Experience

Experience.

It's how most of us, most of the time, gain our knowledge of and perspective on the world. Of course, I've always "known" this, having been taught from childhood that we were sent to this earth by our Heavenly Father to gain experience and learn from it; but it hasn't been until recently that I've actually started to know it. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it has to do with spending so much time watching B learn. Maybe it's because of the many conversations I had with B's mom about life and the things that happens to us in it. Whatever the reason, experience and its effects on us as a people and as a race has been on my mind a lot lately.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that our experience is what defines us as who we are. I don't think that we are merely the summation of the various experiences we've had in life. To think that way would be simplistic. But I do think that our experiences make up a large part of how we view the world, and how we view the world makes a big difference in how we react to the world. So many people take no thought for things that happen outside their realm of experience.

"Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig"

Increasingly often, I get this feeling that my life is speeding by and I have yet to do anything. How is it the end of another year? Let alone the end of the decade? Ten years ago, our family had just moved into a new house two months previous, and to a new town only a few months before that. It was our first holiday season away from our family, and I was bitterly bitter about it. Ten years ago I was my second younger sister's age, almost-fourteen. Ten years ago I only had five siblings instead of seven. Ten years ago I had no idea my family would still be here; ten years ago I would have never dreamed in a million years that I'd be who I am today. Ten years ago, if I'd bothered to think about it, I'd probably have thought I'd be married with a kid or have one on the way. I never could have guessed that I'd be sitting in my living room, listening to Korean indie rock music and typing a blog post on my very own Macbook, very much not married, with no kid (but wanting one), a Korean-speaking return missionary on the way to my third college in six years. Isn't it funny how life happens to you?

It's wonderful to be home. Every time I come home, though, it gets slightly more unreal. I'm home, but this house isn't really my home anymore. It's my parents'. But at the same time, I don't have a home anywhere else, either. I'm homeless in a non-homeless way, if that makes sense. It's rather disorienting at times. But all that being said, it is wonderful to be home. For the first time in a long time, my whole family was at the same church at the same time last Sunday. I'm looking forward to Christmas coming up in a few days, and more family-togetherness time. We'll open our stockings, have ice cream on our waffles for breakfast, open the presents slowly (and one at a time -- my dad insists), oh and ah over everyone's new stuff, sit around doing nothing much of anything, make perogies, eat those yummy perogies. Traditions involving food are always the best traditions.

The Problem with Blogging

I'm sure there are a few, actually, but the one I'm referring to is actually more accurately a problem with the blogger. And it's this: I think too much.

Yes, there it is. I've confessed. It's true, and it's regrettable, but what can you do? I've never heard of an off switch for your brain, more's the pity. Just today I've thought up about five really good ideas for a post, but sadly, none of them made it into existence. They're still just half-formed ideas floating around in my head. But even when my ideas make it out of my head and into the blogosphere, they're never exactly what I was going to say to begin with, and neither are they as good as they were in my head. Why is that? It's such an annoying Truth of the Universe. I read a great article about this phenomenon in the NY Times once, a few months back. The creation rarely turns out how or as well as the creator wanted it to.