This is the Life

I keep wanting to post something but I'm not sure what I want it to be about exactly...

Often times I don't really plan what I say, it just stems from some place in my mind or my heart and somehow works its way into a vague poem that cohesively makes sense, or a short story that somehow has a moral.

That's kind of how I live my life. What happens happens; I don't really....try.

Take the piano for instance: I had a natural knack for it. My fingers were crafted to tickle the ivories, and they generally were good at it. My mind's connection to the muscle memory of playing a piece was very strong, and once I nailed it down I could whip it out at any moment at any speed.

I was good.

So I didn't practice.

Take my GPA for instance: I was kicked out of Honors English my ninth grade year because, being naturally gifted with words, I focused my energies on my weaknesses like science and math. So I didn't maintain the B grade level to stay in the class.

So they kicked me out. And other than one terrible science grade my ninth grade year, my lowest grades--college included--are in English courses.

Because I don't try.

I fell for the system of blogging because when it comes to writing I'm not one for revision. With few exceptions, when I write something I consider it completed and publishable in that exact moment. With a blog I can do that. I can write something and send it into the world seconds later. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to try.

Even now I don't know what exactly it is I'm getting at. I'm just writing.

That's why I hated literary criticism and analyzing poetry and what not. Because to me, people wrote the way they read, people wrote the way I wrote, which was the way I read. It's late so let me repeat that sentence in another way: I always imagined the author took as much thought to write as it took me to read. I don't know what's coming, I discover it the farther down the page I go. So, obviously, must the writer upon penning it.

I viewed writing as more of an archaeological work, slowly dusting off evidence by degrees, never truly aware of what was being uncovered until at last there lay a skeleton of sorts. And in that moment every little aspect prior to would make ultimate sense. The work would be completed, understood, and beautiful.

And for me, quite often, it works that way. Spoiler alert, the prose piece that was published in Weber's undergraduate literary book Metaphor was one of those instances where I sat and wrote, and as the end came I realized all the symbolism with the cold hands and a reserved, almost cold life, and the bright vivacious man warming my hands both metaphorically and literally.

That's one reason it's one of my favorite things I've written lately. Because it somehow resulted in so much meaning.

I don't plan my writing. Which is why it hurt when the words went away last year. For so long the one thing that had always been near effortless was suddenly a barren wasteland I couldn't cross. And I kept wanting to talk about it, write about it, but the words weren't there. There were never enough words, and they wouldn't file into place the way they used to, gathering together at the close to mean something more than the stammerings of a young adult.




I'm tired and sick of this post.

I keep coming back to the diner. I guess I'll write it. maybe the words know something I don't.



I watched her from my seat at the bar, feet dangling, one hand holding my chin up in the way I keep assuming is sexy; I don't know how I'd fare if someone told me it was otherwise. She didn't seem to notice me, and I didn't seem to mind. Not everyone you recognize needs to be verbally acknowledged. Sometimes it's enough to stare from a distance for a moment or so and then calmly return to the life you developed in their absence, knowing full well they would do the same. Some bridges don't burn, they just get overgrown, and you wonder what the trouble would be in moving the foliage and crossing once more. Sometimes you think to take the risk.

And sometimes you make it halfway and change your mind, allowing the underbrush to envelop the faded wood boards again, sucking that piece of your past back into the recesses of the forest of your mind where you now fail to tread.

But I didn't need that with her. I didn't need to contemplate the bridge. I knew her well enough, remembered her well enough, even with a bridge left dilapidated and forgone. I hadn't even realized I'd crossed the bridge, really. It had taken until seeing her to realize how far we'd come, my feet and I, how much distance lay between us and that once field of green. I had an image of myself, back then. A vision of perfection, what "adult" me would entail, and it took seeing her, across the greasy diner in the booth that should be hosed down, to realize I'd reached that moment. I'd become that vision, else why would I see myself as such a distant figure? Else why would I see what used to be me sitting in an awkward solitude by the window?


It hit me this weekend, and today, but so expediently on Friday, when suddenly every thread was cut. Suddenly all the safety nets that tethered me to that frightened chubby girl hiding in a Jason Mraz tee shirt were broken and dangling as memories from the four gray walls that suspended me. Suddenly my limitations were nothing. Suddenly the expanse before me was more vast and beautiful than it had ever been.

Suddenly I...was alive.

I forgot until this moment: there's a scene in Home Alone where Kevin yells out "I'm not afraid anymore! Do you hear me? I'm not afraid anymore!" (and then he sees the creepy shovel dragging neighbor and runs away screaming).

But my life has reached that moment. The Macaulay Culkin in my mind keeps yelling "I'm not afraid anymore! Do you hear me? I'm not afraid anymore!" and I can't help but feel it with each breath. It's invigorating, this concept of being alive. This ability to share what's on my mind with anyone nearby, not questioning how they'll interpret what I'm saying, but simply saying it as though they've known me for ages. It's not caring if my odd dancing scares boys away, but embracing that this is how I'm happy in a movement setting. It's not chickening out when the attractive mid-twenties man from corporate talks to you briefly and not shying away from asking if he's single. It's taking the moment you have and making the best of it. It's not waiting for the "next time" that won't happen or won't happen the same way. It's being grateful for all my big mistakes as much as I am for all the little blessings, because each makes me what I am. It's knowing there's someone out there who will accept all of me, and that hiding it won't keep hurt from happening. It's understanding that hurt happens, that love isn't right the first time, that people can say things they possibly mean and everything can look good on paper, but when it comes down to it it just doesn't work.

It's believing that something will work. It's hoping that I can have all I want and deserve in this lifetime, that God won't let me be the crazy rat lady because I think varmints are adorable and I'm allergic to cats. It's throwing caution to the wind. It's living the way he does, maybe not exactly, but enough to feel the breeze. It's accepting what I am and embracing what I want, and greeting the universe with this understanding, and paying it forward and keeping from bottling it up. It's about being present and in the now and ready for destiny, even if it's just so I can make another mistake.

It's making mistakes and taking truths from the ashes of my expectations. It's moving forward, living up, making mountains.





Sometimes songs don't directly apply unless you're me. But I love this song so I'm embedding it anyway.

Eyes Wide Open

Yesterday wasn't a good day.

I mean, ultimately it wasn't actually half bad, but from the get-go it was...a little rough.

Perhaps it was the three and a half hours of sleep, or other conditions beyond my control, but I couldn't shake this horrible feeling of being lost. I had symptoms of it prior to that day, as you can see in the previous blog post. I was hating life again. I was hating where I am and what I'm doing, which I knew was ridiculous because so many excellent things are happening right now. I'm directing an elementary school musical. I'm assistant stage manager for a musical on campus. I'm finally able to participate in improv workshops, something I've been yearning to do since my junior year in high school. I'm acting like myself on a daily basis in public locations.

I was aware feeling the way I felt was stupid, but I couldn't shake it. I couldn't get rid of that all-consuming sorrow and despondency. I prayed like forty times in four hours. And I felt incrementally better each time, but there was still a constant under current of "things suck."

And then I went to mission prep.

I don't know if I'm going on a mission, let me say so up front. A couple months back I started taking life seriously again, and putting my faith in my Lord and His gospel on a higher pedestal than everything else. I've never planned on going on a mission. I always blew it off with the confidence that I'd just decide when I was 21, because by that point I'd so obviously be in a committed relationship/married/nearly married and therefore not be expected to go. So I wouldn't go.

So I never considered going.

Even when they changed the age, it wasn't like I knew immediately that's what I needed to do. I thought about it a lot, what this would mean for me, suddenly aware that 21, though no longer the limit, was not as far away as I imagined as a thirteen year-old in Young Womens. My answer upon hearing the announcement and pondering, there at work standing by the microwave, was to live my life as if I were to go on one, something I hadn't been doing prior to that moment, and something I honestly didn't actually put into effect until about a month later.

I've been a little embarrassed to talk about it, because when you say you haven't been living the gospel fully in a predominately Mormon society, the judgment most often passed--and you realize this because you've been guilty of doing it yourself--is that obviously they've done something drastic like break the Word of Wisdom or let someone into their bed; of which I did neither. But, we were looking in Joseph Smith History in Sunday School, and read this verse, and...how can I be embarrassed now?

JSH 1: 28 "...I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my nature. But I was guilt of levity, and sometimes associated with jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been. But this will not seem very strange to any one who recollects my youth, and is acquainted with my native cheery temperament."

Why I never even knew this existed I could not tell you.

Actually, false. I didn't know because I didn't need it until now.

To return to where we were before the digression, once I started fully doing my part with regards to faith, testimony, the gospel, I started to turn to Him for everything; something I should have been doing instead of taking a year hiatus. I realized I'm at this point in my life where everything can either go right or go wrong. I'm an adult. If I had chosen or if it had been right for me I could be living on my own right now. There are peers my age not going to school, working full time to build a life. There are girls on my Facebook page who are home tending to children. I can't afford another year of figuring things out for myself--I figured out nothing in that year but a system for laziness.

So I ask Him everything.

And with regards to every big decision, my answer is the same:

Wait.

I took a mission prep class because I didn't know what I'm waiting for. I still don't. But I saw no harm in preparing for a mission that I may or may not go on, because if I don't end up going, at least by taking the class I followed the prompting given that day in October, and worked toward living as though I were going to go.

I'd been waiting all day for mission prep, because I felt so sluggishly bogged and despondent and the small nudges of comfort from my inward praying for peace wasn't enough.

I struggled for a moment, sitting in mission prep, my mind still insisting on sinking into the tar pit of my heart and giving up, when the fog cleared, just a little.

I remembered a moment from Friday night, out with the Improvables at Dee's. I'd been talking to my BFF Charlotte (who I honestly hardly know but she's super nice and awesome, and I can see us becoming some form of BFF's some day), and I immediately felt better. Everything that was bothering me, all the cannons that were sinking my ship, ceased. I realized that though this one fragment of my life is less than desirable, so much more of it is amazing. And the thing for me to do now is focus on the amazing parts, and let the other sort itself out with time.

Then these three girls put in a video they'd made. From what I gleaned they are three best friends, all headed on their missions. They'd compiled footage of each of them opening their mission calls, so that each would read the same line and progress down the letter.

I watched them each uncover where they were going. Dominican Republic, New York, Wisconsin, and that old thought drifted in through my new found peace.

I wonder where He'd send me.

I started idealizing Virginia because Jason Mraz was from there, but the more I looked into it the more I realized it truly was a place I'd like to see. But that's the thing: I've never seen it. Virginia became a place in my mind, a metaphor for a happy place, an area of solace. Comfort. But I realized one day everything I've allowed Virginia to be is everything a mission would be.

I've daydreamed heading out there and finding myself, coming across the right people, becoming a fulfilled person. Experiencing joy. I'd take care of myself, because I'd be on my own. I'd gain experience I lack sitting here on my bed in my parents' house. I'd grow.

I don't remember when, but it occurred to me a mission would be that long-imagined month or more staycation in Virginia. But a mission would be less risky. A mission would have more stability than a college student deciding to embark on an adult life across the country, where no one could help her if she needed it.

Why not? I thought, crying for the third time that morning, but for an entirely different reason than heartache.

Why not a mission?

I'm not saying I'm going. I'm not saying I've decided.

I'm saying I've decided to actually think about it. To finally set myself down and determine, prayerfully, what I'm meant to do with my mortal sojourn, instead of waving a hand and saying "future Erica will have to decide."

I'm checking unknown, for now. I'm not expecting an answer now; I don't think He'd give it. He knows how much of a one-track mind I have. The time will come. Someday the waiting will be over. But for now I'm waiting productively.

For now I'm waiting in Him.