-Because there's no better title at this time.-

I never thought I'd be able to drive. I couldn't figure it out, and as the hours went on I became convinced I'd be that anomaly in a world of automobile drivers to be inept at functioning behind the wheel. I started looking at how life would be without the luxury of a car, or even the capacity to operate one. I knew there were millions who could do it, but I'd never be one of them. I couldn't do it. I couldn't see myself doing it.

I've felt the same way about a lot of things. Marriage, giving birth. I don't think it's a low self-esteem issue, something like believing I'm not good enough for it. That's not the case, and I think that's something people tend to misunderstand about me. I'm not self-conscious. I mean yes, I have my moments were a feel pudgy or not so glamorous, but everyone does; it's human nature. I'd be lying to say I'm 100% satisfied with myself 100% of the time, but those are just moments, not layers of chronic self-deprecation. I don't underestimate myself. I once had a guy tell me there was no way guys wouldn't be interested in me--like he was trying to boost my self worth so I'd leave that "relationship" with him and enter the world confident in my ability to attract men.

I've never doubted that. I've never felt I wasn't good enough for a guy, I've never felt no one would ever want me.

I've been worried I won't find the right one.

I can't see myself being married, even as marriage becomes less of a child's perspective of what her parents did and what all the old couples in the ward did and more of a thing my friends do and things my friends talk about with their boyfriends/girlfriends, I can't see it happening. *Again, I remind you, it's not that I don't think I'm good enough to get married, it's the idea that the opportunity will never fully come, the idea never realized.* Which is absurd coming from a 21 year old who's only been in one 'official' relationship and has only been seriously on the dating scene for just over a year. It's ridiculous.

But I was reminded of it as I checked my facebook just now and saw a Junior High friend's pictures of the child she birthed nearly six hours ago, and I was awoken to the fact that I can't see myself having kids. I can't see that ever happening.

It's more than that. I can't see myself as a good improviser, I can't see myself as a competent missionary, I can't see myself as a theatre teacher, I can't see myself as an accomplished author, I can't see myself as a functioning adult in society with a working knowledge of politics and taxes and current events.

I can't see these things. I've set up this barrier that prohibits me from fully experiencing life. I've created a rule for myself to hold back and hesitate just a little, because you never know. I've let my existence be wrapped and warped in doubt.

And the only way I can think to get past it is to keep going. I've used it before, but I'll use it again. I couldn't see the Improvables letting me into the troupe after those auditions. So I didn't want to go. But I pushed through and went.

I need to stop thinking life is easy, or that I can make it easy by holding back. You'll never learn to drive the car if you don't sit and focus on what you're doing. You have to train yourself to understand. You have to train yourself to perform the task. It takes brainpower and concentration. It takes focus and effort. It takes the will to try, and actively doing it constantly. But one day you realize driving's not that hard, and you just needed to relax a little bit and give yourself time.

I can get married, I can have babies, I can become sufficient at improv, I can follow my dreams and accomplish them. To do so, I have to stop telling myself they need to be in the immediate foreseeable future, and I need to kick the nasty habit of waiting for "next time."

Just because you learn to breathe underwater doesn't mean you ever shake the fear of being drowned.

"You really are a completely different person." "Me?" My voice sounded more confused than I was. Mostly I'd just misheard. "I don't mean like... You've just changed a lot. It goes back to what I said earlier: you hold yourself with more confidence than I've ever seen you with. You know who you are, and everyone else can take it or not." I'm amazed at these moments of brutal clarity. How, somehow, all the fog that garnishes my mind spaces sifts away in unison and for a moment I see something I've assumed was there, but was merely riding on faith as to its existence. I'm amazed at how it seems the most blatant and life-specific of these moments happen when I spend the day with a married friend, and the evening with her and her husband. For some reason I respond well to the visual that is my friends--my age--interacting with their eternal companions. And, something I just realized, the two instances I've visited these two married friends have been just barely past the half year mark. I'm comfortable in these circumstances; I'm comfortable as the third wheel to a married couple I have no history with as a unit. My backstory with the wives stretches far and beyond, but until these moments as guest in their homes I've never in depth interacted with the husband. This isn't a rambling musing. There's a point here somewhere. It's like today, I realized how firmly settled in myself I've become. I still have brutally awkward moments, I still doubt myself or feel bad that I'm pudgy as I grab another cookie with the fullest intent to eat it, but this woman I've become is someone I'm satisfied with. I'm not ashamed of her. I don't want to hide her under the bed until I'm sure this new acquaintance will appreciate her in full. When I want to laugh I laugh. If it's loud and obnoxious so be it; I'm enjoying myself. This is how I sound when I laugh. If I want to reference a Jason Mraz funfact I will. There is eight years of knowledge in this brain of mine, and until some other charming young man fancies me enough to share his entire life with me I'm going to keep making my knowledge useful. I felt like the friend who's opted to skip the whole marriage/family/dating thing and live as a bachelorette apartment-hopping in upper New York, content with every minor aspect of my life. And this isn't to say I've decided I don't what the whole marriage/family/dating thing; it's that I've wanted for so long to love someone else that I didn't realize I was coming to love myself. That I needed to love myself. That I hadn't before. Like when I was a kid and it was late one night after Fourth of July fireworks and I was running into the house before the long drive home and tripped on a sprinkler head, falling on the sidewalk. It wasn't until I got into the house and noticed the scrape on my knee that the scrape began to sting. I didn't know about my problem until I got a chance to look at it. I didn't see it until today when the fog cleared. I didn't realize how little faith I had for myself. How much I held myself back. I always knew that was an issue; I've never fully 100% dedicated myself to a performance. I always felt like I wasn't good enough to be amazing, so instead of trying and proving myself wrong I settled for decent. But something's clicked. Something's made sense that I, for the longest time, wanted to understand but couldn't wrap my head around. I know I'm pretty, comical, attractive, unique, talented, spiritual, creative, confident, humorous, verbose. I know what I'm doing. I know where I am, and I'm happy with all of it. I'm content to be standing where I'm standing, even when it seems like so much around me is moving and I'm stuck in a rut. And above all else, I know what I want. I know he's coming, and that he's coming soon. However long it takes him doesn't matter. I wouldn't dare cut out any of the intricacies the Lord has crafted for my life. I wouldn't ask him to appear now if it meant losing some beautiful moment down the line. He'll be worth all these dead end streets. He'll be worth waiting for. So I'm back to square one: waiting. Only now I'm reestablished, refortified, rejuvenated, and ready. I'm stuck with me for forever, and I've finally come to love her. It won't be hard to love someone else.

I'd Like to Say We've Tasted Love

One thing I've come to notice is how life isn't what you expect. Meaning that a lot of the benefits/realizations/friendships I've received have come from moments when I didn't expect anything of the type to take place.

I could go with the laundry list, but I think I'll stick with what's relevant this instant.

You see, when my old pal Ellen (not the one with the talk show, though she is planning on chopping her hair off) invited me down to her home for the day, I was expecting to trade war stories of my single life and her newly married life. I was expecting to rehash and revamp our friendship. I was expecting to get to know her husband a bit more.

I wasn't expecting what I got.

(Yes, I got all that I expected, but there was something else. And it went like this.)

Ellen is one of two long time good friends who are married, and the only one I have "hung out with" since the name-change. Tonight was my first experience as the third wheel to a married couple; it wasn't awkward, that's not what I'm saying. I just...

There's something different about love bonded by marriage when it's not your grandparents or you parents or the spunky young couple that moved into the ward when you were thirteen. There's something different about seeing a peer--someone you passed notes to in Junior High, someone who went to your first Jason Mraz concert with you (and the Jonas Brothers...), someone who fangirled over the same low-level boyband that never got off the ground--there's something different when someone who was once like you is...

Complete.

I guess I just never really realized what marriage--and love--looked like until this late afternoon, in the backseat watching them out of the corner of my eye interact. I'm not from a broken home: I've had good models on what a successful relationship is, but it took my parents some 27 years to get where they are. Ellen and Sean are at seven months (in two days). This is what those 27 years looks like at the starting gate. This is what it would look like for me.

And I realized I haven't had that. I haven't had that flawless comfort and banter, that connection that still buzzes in the dead air between the passenger seat and the driver's. I haven't been linked like that. And it's not a thing that magically happens when an I Do is spoken or whatever it is that takes place at the alter in the temple takes place. I'm sure that helps, but the link comes before that. The love comes before that.

And as much as I've wanted it and been willing to give it, as much as I've tried to make it happen, I haven't had that yet.

And that's what I needed today for. That's why I had to gird up my little car and head into the valley. That's why Ellen invited me. That's what I needed to get that I didn't expect.

Every "relationship" I've had hasn't been that, not yet. And it doesn't mean I'm in the wrong or failing. It's just suddenly I'm aware there's more to be looking for than I have been, and that yes love is hard, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as I'm making it. It doesn't have to hurt as much as I convince myself it needs to. When it's right I should be happy; without having to talk myself into it. If it hurts, if it feels as disgusting as it does right now then it's time to walk away.

It's safe to walk away, knowing that the day will come when I arrive somewhere expecting to order an ice cream or interview for a job or whatever it is, and I'll walk away with something else. I'll walk away with someone else who won't have to hesitate in taking a risk and chasing me and who wants to include me in his life and surround himself in mine, who will have the faith in what he feels and the trust that God wouldn't let him make such a drastically wrong decision, but that sometimes we have to make a choice before He nods His head or guides our eyes in the right path. Sometimes it takes the exercising of our flawed reasoning to activate the divine hand of our Heavenly Father; sometimes we have to take that blind step in the dark and exert our efforts before He intercedes His. And someday, somewhere, there will be someone who realizes all of this in as narrow of a window as I do, and together we'll see more clearly. And together we'll progress.

And I guess that's love. And that's what I'm looking for.

Heavy Hearted

She cut me like a knife. I staggered back and felt the air fill the gash where skin used to be suspended. I slowly clenched a fist against my heart and wished it didn't sting as much as it stung.

I've never been scathed by something she'd said before. I'd been miffed and confused, maybe exceptionally irritated, but never scathed.

It was as if, for the first time in my life, my mother had dumped boiling water on me and then pushed me down a flight stairs to let the blisters bloom. I knew she didn't mean it, with each step I crashed past I knew it was just a mood she was in, but that didn't stop her words from ripping everything I've ever held in consolation from my fingers, every picture of hope off the walls.

He did it well enough, in high school. He showed me that love was a fragment of my own mind, something of my own make that would never be reciprocated and never reciprocated in the way I expected. Love would always fall short, and time and time again experience proved him to be right. He showed me the dark side to men--the dark side of everyone; the side that plays more into our prideful pompous hearts than leans into the thought that perhaps I'm doing wrong by someone else right now. Perhaps I'm crossing a line.

But the Barbie doll house didn't go up in flames until my mother had to tell me I was wrong. And as much as I knew she didn't mean it, as much as I knew it was frustration at a thousand other things and that was the thing she chose to vocalize about, it couldn't help but hurt when Mom said marriage was pointless. It couldn't help but hurt when I was so elated by the idea that someday-someday-I'll have that thing I reached for as a five year old, that thing I acted out with dolls, that thing I idealized with Disney cartoons: that someday I'll have love.

And she spat in my face.

My parents aren't getting divorced, I don't want people to think that my life is crumbling to pieces. It was a bad day on her part. But it's made every day since that much more worse for me, because suddenly I have this nagging fear at the back of my mind that I had quieted. This doubt that keeps rising that it's still just a construct of my mind, it's still just part of my imagination, and that love won't find me and that I won't find it, and that even when I do it doesn't matter.

Because it's pointless.

I wanted to say, If that was true, then why do so many people do it? If that was true then why has unity between man and wife withstood the test of time, why has that lasted? Why am I here if a procreation of love was pointless? Why would God let something so beautiful be pointless?

I know He wouldn't. He couldn't. But this dense tar of doubt clings to each glorified expression, growing stringier and needier with each desperate yank I make to rid myself of it.

I have optimism. I'm not saying I don't think anyone will ever find me attractive, or that anyone will ever be a kindred heart to mine, I'm just...

When you wake up as a teenager and you're awkward and your hair is greasy and you're chubby. And you have braces. And clothes make you look like a bloated box and you sound like a man and the only thing pretty about you is your eyelashes, but you fiddle with your eyelashes and pull at them because you've been doing it since you were a child and they're getting thinner and thinner... you start to doubt that any of those really cute boys that you keep talking about with your friends will ever actually look at you and remember who you are. And when that part of you dies, when that awkward phase ends and that part of you dies and you start to look the way you'd always hoped you did but acknowledged deep down you were terribly far from, you have to rebuild yourself and say that you weren't making things up when you were a kid and everyone was equally as ugly. That you just took a minute longer than everyone else to stop being hideous.

And you build yourself again.

And the last thing when you want when you're constructing yourself anew and establishing footing in a skin you didn't think you'd ever appreciate, is to hear that the thing you've been rooting for your entire life, that all encompassing goal, the end all of end all of everything, isn't as great as it's cracked up to be.