replay the memories, over and over again, wanting to hold onto them forever? I hope you do, because everyone deserves to have days like that. I want to have more moments like that. Because I haven't really been doing much that I feel inclined to hold onto. Or at least, that how it seems, because I haven't been as grateful as I should be.

Because that's the fastest way to turn a seemingly mundane life into a memorable, wonderful one. It's not by changing everything and going out and doing memorable things (though that is certainly one method). You might be doing exactly what you can and should be doing, bound by schedules and the needs of others to seemingly endless monotonous tasks. But the joy of being human is that we are constantly changing. The world around us is constantly changing. Every day, we are a little different, and the people we encounter are a little different, too. All we have to do is take time to notice.

So that is my goal for this Thanksgiving and Christmas season. I want to notice those little things that are different or special about each day and express gratitude for them. I may not be able to change things up very much (one thing about adulthood: responsibilities and obligations must be met, no matter how much you don't want to meet them) but I can take notice of the things that do change.

And do you know what's cool? The more you notice and express gratitude for change, the more memorable and varied your life becomes. :)

Try and Try Again

Okay, I'm going to get real with you, here. Not that that is some huge deal, because I do it fairly often. I find it cleansing, even if it gets a little painful. But I'm up for some good catharsis if you are.

Sometimes, hope sucks. And dating definitely sucks. Not 100% of the time, but more than most of us would prefer.

Now, I've been pretty happy over the last several months. I've been chugging along, spending time with family and friends, saving money for big things (car, bed, furniture, tv, tablet, and maybe even travel plans, though the last one is only the tiniest of pipe dreams at the moment), diving back into large stacks of good books, deepening my devotion to the Lord, and rediscovering how much I just love everything about my life. 

My dating life was A-OK, pretty much because I didn't have one, and that was totally cool. Being crush-free is a delightful state, I'll be honest. My happiness didn't hinge on whether Mr. Brown-eyes (or blue, if you prefer) talked to me that day or not. I was happy all on my own. 

Then, suddenly, I fell in like. Not love. That's too strong. I was in like. 

There were a couple of guys. One that I was inclined to choose, and one who chose me. For the first time in my life, I actually wasn't sure which one I should actually decide to be interested in. Well, my choice was made for me. Guy A went for someone else; she was one of those girls that you totally adore because she's an angel, inside and out... and all the guys like her too. You can't hate her, because she's the nicest person you've ever met, but it still rips your heart out because every guy you know forgets you're there when she walks in the room. 

"Well, that's fine," I told myself. I've been through that routine before. 

I'd actually never met Guy B. He was a mutual friend. But we started to talk, and he was incredibly enjoyable to talk to. 

Cool. Maybe I can actually do this dating thing. 

However, this whole time, there was this insidious little voice at the back of my head that kept ticking off all the names of every One-Hit Wonder I've had in the last three years. Hey Lynnae, remember So-and-So? You really liked him, too, but he never asked you on that second date. Oh, and That Guy, he seemed interested, but he forgot about you, too. And let's not bring up Mr. Smalls, who actually ran away. Ever notice how you don't really get a chance to even try and see if something might be worth the risk?

But this is different. This time had to be different. I do deserve to be happy. Eventually, all the cards fall into place and it works out.

But not for you. Never for you. You just keep getting tortured, remember? It's like someone sets your favorite cake in front of you, but right as you go to take a bite, it gets yanked away and given to someone else. You can't take this anymore. It just might shatter you this time, right?

Shut up. It's going fine. Look, he wants to bring me flowers. And see that? He just told me I was beautiful. That's pretty awesome.

You'd better hope it's going fine. Because it's going to destroy you to be given up on again. Heartbreak's easier---at least then you feel validated for a little while. But if you don't get a chance with this one, you must be broken. Something must be wrong. You can't take another false-start relationship.

That whispering voice sounds familiar, doesn't it? That's because it's something we all hear. Maybe not about dating, but there's always something that challenges our conception of self-worth. And it always chimes in right about the time we start believing that we deserve to be happy. 

That's what happened for me. I managed to shut it up for a long while because it seemed like things really would be different. For once, I wasn't the one initiating. In fact, it occasionally felt like I was dragging my feet more than he was. 

But then, things out of either his control or mine happened. Plans got postponed. External pressure and stress was placed on him, and he started pulling away. Just like all the others. 

And I shattered. I mean, really shattered. 

It didn't matter that Guy B and I had never met, or that I didn't really know anything about him. We could have ended up having the worst date ever for all I knew. All I saw was that there was someone that could have been important, and everything was falling apart before it even started. Again. 

I got so frustrated. I got angry. I felt like I was being cheated. I'm a big girl. I can take it. I can handle heartbreak. I understand that relationships often don't work out. He might not end up interested in me, or I might not be all that interested in him. That's cool. That's how it goes. But DANG IT, I wanted to try. I wanted to take the risk, go for broke, and see if it was worth it. If it fell apart, at least I would know I'd given it my all. That's all I've ever wanted. 

But time and time again, I kept having the chance to try stolen away from me, like a precocious toddler who keeps getting pushed back from an interesting chemistry experiment by an impatient parent. "Stop that. You're too young. You'll hurt yourself. You can't play with that. That's for someone who's older."

It broke my heart. I think I cried harder over this than I did the last time I went through a breakup. Why was I allowed to get my hopes up if they would get yanked away before I'd even gotten a real taste? 

Okay, I'm going to digress for the tiniest second right here and make a seemingly unrelated confession: I've watched The Vampire Diaries. I'm not really that proud of it. In my opinion, it's only a few steps above Twilight as far as quality storytelling goes. But there's something that the show emphasizes about its vampires that will be relevant to my story: vampires can turn off their human emotions. Completely. They just switch it off, and they can't feel love, pain, guilt, sorrow, or compassion anymore. 

Got it? Well, that's what I wanted to do. I'd liked not being interested in anybody. It was easy. I just wanted to turn off the part of me that falls in love with people and never worry about it again. 

And the part that hurt the most was the certainty---accompanied by fear---that I never ever would be able to. I knew it. Sooner or later, someone else would come along, and no matter how hard I would try, I wouldn't be able resist getting my hopes up again. I will never be able to not do that. And I was equally certain that this cycle of losing out before I even got to try would also never end. 

I was even a little bit mad at the Lord for it. Did He enjoy seeing me grasping at empty air as each of the dozen or so Possibilities slipped away over the last few years? What was the point of hoping if this was all I was ever going to get for it?

I'm not proud of those thoughts. But I need you to know that I had them. I think we all have them at one point or another.

As I sat there, drowning in my own fear and frustration, I felt one of the worst things I've ever felt in my life. I realized that I'd drawn myself a line that I wasn't willing to let the Lord help me cross. Without even knowing it, I'd given Him an ultimatum and staked my faith on it. I wasn't willing to face this kind of circumstance even one more time, let alone possibly for the rest of my life. 

And as my sweet father asked me (yes, I was on the phone with him at the time---when am I not talking to my parents during these moments?) if I could face being alone like this for the rest of my life and still trust the Lord, I genuinely hesitated. In fact, I almost wanted to say, "No. I give up. I'm throwing in the towel."

That horrified me. For one tiny moment, I was staring into the awful blackness of who Lynnae would be if she didn't trust the Lord. It's the worst thing I've ever felt in my entire life. I will take a hundred heartbreaks, a million One-Hit Wonders or WorstDateEvers rather than ever have to feel like that again. 

It seems like such a trivial thing to have a crisis of faith over. People have stared death and devastating loss in the face without flinching, and I was breaking into pieces over dating of all things. 

But I learned something from it. And maybe others have gone through similar moments, which is why they face much greater trials without shrinking.

I learned that I could be pushed to the very edge of my own limits and still be okay, because the Lord, the one I had been angry at, had almost considered turning my back on, loved me still. His arms reached out and steadied me even as I pounded at Him furiously. 

Because that's how the Lord is. No matter how often we refuse His help and deny His offers to heal us, He still reaches out. Our happiness matters more than anything He receives from us in return. How can I expect to do any less if I want to become like Him?

My favorite quote about love comes from a philosophy book I was reading a couple of years ago:

"Love requires self-sacrifice, binds one's happiness to the good of another, makes one vulnerable to loss and grief, and strengthens one's commitment to the good."

I may not have found the kind of love that leads to marriage and family, but I've loved deeply enough to know that it is always worth it. All of those "missed" chances at love for me, well, maybe they're happy. I hope so. Because maybe at least some of them felt the same way. Maybe they were tired of dating and not finding the right person, too. But they had the courage to take a chance on me, even if it didn't go anywhere. Hopefully they've found women that they can build lives with. 

This wasn't Guy B's fault. If it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. I was breaking long before Guy A or Guy B came around. I even still like Guy B, and that door isn't actually closed all the way, though I'm focusing my energy on friends and family who need me more right now. 

If anything, I owe Guy B, Guy A, and every other One-Hit Wonder or Almost-One-Hit Wonder (and even the WorstDateEvers) that I've ever met the most heartfelt thanks for being the kind of men that would make me want to try again and again, no matter what the risks are. It means that they are all exceptional, and well worth taking risks for. :)

I'm sorry for the long post. But I needed to share. People often commend me on my testimony and my faith. I'm grateful for such commendations. But I also know that many people struggle with their faith. It is to those people that I dedicate this post. I've been there. Our trials and circumstances may be different, but they all hurt the same. 

I love you all. The Lord loves you all. And unlike me, He will never falter or waver for even the smallest reason. Unlike me, He can lift you past your biggest chasms and help you break through your thickest walls. But I will always try.

It's Okay

First, to preface this post, I am doing absolutely 100% great today. I'll be seeing my wonderful, soon-to-be returned missionary brother in about 24 hours, and as a result, I'm so up that it's probably been really annoying to my friends the last couple of days. However, I've been musing on the following subject for the last few days and I decided I wanted to share my thoughts with the rest of you.

Now, maybe it's because I can read the subtext in my own posts, but I notice patterns in my blog, especially in the moods in which I write my posts. And I've noticed that a lot of the time, I talk about being up as being the best thing, and when I'm down, it's because I have to fix something. Generally speaking, that's true, but I want to expound.

I had a crummy day a couple weeks ago. Plans got rearranged/canceled on me, my roommate was in a rare "Don't talk to me" mood, and I was just generally not so happy. I knew that I didn't want to be alone with my own thoughts, so I called my mom (because that's what I do---I'm so glad she's my best friend).

After my recent discovery that I can and do enjoy my life exactly as it is, I felt guilty. I had so much to be grateful for. If I felt down, it must mean that I'm forgetting that.

Thank goodness Mom snapped me out of that. "Lynnae," she said, "you can't be up all the time. No one can. It's okay to have a bad day."

Her reassurance formed an interesting contrast to the attitude of a friend of mine from several years ago. This friend used to say that she'd decided never to have a bad day again. I always found it an admirable sentiment, but I never felt like I'd actually be able to do something like that. And honestly? All due respect to my friend, but I don't think it's the healthiest attitude. I think we need to have bad days.

It's important for us to acknowledge that we're limited. Sometimes, we need to come face-to-face with our own darker emotions and recognize that they're making us feel guilty or miserable. We also need to realize that we can't make them go away on our own. Only then can we allow the beautiful power of the Atonement to lift us up. That's what humility really is. It's not beating yourself up for your bad thoughts or feelings, it's openly acknowledging those feelings and being willing to do what you must to make them go away.

We need to have bad days so that we remember to appreciate the good ones. I'm straying into territory that makes so many people groan and roll their eyes, because we've all heard it before. BUT, I'm reiterating it because it's true. If you had nothing but good days, don't you think that you'd get so used to them that you'd forget to notice? We see the trend every day. Think about the "First World Problems" idea. Your day sucks if your internet breaks down or your phone dies. However, there are other people who are so happy simply because they didn't die today. We have been blessed with so much that little inconveniences seem like major problems. If you only had good days, even minor annoyances would turn your day into a bad one.

Now back to the "I need to fix something idea." Did you know that pain is your body protecting itself? You probably did, you smart people. You experience pain because your body is basically telling you that something is wrong and that something isn't good for you, so knock it off. That thing is too hot and will damage you if you keep touching it. That object is sharp. Those germs are wreaking havoc and need to be gotten rid of. You learn from it. If you can, you break away from the thing that's causing you pain. Bad days and bad feelings are our emotional pain receptors. If we pay attention, we can identify what's upsetting us and do something to fix it.

Last but not least, bad days remind us that we're only human, just like everybody else. Like my mom said, we can't be "up" all the time. Other people have bad days too, no matter how happy they seem. You aren't alone. What makes happy people truly happy is that they are okay with having bad days. Rather than living in denial about their negative emotions, they recognize them, acknowledge them, maybe even indulge them a little bit, and then they let them go.

So remember, it's okay to have a bad day. Just remember that, even on your bad days, I love you, your other friends love you, and most importantly, your Heavenly Father loves you.

Love you!

Love, me

I Told You So

Found this quote on Pinterest. It's awesome.

This might be a more open and frank post than I've written in a while, so we'll see how this goes.

You know how you can hear a thing a million times and know what it means, but then suddenly, one day, you wake up and find that you get it? That's what's happened to me this month.

So, we know that one of the most talked-about subjects in the world is love. Everyone has something to say about it. A lot of people have opinions about how to do it right.

Well, one of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard was from my mother (naturally---she's my sage of wisdom, so all my good stuff comes from her). Whenever I got into one of those "I hate being lonely" funks, she liked to remind me that it's vital to be able to find happiness on your own if you want to have a happy marriage. "Marriage isn't about two halves making a whole," she would say, "It's about two whole people working toward the same goals." Basically, if you expected another person to complete you and make you happy, you'd be disappointed. But if you could find ways to be happy on your own, it would be that much easier to find happiness in marriage. In a way, it was a blessing to be single.

Now, she's been telling me this for years. I can remember vividly a conversation on this exact topic about four years ago. We probably talked about it before that, too. And every time we did, I always found myself saying, "Yeah, I know that."And I did. But I didn't really get it.

Some of my friends may know this more than others, but I secretly have hated being single pretty much my whole life (well, since I was old enough to know what it means). Hated. All I ever wanted was to get married. My reasons have shifted and developed over the years, from a selfish desire to have someone who loved me and took care of me to a more mature desire to share a life and learn and grow with someone I can support and cherish. But always, it has been the only thing I really wanted. And I hated anything that kept that from me.

Tying both my desire and my hatred together was fear. I was afraid to let myself enjoy being single because I was afraid that maybe I would actually like it. And if I liked it, maybe I would like it too much. And then maybe I wouldn't want to get married. Or at least, maybe I would become too selfish to be a good wife and mother, because I would have had so much fun being single. It sounds stupid, but I have been subconsciously deathly afraid of that for years.

Over this last month, something just clicked for me, and I got it.

I've been lonely for a long time. Since I've lived in Bountiful, I haven't been able to connect with guys at all, really. My friendships have all been surface-level. I've only had first dates. I watched my friends get into and out of relationships in less time than it took me to get a guy to tell me something more meaningful than his major in school.

It wore me down big time. My friends saw a lot of the emotional turbulence from it, but neither they nor I really understood why I couldn't just snap out of it. I finally threw in the towel. I couldn't flirt, I couldn't catch a guy's interest, I couldn't hold a candle to my friends. So I decided that I was done with it. I was broken, and I wasn't going to get anywhere until I could fix it.

Many of my friends would probably argue and protest the claim that I was broken. Some of them actually did, when I occasionally made mention of it. I appreciate their reassurance. But I really was broken. That fear of allowing myself to be happy as a single woman was crippling me.

Then one day, I had a landmark conversation with one of my coworkers. She was telling me about her sisters. One of them was in a wonderful marriage, the kind we all secretly or openly dream about. The other one was in a so-so marriage. I was nodding in sympathy as my friend described the marriage until she started describing what her sister was like. She was describing me. Right down to the fact that her sister had only ever wanted to be married. Everything else was a distant second place.

Suddenly it clicked. Everything came crashing together at once, and I suddenly recognized that my fear of being single was keeping me from being happy and emotionally independent. I needed to shake that off and be happy.

Well, it was a big moment of self-realization for me. So I did the natural thing. I called my parents. As I rambled my way through my journey of self-discovery, they listened quietly. Then I hit the big, pivotal discovery and stopped, waiting to hear their response.

"That's wonderful, honey."

In that moment, I swear I could hear the smile on my mom's face through the phone. "Mom, you can say you told me so, now," I said.

And, basically, she did. Because she had been telling me exactly that for years. Learning to be happy on your own is the best gift you can give yourself, your spouse, and your children.

You want to know what the best part is?

It works. This has been one of the best months of my life. And I think I'm even more excited about getting married, now.

Thoughts on Motherhood

I've been stewing on this post for awhile. For several months now, I've had more friends in various stages of life than I ever have before. Some are single, some are married without children, some have young kids, some have teenagers, and some are empty nesters. Most of them are women.

I've been bothered a lot recently by a couple of friends in particular who, whenever the topic of children is brought up, always manage to point out that having children is full of trials. Oh, you get blessed, but it doesn't really make up for the long stretches of grief that they give you, they say. Every time they talk about children, I get the feeling that a small (or big) part of them feels regret or resentment towards their children. They made it sound like a life sentence rather than a rewarding challenge.

Now, I'm not a mother, obviously, but I am a child, and I have a mother. I know my siblings and I were occasionally (often) really good at making her lose her temper, and driving her crazy was sometimes a recreational pastime. (Not often: we weren't devil children.) But I never doubted that my mom truly felt that we were the greatest blessing in her life (besides Dad, of course). As I got older, that knowledge actually encouraged me to be a better daughter, because I wanted to always be a blessing in my mom's life.

No matter what I faced, I was always supported by the knowledge that my mother loved me more than anything else in this world, and nothing I could ever do would make her throw up her hands and give up on me.

Honestly, it would shatter me to find out that my mom considered me and my siblings a necessary trial that got in the way of other things. That's not what parenting is about. Its not just doing the world a service by raising kids to be responsible adults who contribute to the world in meaningful ways. I truly think that motherhood is meant to be the source of the greatest joys in the world.

Now, I get that not every woman is cut out to thrive on the difficulties of motherhood. Some women genuinely struggle with it (and I'm sure every woman has a hard time with being a good mother with varying degrees of frequency). But I've learned something over the last few years that I hope I never forget: how you allow yourself to think about a trial directly affects how you actually feel about it. When I start thinking that work is boring and repetitive and unfun, I find it harder and harder to go in and be productive. I'm just coming out of that, actually. Then I got sick of disliking my job and started focusing on the good things about it. It's a process that requires patience and consistency, but I've started to love my work again. I think the same thing applies to anything else, including motherhood. If you think that your children are a trial, that is what they become. If you consider them a blessing and a source of joy, the struggles, tantrums, and bad attitudes begin to pale in comparison to their incredible potential.

You tend to get what you focus on.

Personally, I look forward to having kids. I know how rewarding it is to see my younger siblings grow up well and fulfill their potential. It'll be a thousand times more worth it to help my own children do the same thing.

So a note for the future: don't let me complain about my kids. I never want to resent them or regret having them. Those feelings can do so much damage to children, no matter their age. I've known people who, even in adulthood, would have given everything to know that their parents loved them and didn't regret them.

I want to give my own children a home as filled with unconditional, unfailing love as my own was. Even when they smear poop on the walls, or tie each other up, or break curfew to party with questionable friends. My children will always know that their mother loves them. Even when I  lose my temper, because I'm sure it'll happen.

So yeah. I've been stewing on this for awhile because it's been bothering me. And it's made me eternally grateful for a mother who has never stopped loving me, no matter how much I've struggled.

Mountain Trails

She had been climbing this mountain for as long as she could remember. It was the ultimate goal, the ultimate test. Everyone who was anyone pitted themselves against this mountain in order to win the breathtaking achievement of seeing the whole world from the top.

It was the undertaking of a lifetime. Everything she could remember had happened on this mountain. She saw no other future than continued climbing.

But the mountain was tricky. It was so vast that millions of trails wound up its face, and thousands of little canyons cut across its slope.

One day, she found herself in one of those canyons. Her feet were aching, her body hurt, and suddenly, her path turned into a gentle downhill slope, and she slowed in confusion. She was supposed to be going up. Not down. This wasn't right. She had just finished a full-fledged sprint up a steep slope to one of the mountain's promontories, powered by the chance to get a glimpse of the view that surely spread out from her elevation. It had been worth it. The vista was incredible. She had indeed climbed far. The world spread around her like the view from a skyscraper.

Then the trail dipped back into the trees, obscuring her clear view of how far she'd come. And now this downward thing. She must have taken a wrong turn.

The sound of footsteps. A friend whose trail often intersected with hers came running toward her, grinned in greeting, and dashed off, weaving on an upward trail that had her gaining elevation fast.

The hiker felt her spirits plummet. That's the kind of trail she should be on. She looked ahead at her mostly-level, slightly downhill path and down at her legs that shook and ached with strain as she continued moving forward on them. Then she gritted her teeth and picked up her pace. She couldn't give up. She wouldn't. She turned onto her friend's trail and began to climb, though she was a long way from being able to run up the slope as her friend had.

Suddenly, someone stepped in front of her, blocking her way. Her eyes traveled from his feet to his face, and she recognized him. The Mountain Guide. He was the stuff of legend and myth among every hiker that tackled this mountain. The only man who had scaled it more than once. In fact, it was often said that he had scaled it so often that he knew every trail to the top. Every. Single. One. He put his hands out and gripped her upper arms. "Stop. Stop. What are you doing?"

She had been moving under sheer willpower, her muscles responding mechanically. Now that she wasn't moving, her muscles tightened painfully, crippling her. She sagged, but the Guide caught her and swept her into his arms, carrying her back to her trail. He set her down on a boulder and crouched in front of her.

Tears of discouragement filled her eyes. "Can't stop," she whispered, "I have to keep going up."

His hands massaged along her seized-up calf muscles with medical familiarity until he found the spot he was looking for. Without warning, he applied tremendous pressure to the knot in her muscles, and she cried out. "You have to," he replied. "It's not stopping if you take a rest, assess your abilities, and replenish your energy." He found another knot, making her gasp in pain again. "It also helps to work out kinks like these that are slowing you down. You can't do that on the run."

"But the trail," she mumbled through the pain, unable to say more.

The Guide understood her unspoken question. "Yes, it does level out. You may not gain elevation for a while, but it will go up again." He reached up and brushed the tears from her cheeks, looking at her with piercing eyes that seemed to see into the deepest part of her soul. "I choose the trails for every hiker, did you know that?"

She shook her head.

"I have climbed this mountain so many times that I know which hikers need which trails. I know what you can do. So I put you on this one. You'll get to the top if you stay on it." He pulled her to her feet, and she found that she could stand. Hesitantly, she took a few steps, and though her legs still shook, she found she could walk. The Guide took her hand and looped it through his arm, letting her lean on him a little. He set a pace that was comfortable for her. Much slower than her normal pace, but one that wouldn't wear her out again.

They made steady progress along the flat ground, and she felt her confidence start to return. She could do this. It may be slow going for a while, but she could do this.

Almost as if he could sense her thoughts, the Guide slipped her arm from his. "Someone else needs me, but I won't be far. Call if you need me, again." He stepped right into the trees, following a trail that only he could see. Just before he went out of sight, he stopped and looked back at her. "Keep going, child. Even slow progress is progress on a mountain like this. And I will always send help."

He slipped away, but it didn't seem like he was very far. She knew, deep down, that he was close enough to respond to her call if she needed him. Turning back to her path, she took a deep breath and kept walking.

Footsteps. On both sides. To her surprise, her path suddenly merged with multiple others, and several other hikers, all of whom she knew and loved, emerged from the trees and joined her. They took her hands and walked with her, their love pulling her onward.

A change beneath her feet made her look down in surprise.

Then she smiled.

The path had turned upward again.

Me? Who the Heck Is That?

You know how guys often say that it drives them crazy because they don't know what goes on in a girl's mind? Yeah. Try being us. We're trapped in those confusing minds 24/7.

Ever have that nagging feeling that there's something about someone that you should know, but you haven't figured it out yet? I feel that way.

...

about myself.

I mean, I know a lot about myself. Obviously. I'm kind of stuck with me all the time.

But recently, I've had this nagging feeling that I have some kind of untapped potential, some hidden talent that I've never really bothered to develop because it's never come up. In the wake of accomplishing some major life goals, I feel like there's something else that I need to work on. Problem is, I have no idea what it is.

You know what I mean?

Don't worry. I have no idea, either.

Maybe there's this deeply buried domestic goddess who wants to explode outward. Or my long-stifled write-and-publish-a-book dreams. A world traveler? Concert pianist?

I've had some friends tell me that they loved being single because they finally had time to take up piano lessons, or learn to snowboard, or go horseback riding, or take a ballet class. All those unfulfilled ambitions. My problem? I don't really have any unfulfilled ambitions. Maybe I just lack ambition in general, but I never minded not learning the piano, or never taking ballet lessons. I never wanted to be a gymnast, or an astronaut. All the things I really wanted to do, I've either done or decided that I didn't actually want to do them as badly as I thought I did.

Granted, I've never been to Narnia or Hogwarts, but since those aren't real...

Don't mind me rambling. I'm thinking out loud (well, sort of. I'm thinking publicly, at least---for better or worse)

The Rest of My Life

Yes, watch it. It's only 14 seconds long. Plus, it sums up the main point of my post today.



Okay, cross out "revenge business" and insert "planningongoingtothetemple business" and you've pretty much nailed my feelings this week.

Yes, the temple was incredible. Yes, it really is just the beginning, not the end, and I'm super stoked to go back over and over for the rest of my life because it would take me multiple lifetimes to truly grasp all of the beautiful symbolism that goes on in the temple.

But here's my problem: I've crossed off one of my major goals. Pretty much all of my efforts my whole life (and the last 2-3 years especially) have been focused on this one moment. And I don't have a similarly grand and check-markable goal to put in its place. Yes, there's the goal to go to the temple for the rest of my life, but it's hard to put a check mark next to that when you're done. Because that's the point: you're never done.

So I have been feeling a little lost this week. Nothing horrible or depressing, just directionless. I've been so focused for so long that this sudden freedom is disorienting.

But! I've come up with a fairly lofty goal that I'm pretty excited about. I'm going to go to every temple in Utah. Then, someday, I'm going to go to each temple associated with my old hometowns or any place that my family has lived. Also, whenever I go somewhere new that has a temple nearby, I'm going to make sure I go.

We'll see how plausible/doable this goal ends up being, but it's pushed some of the wind back into my sails, and that's what I needed most right now.

I promise I'm happy, though. I have been at so much at peace that it sometimes stresses me out (does that make sense? You know how you know that something should bother you but it doesn't, and that bothers you? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about). But I'm happy. :)

Peace

Peace is finding the answer that you didn't know you needed at the moment you need it most. And realizing that the answer is exactly what you need.

I'm grateful that the Lord gives us answers when we ask for help. It may not be what we thought we wanted, but it's always what we need. And I'm always surprised when a tiny sting of disappointment produces a feeling of overwhelming peace immediately afterward. That doesn't happen every time, but it did tonight.

I have been blessed in a million ways, with all the people and things that I need most.

Everything else is just icing on the triple-chocolate, extra-fudge, enough-sugar-to-send-you-straight-to-heaven cake.

Fear

Ever find yourself just giving in to irrational fears? Yeah, me too.

I've been thinking about it a lot today. Why do we get afraid? What do we really have to lose? Especially for me, I really don't have a lot at stake. There are so many things that I'm absolutely sure of. My family's love, my friends' support, my knowledge of the gospel. I can't lose those. Not really.

And, to be honest, no matter what I've gone through, it's always, always been worth it. More than worth it.

Just a reminder to myself.

Sharing Happiness

Love. I may not blog about it all that often at the moment, but it's never far from my mind. For those who don't already know, I'm a hopeless romantic. I'm dying to be swept off my feet by some amazing man. Sometimes I want it so badly it hurts.

But at the same time, I've been learning that, much to my surprise, I don't have be in love to find joy in romance. Does that sound weird? Okay, let me 'splain.

Once upon a time, before I'd ever been really loved, I used to find myself suffering from bitterness, loneliness, and self-pity whenever one of my friends was blissfully happy and in love. It was painful to watch them enjoy something I wanted so badly. Then I fell in love. Suddenly, I was the blissful, happy, smiley one. But I still hurt, because I saw other people who were in pain because my happiness reminded them of what they didn't have. I felt utterly powerless, because, short of giving up what made me most happy and making myself miserable too, I could do nothing to ease their pain. I hated it.

Elder Jeffery R. Holland said: "Envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is---downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment!" 

Admittedly, I was often guilty of this. As are we all.

So I made a choice. I would flip Elder Holland's statement on its head and allow others' good fortune to bring me joy as well.

I vowed that I would never again allow someone's happiness to bring me pain. Even if I did hurt, I would never let someone who was happily in love (or successful in something I wished I could succeed in) know that I was hurting. Instead, I would go out of my way to be happy for them. Regardless of what I myself lacked.

The funny thing about going out of your way to do something is that, inevitably, you find yourself on your way again. What took conscious effort soon became natural. I stopped having to tell myself to be happy for someone else's success, and soon found that I really was happy for them.

I love seeing my friends fall in love. I love seeing them get a much-needed or much-hoped-for job, even though I'm getting back on the job market, too.

I'm not always perfect at it, obviously, and my loneliness/fear/discouragement/whatever often gets the better of me, but frankly, I've found that it's much more pleasant to allow others to share their happiness with you than it is for you to share your misery with them. If I don't have something to be joyful about, then I'm going to find someone who does and let them tell me all about it.

So, over the last few weeks (yes, some of this is fairly new to me---I bet you all are much smarter about this than I am) I've been learning that we are often miserable or sad only because we choose to be. That probably seems like a "duh" thing to you. Frankly, it is to me, too. But I know that when I am happy, I want to share it with everyone else in the hopes that they can be happy with me. I don't do it to rub it in their faces or to hurt them. I simply want to share the joy that I feel with others. This is why we share the gospel. It's why we announce marriages and babies. It's why we celebrate birthdays, promotions, graduations, or anniversaries. Because we want to share happiness. (This philosophy does exclude arrogant snobs who do want to rub their success in other people's faces, but they have more issues than just snobbery anyway.)

The Lord gave everything for us to have a chance to experience true happiness with Him. What's made you happy today?

Pressure Release

I'm sorry I haven't been posting particularly informative blog posts this year. I feel like I have recently been writing short blurbs and then throwing a comic, or a video, or some other thing in there to say "Hey! Look at this, so that I can distract you and not have to write as much!"

Apparently I'm lazy. Or perhaps, my friend/employer Brett was right when he said that I was burned out. I was describing the exhaustion I feel after work sometimes, which has murdered my bookworm, stifled my ability to edit for outside projects, and basically resulted in me wanting to just curl up in bed as soon as I get home, and he used the term "burned out" on me. For some reason, I never really considered it to be real, honest-to-goodness burnout. But it was. Still is.

I love my job. Honestly, I do. But it is very intense, and I just never really wanted to admit that I was struggling with the rest of my life because I put so much of myself into my work. It feels a little like a cop-out, considering I'm reading the scriptures for a living. I shouldn't have any troubles with that at all.

But I'm only human, after all. No matter what the work is, you can still burn out.

Things are looking better now, though. I spent a week with my family for my birthday, and, as always, my family worked their wonderful magic and sent me back to Utah feeling completely refreshed and happy. Then, on top of that, I received permission to go through the temple from my bishop, and that, more than anything, has breathed life back into every aspect of my seemingly burned out existence.

For the last several months, though I've led a relatively non-boring life, I've felt kind of stuck. Like my life took this huge, deep breath and then decided to hold it. For 8 months. I wasn't progressing in any of the ways I really wanted to, and I couldn't seem to, no matter how hard I tried. So I've been feeling trapped.

But not anymore! I'm going through the temple, I may be moving somewhere new and exciting (that is entirely up in the air, but, as a single girl, I'm remarkably free to go wherever on earth I need to go), and though my own dating life has been underwhelming (an understatement), there are many people I care deeply about who are finding happiness in that particular area, so I can be happy with them.

All in all, it's starting to feel like the lull has passed, and I don't feel quite so stuck anymore.

Hopefully the release of that pressure will make it easier to write again. :)

Filling In the Pieces

I got into a conversation at work the other day about the contingency plans that many single adults have. Because let's be honest, we all want to find love. One mistake I've been guilty of making is settling for my current career path as my Plan B, because Plan A---having a family---still hasn't happened yet.

But recently, I've been trying to focus on making my life as it is my Plan A. After all, it's definitely God's Plan A for me. And while I can't control how everything happens in my life, I've discovered that I can do a lot to fill in the missing pieces. It's as much my responsibility as it is the Lord's.

Which is why I simply love this music video. It's so sweet and profound.



I've been on a kick of following self-made musicians on YouTube, and it's been great, because I find gems like this. :)

Lynnae Trivia

So remember those "25 Things You May Not Know about Me" notes that went around on Facebook a few years ago? I guiltily admit that I both wrote one and enjoyed it a lot as I did it. It's actually kind of fun (and indulges the slightly narcissistic side that we all have) to write down what you think are cool facts about yourself. Whether they are actually cool or not is up to interpretation.

I'm going to do a spin on that 25 Things idea. Mostly because I feel the need to update people, but my life is not the most thrilling thing on earth. This is the best I could come up with.

Welcome to my semi-biographical post. (Which, coincidentally, may help me write my biography for the TM Publishing website and figure out what to say in those "share one unusual thing about yourself" sessions that they have so often in singles wards. So yes, this post may be self-indulgent and self-serving. Make fun of me if you want.)

THINGS YOU DEFINITELY KNOW ABOUT ME
(subtitled as things that you should know about me if you consider me a friend)

1. I adore editing. Even the boring parts of editing. I also like grammar, linguistics, and anything else about the English language. I tend to be at my absolute nerdiest when talking about this subject.

2. I talk about the gospel and the Atonement all the time. And I get really excited when secular things teach me something about the Atonement.

3. I'm a bookworm (even if my bookworm-ness is in remission at the moment). I have more books than a single post-college girl should probably be able to afford.

4. I love giving hugs.

5. I grew up moving around a lot.

6. Rambling. It's my specialty. I'm a talker. :)

7. Movies. I love 'em. Too much, maybe, but I do. I have incredibly high movie-marathoning endurance.

8. I love being LDS. It's more than just my religion. It's my life.

THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT ME

1. Superhero movies are my favorites. Forget chick flicks. I will see a superhero movie over a chick flick any day.

2. I have a blackmail video of Savannah singing the national anthem very poorly (and very late at night) that I've been saving for over 3 years. Just waiting for the opportune moment. Most likely her bachelorette party.

3. I am uncommonly gifted at getting unlost. I may not be the absolute best navigator, but gosh darn it, I can find a creative way to get to our destination if we get off course. This is especially helpful when Google Maps lies about the street names.

4. Talking is my therapy. When I have a difficult choice to make, I usually just need a listening ear. I sort my thoughts out as I'm talking. Most of my personal breakthroughs and insights have come from conversations with my mom, where I find myself suddenly answering my own questions (always aided by prompts from her, of course).

5. I like working out. This is a new development, actually. I hated it while I was growing up, but I've gotten much more consistent about it, and really enjoy it nowadays.

6. I'm a bit of an ice cream snob. I worked at the BYU Creamery for two years and at Cold Stone for a summer without getting sick of either. Unless I'm in a super weird mood, don't ever try to take me out for soft serve. It has to be scoopable. Preferably gourmet. Also, I love gelato.

7. I will probably never complain about your music choices, because I like almost everything, but I will also probably never share my playlists with you, either. Music is personal for me. Any given playlist is usually roughly a soundtrack for my life at the time. With the exception of sharing isolated songs, I'm private about the music I'm currently listening to. As a result, I absolutely loathe those "favorite band/artist" or "favorite song" questions.

8. My side hobby is studying pop culture in a philosophical/psychological context. Much of my current academic reading falls under this category. I fell in love with it when I studied Jungian psychology and how it applied to Inception, The Dark Knight, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol in my capstone class at BYU. Been hooked on it ever since.

9. I have a thing for shoes. Especially stilettos. If I could afford it and had the space, I would be happy to fill a room with them.

10. I'm totally a blanket person. Whether I'm cold or not, I love having blankets around. This is why I like to keep my living spaces cool, especially at night.

11. Kisses over hugs. Every time. But only if it's someone I'm in a relationship with. I won't do NCMOs.

12. I'm shockingly tech-savvy and can assemble most electronic systems (the plugging-stuff-in parts, not the build-from-scratch kinds of things, though, given time and adequate instructions, I could probably do that, too) as well as troubleshoot a lot of basic software issues. I can also understand computer engineer and computer programmer (yes, there's a difference between the two) speak most of the time. It's fun.

13. I think it would be awesome to go snowshoeing with my husband (when I have one), build an igloo, and sleep in it for a night. No one understood this seemingly random date idea until I told my mom, and she thought it was cool, too. No pun intended.

THINGS I WISH PEOPLE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ME

1. I'm a total lightweight when it comes to NyQuil. Last time I tried it on my sinus infection, it knocked me out cold for about 20 minutes, and then I woke up with a fuzzy brain and a malfunctioning brain-mouth filter. I could hear myself talking (and remember most of it) but I couldn't seem to stop every thought from coming right out.

2. I can stand incredibly cheesy movies/shows/songs/books and have been caught red-handed enjoying them on more than one occasion. Like the movie Thunderbirds. No one should know that I like that movie. (Ironically, all of you now do know it. Keep my secret or else!) I prefer to keep my guilty pleasures private.

3. I scream like a little girl when my dad turns lights off too suddenly. Years of having him jump out at me from dark corners has trained me to really, really hate when the lights go off and he's still in the room.

4. I make really funny noises when I'm surprised, poked, or tickled. Or sometimes for no reason at all. Unfortunately my "friends" use this for their own amusement far too often.

FINAL FUN FACT

Yes, there are actually 25 things on this list. So technically, it is a "25 Things" list. Just... a little more customized than normal.

In other news, life is pretty good. I'm flying home to Texas to visit my family (and celebrate my birthday!) on Friday. I've been looking forward to this since like, February. Just a little bit excited. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I Can't Read!

So I made a somewhat distressing discovery recently. I can't read anymore.

Okay, obviously, I still have the ability to read (and write... I hope). But I just can't sit down, open a great book, and read for hours on end. Even if that book is a page-turner (and the one I'm trying to read right now does, in fact, fall into that category). No matter how much I like the book, I'll put it down after 10-15 minutes.

I'M BROKEN!

Why has the voracious bookworm's appetite died? Turns out this is a completely unforeseen side effect of being a proofreader. We've been reading aloud in teams of two through ALL of the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

Yes, I just finished reading the Old and New Testaments. Probably for the first time in my life. (Okay, second, but I got nothing out of it when I read them for seminary.)

But I suppose when you're reading for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, it tends to overload even my insatiable appetite for reading. As a result, I have no attention span for reading anymore.

And I hate it.

I don't hate reading. I still know that I love it. I just can't do it anymore.

Curses.

Oh, and incidentally, I also can't read aloud anymore. Not in any situations where I'm required to read the way a normal person would, anyway. Because as a proofreader, I'm now used to reading every piece of punctuation, every footnote, every capital letter and italic word... you know, all of it.

So once upon a time, I sat in class at church. Being the contributor that I am, I volunteered to read a quote when the teacher asked. Okay, brain, here's the deal, don't read any commas, okay? You're not proofing right now. So I read along great, managing to tell myself not to read the commas and still reading the words at the same time. Then I got to the period at the end of the sentence. "Point"! You're supposed to say "point" for a period! My brain was practically screaming at me, and I froze. What do I do if I don't say it? How on earth will people know that the sentence is over and I'm starting a new one? Wait. They don't know what "point" means. It's okay. But what do I say instead? OHMYGOSH I've forgotten everything I knew about reading out loud like a normal person! (Keep in mind, I'm still in the middle of reading this quote, and a longish awkward pause is starting to ensue as I pause to have this mental war with myself. Hopefully they just thought I was overcome with emotion at the beauty of the quote...) Okay, skip the point. Don't read the capped letter. Just get through this last, stupid sentence, and Never. Read. Out. Loud. Again. And thus ended the most stressful seconds of my life. The stupid part is that I was just reading a quote in class. Last time I checked, that's not supposed to be a major cause of stress.

So yeah. I can't read. It's great. (Not.)

On the other hand, I find stuff like this uproariously funny now. Because that's basically how it works. (Sadly though, the sounds are less fun than the ones he makes...)



So, what do you do with a broken bookworm who can't read anymore? Why, take her to see The Avengers, of course. And there you have my grand plans for tonight. :)

Unexpected Plus about Skirts

Okay, so I can just imagine that someone, somewhere, will jump up on her soapbox and cry sexism at me for what I'm about to write. So be it.

Now, most people know by now that I wear a skirt, and most likely nylons and heels, six days a week. It's part of the dress code for work.

When I was a wee little thing, I hated skirts and dresses with a fiery passion. I would wriggle out of the blasted things almost the second we came home from church and often wore spandex shorts under said evilthings in church, just so I felt better about it. Much of that attitude translated into high school and college, not so much because the fiery passion was still there, but more because it was just habit by then. And it was kind of "cool" to not like staying in a dress all day on Sunday.

Fast forward to my senior year of college, when I got the Ensign internship. I was so excited! Except about the whole skirt thing. That I wasn't looking forward to so much. In fact, I was pretty sure it was going to suck.

However, much to my surprise, it hasn't. It didn't take very much time or effort to get used to being in a skirt all day. After that, I discovered that *gasp!* I actually kind of enjoy it. I behave better (not that I'm all that poorly behaved anyway) and I tend to carry myself straighter, too. It's been good for my posture.

And here's my favorite part (and the part certain brands of feminists may hate me for): men treat me better. I rarely have to stand on the bus, open a door for myself, or go to the back of a short line. I got on a very crowded bus the other day, and I'd barely finished tapping my pass on the scanner before one guy was off his seat and offering it to me. This is not an unusual occurrence. I've watched them do it for other well-dressed women as well. Some of the more gentlemanly guys will do it for any female, but I've noticed that the reaction is faster for a woman in a skirt and heels.

I love it. Not because I'm on a power trip as a woman or anything, but because I love that chivalry isn't dead. Some girls like to bemoan that it is. But I see proof every day on my way to work that it isn't. It's alive and kicking.

I think part of our problem (meaning us as women) is that we don't always act like women. There's something to be said for being graceful, gracious, and ladylike. Whether we like it or not, men respond to that. I'm not advocating a return to the restrictive roles of women as prim and proper ladies who weren't allowed to get their hands dirty, so to speak. Heavens no. I would suffocate in that kind of atmosphere. But I think there's a lot to be said for embracing your femininity and letting those men be men.

They like to do things for us. They like being courteous to us. (I mean it. They do. I've seen some of the most rough-looking, tattooed, grisly men be the first ones up to give a woman their seat on the bus. It's not just the well-dressed, clean-cut ones.) But while women have been fighting tooth and nail to get to their place in the working world (something that, I will admit, is justified in many cases), a lot of them have lost something along the way. And the men in our lives have gotten disoriented and confused because they're not sure how to treat us. Too often, we snap at them for sexism when they try to treat us differently than their male buds simply because we're women.

When they see a woman who is dressed up in heels, hose, and a skirt, something slips back into place, and they have a better idea of how to treat her, based on centuries of habit. And it shows.

Will I wear a skirt everywhere when I don't have to? No. I love my jeans, and I like wearing them around town. But I have definitely grown to appreciate that skirts are infinitely more feminine than jeans, and men are more likely to treat me like a woman when I wear them.

And you know what? I'm okay with that. I like being a woman.