Healing Hurts

My name is AnnMarie, and I'm a TV addict.

This is probably not news to any of you reading this, assuming that the set of all those reading this is a subset of the set of people I know. If I don't know you and you're reading this (how did you get here?), you might actually not know this. But that's beside the point. The point is: I'm a TV addict. I watch way too much TV and it's bad for my physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual health.

Like most addicts, I've been in denial about this for quite some time, but something I read tonight hit me hard enough that I finally couldn't rationalize my way out of it. Or rather, I could have, but I was finally humble enough not to. I finally admitted to myself that TV-watching is not just a casual hobby, that it's not not having an effect on my life and well-being, that it's actually keeping me from things that I want in the long term.

It's ridiculous to say that watching violence and immorality or hearing vulgar language and jokes on television has no effect on you. If you saw those things in person they'd affect you; why not if you see them on television? After I watch something violent or vulgar I always feel dragged down. My mood becomes dark and brooding, and the effects can linger for hours or sometimes even days. I'm not sure what science would conclude, but for me that's pretty compelling evidence. I have enough problems with depression, anxiety, and self-loathing from my wacky hormones, I don't need anything exacerbating the problem.

To quote something from the article I read tonight: "When we are not doing what we know we ought to be doing, and when we are not living the way we know we ought to live, we have a tendency to be unhappy." Well, I'm unhappy, and it's because I'm not doing what I know I should be doing, and I'm not living the way I know I should be living. My time is spent on "that which is of no worth . . . [and on] that which cannot satisfy" in the eternal world (2 Nephi 9:51).

What am I going to do with my new-found hours and hours of unspent time? I'm going to do family history. I'm going to learn to cook healthier food and actually sit down at my table, hopefully with a friend or two, to eat it. I'm going to attend the temple more often. I'm going to pray more sincerely, read my scriptures more diligently, and ponder the words of living prophets and apostles more carefully. I'm going to be more active. I'm going to cultivate and strengthen relationships. I'm going to go to bed earlier. I'm going to serve others.

It's going to be really hard. I know, because I've tried it before. And it was hard. And I eventually (sooner rather than later) fell back into my TV-watching habits. I want this time to be different. I want to be healthier, physically, emotionally, mentally, socially, and spiritually, and I can't do that without removing this negative influence in my life. Obsession and addiction, in whatever form they may come in our lives -- harmful substances, people, activities, seemingly-innocuous foods -- are not healthy. They become crutches that hold us back instead of helping us move forward; they prop us up in our brokenness instead of helping us to heal. Have you ever healed from something? Healing hurts, but it's the only way to be whole, and I want to be whole and not broken.

I would love your encouragement and support. I don't need a watchdog to tell me how disappointed in me they are when I slip up, but I could use a few cheerleaders. If you volunteer I could bring brownies. ^_~

Curtains and Light

Lately I've been on quite the DIY-home-improvement-blog tear. I read them religiously and dream of the day I will own my own home and have the opportunity to do things like paint and knock down walls. While there's nothing wrong with my room, to me it still feels "Hello, I'm a college student!" and that was something I wanted to get away from. I'm trying to do things to distance myself from that mentality, especially since I work at the place I graduated from. I even work in the department my major is in. The gist of all this is that I'm making some changes around here in an attempt to reflect a more mature, less totally-broke-college-student atmosphere.

Remember the navy blue curtains that hung in my room? Here's a refresher for you.

It's not this clean any more.

I have nothing against navy blue, but I'm not a fan of the color for my curtains. Even with the two windows, one facing south (the one on the left) and the other west (on the right), when I woke up in the morning my room was pretty dim. My philosophy about light is that if you've got it, you should flaunt it, and so I decided to buy or make new curtains. Let's be honest: I have a lot of talents, but making things is not one of them.

Long story short, I went down to Draper last week for the wedding of one of my companions and made a pit stop here:

Please forgive the bad phone picture, I didn't have my camera.

That's right, IKEA, home of all wonderful homey goodness. Cheap homey goodness. Since I'm not exactly made of money and I don't plan on living here forever I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Whilst wandering around drooling I managed to collect myself long enough to pick up some Vivian curtain panels ($10, woot!) and curtain rods and finials. I also picked up a few other things, but I'll save those for later.

I'll spare you the details of putting them up. It involved a lot of climbing on chairs and muttering to myself and measuring and screwing things into the wall only to discover I had mounted them too close together, etc. You know, all the dirty, behind-the-scenes of the pretty DIY "after" pictures you see on blogs. So I'll just unveil the "in progress" shot.

The curtain is obviously too long, and since the panel was so wide and my window so small, just one panel would work for each window. Yay for saving money, but it meant cutting the panel in two and hemming the raw edges, as well as trimming and hemming the bottom. Fast forward a week and bam!

I wish I could say I was that handy, but it was actually my mother that did all the hemming. (I will take credit for cutting it in half and trimming the bottom, though.) It turns out that having your mom live in the same city you do, as opposed to 2000 miles away, is a really useful and handy thing. Thanks, Mom!

I haven't finished hanging the curtain on the other window, but I did take down the old curtains and wow! This morning when I woke up my whole room was filled with a symphony of light. Cheesy lines aside, switching out the curtains has made a huge difference in the amount of light in my room, which does wonderful things for my mood.

I've made some other changes in here, and I'm in the middle of a few more. I'll share updated pictures when I get things in a more complete stage of completion. Until then you're just going to have to stew in an agony of suspense. I know, I'm sorry. You're all dying to know all about every tiny detail of my room decor, but you're just going to have to wait.

Just FYI

In case you were wondering, if you're "smart" enough to wrap your chicken breasts in saranwrap before you freeze them, in an effort to save time so you won't have to unstick them when you want to use them, you will spend approximately 20 minutes trying to pry saranwrap out from in between the parts of the chicken that have been frozen together. You know, just a helpful life hint.

Night Hiking: NOT a good idea

None of these are from this hike (my camera's  dead). They're from my mission.

It's officially fall here. It's been getting gradually cooler and the leaves have been starting to display hints of color for weeks, but this last Wednesday it was like someone suddenly flipped a switch and it was autumn in earnest. The daytime temperature dropped about fifteen degrees Fahrenheit and the nighttime temperatures dipped into the low forties. I woke up Thursday morning shivering (I only had one blanket on my bed and my bed is right under the window) with a cold nose for the first time since probably March. Since autumn is my favorite season this isn't really a bummer. I enjoy cardigans and sweaters and hoodies and I almost always wear long pants anyway.

But that's not the point of this post. Or rather, that's only to give you the necessary background for this post. Along with the gorgeous autumn leaves and the cooler temperatures comes the only thing I don't like about fall: less light. It gets darker faster. Well, a friend and I, hearing how gorgeous the canyon was with all the fall leaves, decided to leave right after work to go do a hike up there. We'd decided on a 3-miler that winds up the mountain, across the top of a small ridge, and back down again. Since it's not an up-and-down hike, we'd also have a 1.5 mile walk back to the car once we got back down the mountain: all together, 4.5 miles. We got there in pretty good time, and we started up about 5:30. The thing is, that hike is steep. And I am out of shape. Plus, I like to stop and admire the scenery from many different angles on the way up (and rest, because I'm very out of shape).

The rumors weren't wrong -- the trees were stunning and the views on the way up the trail and at the top were gorgeous, especially as the setting sun sunk behind the mountains. The problem is that we were only about halfway done by about 7, which is when (right now) the sun starts to set in earnest. On top of that, instead of hiking east to west so we'd be on the west side of the mountain coming down, we'd hiked west-to-east and were making our way down a very steep path in the rapidly fading light. And we hadn't thought to bring a flashlight. Or rather, we'd thought, but hadn't turned that thought into action. Let me tell you, coming down a mountain when you can barely see five feet in front of you is a little nerve-wracking. Thankfully (and with the help of some whispered prayers), we made it to the bottom right as full dark fell. That still left us with a 1.5 mile treck along the river at the bottom of the canyon to make it back to the car in the dark. With no flashlight.

Well, obviously this story ends well since I'm here to update about it. But it certainly wasn't my finest hour. Nor am I particularly anxious to reprise the experience. Once was one time too many. And it was great to sit in a car with headlights (the climb up did something painful to my left hip flexor, and the climb down made my knees and toes very unhappy). However, it was almost worth it for the chance to see the amazing fall foliage up close and breathe in the crisp, autumn air. On the other hand, my poor legs hate me today, particularly that hip flexor. I've been hobbling around like an old person and avoiding stairs (a challenge, since I live in the basement). Next time I'm going to take a sturdy walking stick with me. Gandalf's staff with the glow-y crystal would have been handy.

Live Simply, Love Lavishly

I was reading this book the other day when I ran across the above saying. It struck me as summing up a lot of other good advice in one pithy phrase. Of course, it would be asking too much of just four words to provide the guiding wisdom for every situation, but I don't think you'd go too wrong if you adopted it as your life philosophy. Within some parameters.

I made these four posters this morning on PicMonkey (yes, I'm obsessed). I was pointed in this direction for the backgrounds, and the words and the hearts are standard PicMonkey. I'm not quite sure which one I like best, though I do prefer the blue over the pink in general. Don't worry, I'm not going to go craft blog on you, but I do think stuff like this is a great way to class up what I normally do with sayings I want to keep around (that would be writing them on 3x5 cards). Find some frames, spend a few minutes (or hours *cough*) messing around, print it off, and bam! You're in business. Not literally, though, since the backgrounds that come free are for personal use only.

Stubbornness and Continents

I was a particularly stubborn child. I think my parents can attest to that. I've grown into a particularly stubborn adult. I think my parents can attest to that, too. I like to do things by myself. (Or get other people to do them for me. I'm okay with that, too.) I like to be in control and do things in a logical order - my order.

The funny thing about life is that it doesn't usually work that way.

Life is a collaborative effort. This has been reinforced to me over and over in the last year or so, in my experiences and in quiet moments of reflection. We can't do it alone, and we're not supposed to. Everybody needs somebody - multiple somebodies, actually. We need family. We need friends. We need members of the community. We even need complete strangers. None of us can reach our full potential without other people. It's ignorant, arrogant, and counterproductive to think that or act like we can. Try it. You'll fail.

I think John Donne's famous "No Man Is an Island" poem sums up the implications of this truth much better than I could.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. 

We don't have the luxury of ignoring what is happening to other people "far away", because their lives are tied up in ours. They need us, and we need them.

Life Is So Confusing

The predominant emotion of the last few weeks of my life has been homesickness. That's right. I, a 25-year-old college graduate who hasn't lived at home for 6+ years, am homesick. I haven't felt this homesick in ages, actually. Not for this long, anyway. I get flashes all the time, of course, because I love my family and I'm missing most of the significant events in the lives of my youngest four siblings. But I'm usually busy and/or productive (they're not necessarily synonymous) and thus distracted.

I think the homesickness is the product of two other intense emotions in my life: confusion and frustration. And all that boils down to the real fact that I have no idea what the heck is going on in my life. It's not a comfortable feeling. (This is hardly the first time I've brought this up, so it's not a surprise to any of you, I'm sure.) I feel useless, under-qualified, scared, clueless, and confused.

I've finally had it (very painfully) brought home to me in the last few months just how thoroughly I threw myself under the bus when I moved here. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) I allowed my fears, insecurities, and circumstances to keep me from getting a job and getting involved the way I should have. As a result, here I am without a car, without many connections, without solid job prospects, and without any savings to speak of. That makes doing much of anything difficult. Especially most of the things I'd actually like to do, like go to Korea, move back to the East Coast, or even just get out of Logan. I should take a lesson from this and get my butt in gear on this whole "finding gainful employment" thing.

I'm hoping that sometime in the next little while I'll figure out why I felt that I need to be in the place that I am - here in Logan, I mean. I wanted to move to SLC after my job ended a few weeks ago and I had to be out of my old place. To be honest, there are probably a lot more opportunities in areas I'd like to work in (not to mention better public transportation, even if it is more expensive than Logan's (which is free)), in SLC. I like Logan, but I've been craving city life recently, and if I can't live in Seoul or NYC or the DC area like I'd like to, by golly I want to live in SLC.

A Letter to My Grandfather

Dear Grandpa,

I've thought about writing this letter a hundred times, but I never was ready to put it all on paper. (Well, metaphorically speaking.) It's hard for me to believe that this time a year ago I was saying goodbye to you for the very last time in this life.

A whole year. 365 days -- 366, actually, since this year was a leap year (Aunt Catherine had a birthday this year!); a whole lot of hours and minutes and seconds have passed since then. I'm not particularly prone to attaching a lot of sentiment to the anniversaries of things, but a year seems like a significant amount of time.

When you died, it was hard for me to believe that you were really gone, at first. No one close to me had ever died before; it was my first time really experiencing death. It was harder because I never really got to say goodbye, not really. The last time I really saw you was General Conference weekend, when Grandma invited Aunt Suzanne and her family and me and Stephen over for a post-conference dinner of store-bought muffins and apple juice. We sat around the table and laughed so hard our stomachs ached when Heather told us the story about that kid who was determined to catch the feral sheep. I know I must have said, "Goodbye!" and "I love you!" when I left, because I always do, but I don't remember. I probably even gave you a hug; you're a great hugger. I think you passed that on to Dad, he always squeezes me just the way you used to. So many times in the last year I've thought about how great it would be if I could just hop in my car and drive down the street and ask for a hug on days when I was feeling down, or discouraged, or just lonely. For the first few days and weeks I had to consciously remind myself that you weren't there at the house with Grandma anymore, and each time I did it brought a wave of sadness crashing right back over me.

I was so angry at you. I still am, a little. It's so stupid, and it seems so pointless. It was your own stubborn fault for not taking better care of yourself, for not going to the doctor right away when you started feeling a little "off". You left Grandma all alone barely four months before the family reunion to celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary that Grandma had been planning for over a year. You left before my dad got to see you again, and I know how much that hurts him. You left right as I was starting to wonder about what I was going to do when I graduated in a year, right when I really needed all your years of wisdom from working at the university and your priesthood blessings and your hugs and teasing jokes.

I don't doubt the Lord called you back to Him. I was angry at Him, too, even, which is much more befitting a child than a supposedly-mature adult. I just didn't understand why then, of all times. But then why does anything happen when it does? I suppose that's why I'm not in charge and He is.

If I've learned anything from this, it's that there truly must be an afterlife for the souls of men, and that they are not wholly ignorant of us here. I know you'll be there when I get my diploma, and when I get married, and when I see my children for the first time. And I know you'll be standing there with my dad when my children's father (whoever he is -- maybe you can give him a nudge in my direction for me) gives them a name and a blessing, and you'll laugh at me the first time I say something to my child I swore I'd never say because I hated hearing it from my parents (probably something about "privileges" or "consequences"). I know you'll be there when my dad holds his little grandkids on his lap to tell them a Bob and Steve story; he's a little rusty, you might have to prompt him. And I know that one day I'll get to see you again, and best of all, get a great big, squeezy grandpa hug.

I'm counting on that.

Love,
AnnMarie

Daily inspiration

"Behold, great and marvelous are the works of the Lord. How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man knoweth of his ways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the revelations of God. For behold, by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure? Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works."

Jacob 4:8-10 
emphasis added

A few words of wisdom

Just a few things I learned this morning from my personal scripture study:

"In whatever manner the Lord may choose to bless us during the course of a mission, blessings of missionary service are not designed to end when we are released by our stake president. Your mission is a training ground for life. The experiences, lessons, and testimony obtained through faithful service are meant to provide a gospel-centered foundation that will last throughout mortality and into the eternities."

Elder W. Christopher Waddell, "The Opportunity of a Lifetime"

"Two are usually better than one, as our Father confirmed when He declared that “it was not good that the man should be alone” and made a help meet for Adam—someone with distinct gifts who would give him balance, help him shoulder the burdens of mortality, and enable him to do things he couldn’t do alone. For “neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.”

Satan understands the power of men and women united in righteousness. He is still stinging from his banishment into eternal exile after Michael led the hosts of heaven, comprised of valiant men and women united in the cause of Christ, against him. In the chilling words of Peter, “The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Lucifer is determined to devour marriages and families, because their demise threatens the salvation of all involved and the vitality of the Lord’s kingdom itself. Thus, Satan seeks to confuse us about our stewardships and distinctive natures as men and women. He bombards us with bizarre messages about gender, marriage, family, and all male-female relationships. He would have us believe men and women are so alike that our unique gifts are not necessary, or so different we can never hope to understand each other. Neither is true.

Our Father knew exactly what He was doing when He created us. He made us enough alike to love each other, but enough different that we would need to unite our strengths and stewardships to create a whole. Neither man nor woman is perfect or complete without the other. Thus, no marriage or family, no ward or stake is likely to reach its full potential until husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, men and women work together in unity of purpose, respecting and relying on each other's strengths."

Sister Sheri L. Dew, "It Is Not Good for Man or Woman to Be Alone"

Awwww, aren't my parents so cute? Still in love after 27 years of marriage.

Comfort

The world has been weighing heavily on my mind and heart lately. I'm sure if you've been reading this blog recently you know that the question of What Happens After Graduation has been on my mind a lot. That stress, plus the stress of trying to find a job for before graduation (you know, so I can pay my rent and feed myself and all that trivial stuff), some good ol' fashioned chemical and hormonal imbalances in my brain, and other random stressful things have all been wrecking havoc on my piece of mind.

Tonight after pouring my heart out in a rather desperate prayer, I felt prompted to open my scriptures, and this is what I read:

"HEARKEN unto the voice of the Lord your God, while I speak unto you . . . my daughter; for verily I say unto you, all those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my kingdom.

"A revelation I give unto you concerning my will; and if thou art faithful and walk in the paths of virtue before me, I will preserve thy life, and thou shalt receive an inheritance in Zion.

"Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called.

"Murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen, for they are withheld from thee and from the world, which is wisdom in me in a time to come."

Doctrine and Covenants 25:1-4

I'm grateful that the Lord has preserved His words so that we can read them today. I'm grateful that the Spirit can make those words, spoken in another time and place to another person, completely relevant and powerful to me in my life, just as if those words were spoken directly and solely to me. It seems a fantastical claim, but I know that it's true that God knows each and every one of His children - that would be all of mankind - intimately and personally. Furthermore, I know He has a plan for each of us, a plan meant to make us the best and the happiest we can be. And I know that by embracing the gospel and following that plan that "the best and the happiest we can be" is so much more than anything we could ever possibly imagine.

Minority / Majority

I wrote this essay for my Perspectives on Race class that I'm taking right now. It's an interesting class, for all that we mostly just sit around discussing the issue more than trying to find an answer. Which begs the question, Is there an answer? We were supposed to write about a time that we were a minority or a time we were discriminated against, so I chose to write about living in South Korea. We were supposed to keep it to two pages (it's a large class, over 80 people), but I could have written a lot more on the subject if I'd had the space. If I had written more, I think I would have included more about what I learned and discussed in greater detail the treatment I received while I was there. But here's what I did get written.



"It's hard to be a minority when you're white and middle-class and living in America. I was never “normal”, per se, but I didn't stick out too much if you just looked at me. Which is why moving to South Korea for a year and a half rocked my world so much.

The United States may seem like the bastion of white middle-class-ness, but compared to South Korea it's incredibly diverse ethnically and culturally. For the first time in my life, I was the outsider in every way it was possible to be outside the norm: I wasn't ethnically Asian, I didn't speak the language, I couldn't eat the food, and the culture was totally foreign to me. I couldn't walk the walk or talk the talk, and I definitely didn't look the look.



My time in Korea wasn't my first experience being a minority – I grew up in an LDS family smack dab in the middle of the small-town, Bible Belt American South – but it was the first time people stared at me before I opened my mouth. In fact, I didn't have to do anything other than exist to get looks, both covert and overt, as I walked down the street. I was used to being “strange” because of what I believed and certain things I did or didn't do, but I wasn't equipped to handle the curious stares and whispers that trailed in my wake. I had years of experience explaining myself and my religion to skeptical and sometimes even hostile listeners; but now I couldn't communicate more than a few halting sentences, and anyway how can you confront people for merely looking at you? What could I have said?

My initial reaction to being so utterly foreign was a crippling self-consciousness. I tried to comfort myself by telling myself that not everyone was staring, but the truth was most people were. I'm average height in America, but in Korea I'm on the tall side. My hair, though light brown, is naturally wavy instead of heavy and straight. Even bundled up against the cold as I was there was no mistaking my double-lidded green eyes, and the weak winter sun and harsh wind only made my skin paler and my cheeks redder. It didn't help that little old ladies would come up to me, fascinated, and pat me on the back. You look just like a doll! they'd exclaim, reaching up to run their fingers through my hair. Is it natural? they asked.



After a few weeks self-consciousness gave way to anger. Stop looking at me! I wanted to shout. I'm just minding my own business, riding the bus just like you. Have you never seen a white girl before?! But of course they probably hadn't, not up close, and so the anger never made it past my thoughts. In time, the anger faded into amusement and the amusement faded into indifference. The stares and the whispers, the pats and the questions and the exclamations – they were all just part of life. It became such a part of life that coming home and fitting in again was almost as much a shock as sticking out had been when I first got to Korea.

I wouldn't say that I was particularly prejudiced or close-minded before going to Korea, but my experience there had a profound effect on me. I know what it's like now to be the person that isn't like everybody else. I know what it feels like now to be lumped into a stereotype willy-nilly, with no thought for who I am as an individual. I know how it feels to tamp down on the annoyance or anger that bubbles up when people make off-hand comments casually condemning something about which they know nothing.



It would be a lie to say that I don't have stereotypes and biases of my own, but since my experience in Korea I have tried hard to judge people on their own merits. I resist expecting people to act according to what “everyone” says. I've made a concerted effort to realize that people sometimes have very different ways of approaching life and its problems, and to reserve judgement on people's actions until I've at least tried to see things from their perspective. The outcome of those efforts has been profoundly enlightening, and I have come to see the world in a very different way from how I once saw it.

I don't relish being a minority. I returned to Korea one summer after I'd been back to America for about a year, and on bad days that annoyance and anger would flare up again. It's not particularly enjoyable to be stared at and whispered about and pigeonholed into a certain stereotype, but my life has become so much richer for that experience. My life has changed for the better, and I have become a better person for it. I cannot claim to be wholly without prejudice or bias or stereotype, but I can now recognize more easily when I've allowed them to creep into my judgements or my perceptions of people. My experience as a minority certainly doesn't equate with those whose experiences have been lifelong and overwhelmingly negative, but I can try to empathize based on what's happened to me. But I think most importantly my experiences have left me with a need to reach out to others, to overcome those small things that separate us so that we can learn from each other. Because what makes us the same is so much more than what makes us different."

Small Mercies

More than a month ago I wore my favorite pair of earrings when I went to church with a friend. I was staying at my aunt and uncle's house and they were supposed to take me and my little brother to the airport before the sun got up the next morning. I came home, and because I was feeling so awful (I'd gotten suddenly sick while at my friend's house), I took them off and put them on top of my carryon. I had a fleeting thought that I should probably put them in my makeup bag lest they get lost, but I was in such a hurry to get in the shower (my favorite way to make myself feel better) that I dismissed it.

The next morning as I was boarding the airplane, something small plopped onto the seat as I put my carryon into the overhead bin. It was my earring. Just one.

I was so upset with myself. I love those earrings. I bought them for approximately $3 on the side of the road outside a subway station while I was serving a mission in Korea, but they were still beautiful and had a lot of sentimental value. (Not to mention every time I wore them someone complimented me on them.) And just because I'd been in such a rush, I'd failed to take care of them properly and now one was gone.

Fast forward a month and a half.

This morning I got up, got dressed, and started putting on my makeup. I decided to wear one of my favorite sweaters, one that I usually pair with those earrings. I felt a little pang and told myself (again) how dumb I was. I thought about wearing my freshwater pearl drops but I wasn't really feeling them today. I went over to the little earring cup I keep on my dresser to see if there might be another pair that would work, knowing full well that there wasn't. I thought, though, that I should find the one earring I did have and stare at it morosely for a while. I looked down. Instead of the one white (fake, plastic) pearl that had been greeting me accusingly for the last month and a half, there were two. I blinked. Nope, still two. I picked both of them up and stared at them a little bemused. Still two.

Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, how important was my $3 earring that really only had sentimental value? Not very important at all. And yet, there it was in my hand. I'm sure people could come up with ways to explain this away, most of them involving subconsciousnesses and perhaps forgetfulness, but I know that it was there because God heard a silly prayer about that earring and answered it. It was important to Him because it was important to me; because I'm important to Him. The fact that He did hear and answer that prayer has significance far beyond the intrinsic value of the earring itself. God knows us. He loves us. He wants us to have joy, and He knows the smallest desires of our hearts. He answers prayers. He cares about us, and He demonstrates that care through very small, oftentimes (to us) imperceptible mercies. I know people look at wars and famines and natural disasters and wonder if there is a God, but I look at my earrings nestled next to each other on my dresser and I know that there is.


"In His mercy, the God of heaven, the Creator and Ruler of all things everywhere, had heard a prayer about a very minor thing. One might well ask why He would concern Himself with something so small. I am led to believe that our Heavenly Father loves us so much that the things that are important to us become important to Him, just because He loves us."

- J. Devn Cornish,  "The Privilege of Prayer"

The Paradox of Mankind

"The great deceiver knows that one of his most effective tools in leading the children of God astray is to appeal to the extremes of the paradox of man. To some, he appeals to their prideful tendencies, puffing them up and encouraging them to believe in the fantasy of their own self-importance and invincibility. He tells them they have transcended the ordinary and that because of ability, birthright, or social status, they are set apart from the common measure of all that surrounds them. He leads them to conclude that they are therefore not subject to anyone else’s rules and not to be bothered by anyone else’s problems.

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Another way Satan deceives is through discouragement. He attempts to focus our sight on our own insignificance until we begin to doubt that we have much worth. He tells us that we are too small for anyone to take notice, that we are forgotten—especially by God.

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The Lord doesn’t care at all if we spend our days working in marble halls or stable stalls. He knows where we are, no matter how humble our circumstances. He will use—in His own way and for His holy purposes—those who incline their hearts to Him."

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

October 2011 General Conference

There's a powerful principle in that - the sin lies in the extremes. God would have us cultivate balance in all we do, and especially in how we see ourselves. It is true that alone we are nothing, and it is also true that each of us have a divine potential - the potential to become like God. But that divine potential can only be realized in a partnership with our Heavenly Father, through the power of the Savior's Atonement. 

[Source]: Picture here at ThingsToLookAtHigh.com

Boys and Girls Are Different

My cousin James and me when we were both babies

In my marriage prep class we've spent the last couple of weeks talking about how boys and girls are different. Is this really news to anyone? It shouldn't be, but I think what we do need reminding of is that our differences are meant to complement each other, not make us antagonistic towards each other. 

Today we were talking about how we think differently. And by "think", I don't mean your opinion on something, I mean it literally. This is something I never knew until I took this same class last semester, and I gather from my class's reaction that it was pretty much news to them, too. I remember a few months ago, I was talking to my little brother about some things that were bothering me. I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, but at some point he asked me if I ever just thought about nothing. I looked at him strangely and thought about it, and I realized that my brain never shuts off. I've never made a really concerted effort to not think about anything, but just normally, during the day, something's always knocking around in my brain. Usually several somethings at the same time. When I told him that, he looked at me sympathetically and said that that must be very exhausting.

And you know? It is. 

I think that that fact is one of the reasons I watch so many dramas and read so many books. With no "off" switch to keep myself from ODing on thinking, instead I've developed a strategy to switch my brain onto another track. Which is not a bad thing, per se. But it becomes a handicap when it turns into a crutch for not confronting and coping with my problems in healthier (and more effective) ways. Because as a friend of mine once pointed out to me, your problems are still there when you get back from your little "mind vacation", and now you have even less time to deal with them.

We also talked about how girls internalize things. That's a very true truth, too. Not all girls are the same in the extent to which they do this, but in extreme cases some girls take responsibility for everything - everything negative, that is. Rarely are girls with this problem as quick to internalize success as they are to internalize failure. It always seems like a very silly thing to do when you're talking about it in the abstract, but I've done my share of this, too. Every little critique, no matter how lovingly given, becomes the source of a major wound. And I think this results because of the third thing that we talked about today, which is that girls are very focused on what "I am" over what "I do". When you criticize what I do, I think the reason I take it so hard is because I feel like that critique - no matter how valid, no matter how nicely phrased, no matter how much praise accompanies it - is an attack on who I am. That every mistake I make is a flaw in my personality, that every failure to do something is a failure in who I am. 

There's a philosophical question for you - just how closely connected are what we do and who we are? Obviously, stubbing my toe is not an expression of how flawed I am - but is snapping at someone when I'm having a bad day? Not being a great cook shouldn't be a measure of what kind of person I am, but is it? The intellectual part of me scoffs at that, but there's another part of me that isn't quite so sure it isn't right. Like I said, not every girl struggles with this as much as some others, but I think it's a good thing to keep in mind. Hopefully it will make us more understanding of each other and more compassionate with each other when we make mistakes. Because once you've attacked someone for who they are, it's hard for that wound to heal and neither the wound or the hurt are easily forgotten. Sometimes this can lead to a strained relationship with the person who inflicted the wound, but I think the even scarier outcome is that the girl will internalize that relationship strain, as well, and hear a constant inner monologue of "If only I'd done better, this is all my fault, I should have done more, I should have done something different," etc for a long, long time.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The other day I was thinking about a friend of mine. This friend is a truly good person - she's kind, she loves people, she goes out of her way to make people feel welcomed and appreciated, she's smart, she's spiritual, she has a great grasp of the world and her place in it, and she's the kind of person you just want to be around all the time because she makes you feel like the world is a good place. And she has a killer smile and a ready laugh, not to mention she's very beautiful. Now, my own talents don't happen to lie in that direction at all. But as I started thinking about what my strong points are, that got me thinking about all the exceptions to those strengths.

The thing about strengths is that they always come with some kind of drawback attached. Think about it for a second: say you're really good at empathizing with people. That's a great thing, and it can really help you in interpersonal relationships. But think about this, too: sometimes being so empathetic can be completely overwhelming, or render you incapable of being objective about a situation or a person. Or being logical and rational - those are surely good, and they give you the ability to examine connections and weigh decisions carefully. But taking too-logical an approach to certain things - like religion or people's motivations - can be detrimental, not helpful. Let's take one of mine: perfectionism. This can be a great thing, because it can increase the overall quality of everything with which you're associated (like, for instance, how I just corrected my sentence so it wouldn't end with a preposition). On the flip side, it can also mean that nothing ever gets done to your specifications, or lead to a perpetual dissatisfaction with yourself and everyone else - because for sure this world is not a perfect place. It can lead to strife in personal and work relationships as your expectations for people's behavior and performance are unrealistically high. And the list continues, but I think I've made my point.

Every plus has its minus. I'd like to have perfect pitch, but I'd also have to live with knowing every time anyone was just a hair flat or sharp, and that might possibly ruin my enjoyment of some otherwise amazing performances.

So think about this the next time you're tempted to envy someone else's apparent strengths: Would you be willing to accept the drawbacks that come along with that strength you're coveting?

Life in a Bubble

Photo can be found here

When I was in school at St. John's, there was some talk of "the Johnnie bubble", as if there was an invisible forcefield surrounding our tiny little campus. And in a way, I think there was, a forcefield of ideas and lack of interest in what was happening in the world at large. Of course, there are always exceptions - not everyone was unaware of what was happening around us while we read the words of long-dead thinkers and talked about them in the shower, at dinner, and in class.

I admit I was firmly inside that bubble, not caring much about what was going on in the city outside SJC, let alone the state, country, and world outside of that. Inside a "bubble" there's a real sense that the things happening outside it are semi-dreamlike, a little unreal, and they certainly don't effect you or your world. Everything is distant and removed from you.

It wasn't until I was serving in my very last area in Korea on a mission - another very real type of bubble - that this view got substantially challenged. I started to think about that way of life, living like all the things outside your immediate sphere don't have much import or effect. And as with all other real thinking, it started snowballing into a reconsideration of how I'd fundamentally viewed the world to that point.

Bubbles are dangerous. Living in a bubble has disastrous effects on everything from your personal relationships to the economy of your country, depending on the size of that bubble you live in. When we cozily draw our comfortable, "normal" worldview around us and tuck ourselves into its warm, enveloping folds, we close our eyes and ears and hearts to the suffering and struggles of millions, even billions of people. We turn everyone outside it into "others" who become stereotypes and sometimes even less than human, or worst of all, simply vague concepts that aren't really that important in the grand scheme of things. We close ourselves off from new ideas, new ways of examining our problems, from the very experience we've been sent here to obtain. We rob ourselves of the opportunity to grow and become better people; we deny ourselves opportunities to love and serve our fellowmen. We do ourselves a horrible injustice, because what happens around us certainly does impact us. A web of choices and consequences connects your decision to purchase a certain item in one country to the dramatic altering of a person you've never met's life in another country. What you do matters. What other people do matters to you, or it should, because it effects you.

All you have to do to prove that is to examine history. Do you think people in America really gave much of a thought to an assassinated Archduke somewhere over in Europe in 1914? Probably not. Probably the majority of Americans didn't even know it had happened. And yet, the consequences of that one action - and all the actions that preceded that decision to act - had a terrible, tremendous impact on Americans then and are still effecting us even to this day. You have a stake in internal politics in China. The economic situation in Europe is effecting you right now. They may seem far off and remote, but life has a way of making a mountain out of a molehill.

Or maybe it's only our perception that makes one a mountain and another a molehill. The thing about bubbles is they have a disturbing tendency to pop.

Photo can be found here

Happy Quarter-Century to Me!

25 years ago today, at this very hour (1230), I was just over six hours old.

In that 25 years, a lot has happened. 25 years. It's a whole quarter of a century.

The last year of my life has been quite the upheaval. I decided that I wasn't happy where I was (academically speaking). I dropped out of school. I changed my life goals. I nannied for a semester. I moved 2/3 of the way across the country. I made new friends, settled into a new educational atmosphere, took care of my grandparents, adjusted to a different culture, lost both grandfathers, made life decisions impacting my immediate (and possibly long-term) future. I've smiled, cried, laughed, shouted, slept and dreamed and made mistakes. I've grown. Perhaps not as much as I should have, or could have, but I know that I'm a better person today than I was one year ago, and that's something.

Here's hoping the next year is better than the last.

Nothing and Too Much to Say

CN Blue - 사랑빛 (Lovelight)

Have you ever thought too much? I liken the feeling to trying to untangle a ball of yarn. The more you try to straighten everything out, the more tangled and complicated it all gets until you just want to hurl the whole mess as far away from you as you possibly can. The upshot of the whole thing is that even though I have so much on my mind, I really have nothing to say. Only old problems getting hashed and rehashed in my head until I just want to cover my ears, jump up and down, and scream. Unfortunately, that's not very productive. It doesn't accomplish much at all. Or anything, for that matter.

Recently I've been wondering why I'm here in Logan. Academically, obviously I'm here to finish school (finally!), but the thing about life is there's never just one reason for anything. Take SJC for example. Ostensibly I went to Annapolis to fulfill a dream I'd had since high school of attending St. John's. But I think the real reason I went there was to have the experiences I needed to decide to go on a mission, which was an important part of my development and growth as a person. And of course I met many wonderful people who have influenced me in many positive ways. Not to mention I gained a unique kind of education that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else or in any other way. And I fell in love with the East Coast and its sense of history. I learned a lot from my years in Annapolis. So...why am I here at USU? What am I supposed to be learning from this experience? Maybe it's too early to tell. After all, I didn't move to Annapolis expecting any of the outcomes that actually arose. Maybe my problem is that I moved here with certain expectations and those things haven't happened. I thought I was coming here for one reason and maybe that's not the reason at all. But then, what is it? I wish I knew. 

"But behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy"*

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,

that thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

                                                   - John Keats, from Ode to a Nightingale

Keats' Ode to a Nightingale was the last poem we read in my language class my sophomore year at SJC. After we'd talked about the other stanzas for a while, my tutor drew our attention back to the first one, the one quoted above, and asked us to explain the lines "'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, / But being too happy in thine happiness". There was silence for a few moments as no one felt brave enough to venture an answer. As the silence stretched to the point where it was starting to become awkward, someone finally said something, and a brief discussion ensued. But none of my classmates seemed to be hitting on the feeling that those lines inspired in me, and most admitted they had no idea what he was talking about.

I don't know whether the feeling Keats describes is a function of experience, or of passion, or maybe some combination of both. At the time, it seemed to me that at some point everyone experiences that feeling -- a feeling so overwhelming, so all-encompassing, that it tips from pleasure into something that is almost pain. But when I attempted to express that to my classmates, all I got in return were uncomprehending expressions. Only my tutor was nodding in understanding and agreement.

Class ended soon after, and all sixteen of us shoved our chairs back from the scarred wooden table with loud scrapes, spilling into the spring sunshine in laughing knots of two or three. But the memory of that class, and of that question, has stayed with me, and every once in a while comes up the surface of my mind to be reexamined and mused over. Why is it that none of my classmates knew the sensation Keats was trying to describe? Were they just too young? Most were barely twenty, if that. Had they just not had the opportunity yet? Again, their relative youth might explain that, and time might fix it. Or was it a matter of passion? Had lives of comfort and little challenge, of immediate gratification and too much time in front of the TV robbed them of sensation Keats was trying to communicate?

I don't really know the answer to my question. I have an idea that the real answer lies in some combination of all of those things; but I think that passion is the key. Passion is what elevates moments of mediocrity to sublimeness, what makes ordinary things extraordinary and regular people more than just the sum of their parts. But along with the highs come the lows, and I think most people are too afraid of the inevitable tumble from the heights of joy into the depths of sorrow to ever attempt the climb. They stay safely in the middle, hugging the average, never feeling too much pain, but never knowing much of joy, either. It is a tragic choice, I think, one that robs the world of much that it could be. Of course, unrestrained passion is more hurtful than it is of any benefit; but that is not what I am talking about. I'm talking about the courage to pay the price, to be willing to experience great sorrow to experience those moments of transcendent joy that teeter on the edge of pain, those moments when your heart is so full that it feels like it might burst, and you feel like shouting and singing and telling the whole world at the top of your lungs that everything is beautiful and wonderful. It is worth it for those moments, I think. It is worth it for those moments of perfect sadness, even, for those moments when your heart is breaking but at the same time so full of a lesson you never could have learned otherwise that you wouldn't have avoided the sorrow if you'd had the chance.

*Alma 26:11