A little thing called courage.

It's been a while, and having just updated my personal journal I decided to delay studying for my chemistry test/sleep a little longer by updating this.

For the sake of congruence, abide by the convention that one day doesn't actually end until you've gone to sleep for the night, so while the clock says it's November 14th, I'm still awake on the 13th. Otherwise the post is pointless.

A year ago today I auditioned for the Improvables.

This was a big deal, for reasons that can be revisited in a post from back in March, but it was also a big deal because that one choice led my life to what it is now.

Let me elaborate. The decision to meet Jason Mraz was a huge, obvious choice, but had I happened to miss the VIP memo, or been unable to get tickets before they sold out, or been unable to travel to see him in concert, I would for the most part--as far as hindsight lends me to see--be the same person with one less amazing story and one less glorious profile picture.

Now this isn't 100% true, but I'm using it on the basis that when I returned from Colorado I was the same girl with a new experience under her belt. I still went to Weber, I still lived at home, I was still badgered with existentialist notions...

Auditioning for improv changed me.

I didn't want to go. It had been years since I'd regularly done improv, and I'd gone to a troupe workshop once during my first year at college and had felt like a child and moron the whole time. I didn't go back. I couldn't stand the idea of being inadequate. And as I walked through my house to the door into my garage, dressed in my jeans and a purple shirt and my new purple boots from that trip to Colorado, I told myself no. Turn around, go back upstairs, get in your pajamas and get on the internet. Don't even bother. You're not going to get in anyway. You don't need to leave the house.

And a small, weak, uneducated voice told me "Then what have you got to lose?"

We've recently been counseled to doubt our doubts. Elder Holland gave a talk a few conferences back about clinging to what we do know, not dwelling on the gaps in our faith or understanding. Doubt your doubts and draw faith from the things that are solid enough to hold on to. Build up the others as you may, but don't let them be the focus.

That little voice has grown, strengthened, become a regular occurrence in my head. I'm not that girl anymore. I'm not that girl that doesn't talk, that doesn't contribute, that sits back and wishes life would happen to her. I'm not that girl that hides in words. I'm not that girl. I became something else last year, and it wasn't meeting my idol that did it. It wasn't having his arm around my shoulder or his gaze locked in mine. It was girding up my loins, grabbing my jacket, and getting in my car on a chilled November night, driving to a theatre I'd never be a part of, to audition for a troupe that would never recognize me as more than a patron, to an audition that would prove fruitless, to return home and amble back into my life of nothingness; that endless staircase to nowhere because I don't have enough stars yet to get to Bowser.

But by leaving the house, by enduring that audition, I was doing something besides scaling a staircase. I was earning stars. And a few months down the line I'd have enough.

I wanted to write tonight because of something that it's becoming clear to me I've already said a million times on this blog. But I'm saying it again anyway, so just deal with it. Everything happens for a reason. I can't see myself as anything but what I am now. I'm so grateful this person has been formed from the ashes, and that I gave myself the opportunity to burn up the old me and rise again. I'm grateful for the trial and error, for the experimentation, for the heartache, for the patience, for the surprise, for the friendships, for the revelations, for everything that's happened to me in the past 12 months, because I can attribute it--all of it--to one day in November. One ordinary day that brought forth everything but ordinary outcomes.

Here's to another year. Here's to earning more stars and fighting more bosses. Here's to a little courage.

There's a picture on [her] kitchen wall...

My grandma has a picture wall at her house. The focal point is a large framed piece of embroidery with every grandchild's name down to my older brother. Around it, organized by family, are frames with each grandchild. Every year for Christmas we would give Grandma, among other things, a 4x6 copy of that years school photo to update her frames. For the past two years Graduating Senior Erica has been smiling her most attractive yearbook smile of all time, her right bra strap slightly peering out from the red half-shirt donned for the rite of passage that is Senior Photo Day. I've watched my elder cousins' photos change as they mature, and become a picture of an engaged couple, a married couple, a couple with a child, a couple with three children. I've watched them each make an advancement in life, whether that be marriage, childbirth, or the donning of a Marine uniform. And in one case, today, I made note of the missionary.

There's an unfortunate folly in my family, in that one of my dad's brothers never really managed to get to family party's much with his wife. And kids. To all of my cousins I'm at least five years younger, if not a substantial amount more, or at minimum five years older. Except for two of them. But we hardly know each other, and it's one of those things that, at least for me, is too awkward now to breach any gap. One is two years older than me, or so. I can't give definites because, frankly, I don't know. The other, a boy, is 18 days my senior. Recipe for a best-friend cousin, right?

Except not.

He's been on a mission to Detroit for about a year now, more or less, and his picture on the wall is a smiling blonde in a suit before some trees.

I looked at the picture today, noticing the different quality of photo when comparing his to the studio shot pictures of his siblings, and I looked back at my own. And my mind flashed to all the pictures coming up on Facebook of my female missionary friends having pre-mission pictures taken, out in the woods wearing dresses with a namebadge, holding a Book of Mormon in whichever language they'll be speaking, and I wanted my picture to change. I'm excited for the moment my tenderhearted grandma can put a female missionary in her frame, probably crying the whole time because nowadays you can just smile at her and she'll well up. I imaged the two of us, these would-have-could-have-should-have-been best friend cousins both out serving Jesus in their Sunday best.

It's become part of my heart beat. I see girls in tights or skirts walking on campus and think to myself if those would suit the modesty standards required of a missionary. I help a friend with her mic backstage at the musical and she warns me she's wearing her "Jesus jammies," and I think about what I'll need to change in my wardrobe once I'm endowed. I have discussions with non-Mormon or ex-Mormon friends and tell them openly how I feel about my choices and my beliefs, and try to figure out how to turn that from casual conversation into moments of testimony baring. It crops into my mind every once in a while that I'm going on a mission and I get all excited. Everything seems to say it's time, it's right, unless I start looking for reasons it shouldn't be. But I remind myself there's more pro than con, there's more good than bad. I've wanted an adventure my whole life. I've wanted to shed these mountains and take wing. I have an opportunity. I intend to take it.

Sometimes it may seem dark, but the absence of the light is a necessary part.

I could spend a few hours trying to vaguely poetically describe where I'm at right now, or I could quote Jason Mraz and save us all some trouble: "Over the horizon is another bright sky."(93 Million Miles). Dawn is breaking, everyone. Here comes the sun. Over the horizon is another bright sky.