What Dreams My Come

I had an interesting dream last night. Perhaps it was a result of eating french toast with strawberries at 11:00 at night, or driving around with the cool kids singing classic rock until 1 AM, or finally telling myself to finish Jacob 5 because that chapter's crazy long. This is the dream. The Improvables at I were doing cool things on a stage. I was in the tech booth. It was kind of like a tech day where we were checking cues and that jazz, which we never have so... Dream jumped from there to a small town where we were making a movie (we being the fact that I was with other people, not necessarily the Improvables). There was an undercurrent that something horrifically wrong was going to happen, and perhaps it was here that the guy from wardrobe noticed one actress being abused by her "son," and went over to subtley help out under the rouse he was fixing her shirt. They pummeled him. Then there was stuff about driving the freeway. Art imitates life. I'm back with the Improvables at Centerpoint Legacy Theatre, only it doesn't look like the theatre at all but dream logic makes it so. Paco says we have to wrap things up and get out now, because that something horrific is pretty much about to happen. We all groan, cuz we'd been having a jolly waxy ole' time, and I grab the garage-door opener so that just in case the zombie apocalypse goes down I can use it to get into the theatre quick and easy and fortify myself thus. A time jump later, and the Improvables and I are fortified in the theatre against the zombie apocalypse, and we're sitting at a table and a waitress is taking our orders. My best friend Erin is with us, rehearsing for a part that requires her to get slopping drunk. So she does. And she is quite the hoot. I later reenact her sloppiness to which the people laugh. I suppose it's noteworthy to say that shortly after this I took a shower and washed my hair with my Jack Daniels shampoo. I promise I don't know why my brain included this. Dream jump back to the small town. Now the weird part. It's not a movie anymore, this is real life and the world is basically ending. And for some reason instead of just dying with the explosion of the world, or whatever it is that'll happen, we're committing some cult suicide. But it needed to happen, sort of like the Abraham sacrificing his son bit. It's something we had to do. So my family went first, though in dream mode I'm the oldest with like three younger siblings under age seven. Basically, we were laying on a large pan (like the ones used at the bakery) and then other's pans were being stacked on top of us. So my "siblings" crossed the lava pit of coals on foot and laid on their pan. The next person, also young children, laid their pan on top of them and then got on. And so on and so on until it was my turn. I'm not a child, so only my pelvis and torso really fit in the pan, my limbs sticking out along with my shoulders and head. There was a brief pause as to who was next; my family had gone. Some photo appeared revealing it to be the family of my dear friend Lexi. I was already being squished a bit, and I knew it was over. My organs were being flattened, I was being suffocated, this is it. And I suddenly saw my ambitions for life. I saw the marriage ceremony I'd never get to have, and how that's one thing I'd always aspired for: getting married. Then I thought of who I must have been in the premortal existence, wanting to come to this Earth. Was that an ambition then? To be married in the physical mortal confines of this life? And then I was grateful for all the good I'd done, all the trying and striving to follow Christ. And the necessity to die was retracted. We all uncovered the pans as fast as we could, but my being in a state of shock couldn't be calm long enough to see if my younger siblings were breathing. I rued having them go first, how it had to be so. I could have gone first. But then I started to think about the story arch of a girl of 20 surviving her younger siblings in a tragedy and how that would play out for post-traumatic stress disorder, and I cognated myself into waking up. All of it was....something. Obviously. And I wanted to blog it though I'm not sure why. I feel like perhaps it was the final message; the fact that honestly, at your final moments, you can't deny God. I couldn't not think of things of a spiritual context. I tried. And in the dream, as my conscious mind was starting to stir, I remembered that talk by Holland about the Book of Mormon, where he says something to the effect that Hyrum and Joseph Smith would not be quoting and finding comfort in a book they'd created as a sham moments before meeting the God that created them. And in addition to this, I think the dream served to wake me up. Pun unintended. I'm not where I was last year, completely ignoring things of a spiritual sense, but it served as a reminder of what is of importance here. No, I don't need to cut myself off from the world and spend my time studying the scriptures. But... Just remember that the time will come when you're being crushed by the weight of death, and the only thing ahead of you is your reunion with God, and all behind you is time wasted or used to benefit or condemn you in the realm you're fast approaching. And you had best hope you lived it well.

To Be Or Not To Be

I was about five minutes behind.

There are pros and cons to working at the bakery on a General Conference weekend.

Pro: I work with a slew of nice LDS ladies and we have our own radio in the room, so we listen to Conference.

Con: I'm at work. And work isn't like an office job where I just sit and wait for people to walk in the door or something. We're constantly in motion. So Conference tends to turn into white noise if you're not standing right next to the radio.

I'd gone to the freezer.

And naturally, I had picked the most opportune moment to take the now three minute trek to the freezer, for in the course of my crossing the bakery in one direction I had missed the most influential announcement of my generation: the missionary age change.

One moment I was walking to the freezer, life was normal. The next I was on the return trip, suddenly catching chunks of conversation buried in the bakery bustle about 18 year old missionaries.

I didn't understand.

And I wouldn't understand for at least another hour; I was the only one listening who'd missed it.

I was facing the microwave when I'd learned of a surety that all the facts I'd constructed about missionaries had been shifted and skewed and that this was the way they would be. This was modern revelation. Girls could go at nineteen.

I'd been nineteen for nearly a year.

I looked at the microwave. "I could go on a mission."


But you see, I hadn't spent the year writing a novel or reading John Donne poetry or anything and everything I'd expected to do with my nineteenth year. I'd spent the year slipping down a muddy hillside I'd made the mistake of locating my senior year in high school. I'd spent the year convincing myself my testimony was "good enough" and in the past I'd been "spiritual enough" and of the Lord I was "loved enough" that whatever temptations I faltered under wouldn't really matter, because I was still very righteous. I was still of the Tribe of Israel. I was still elected of God.

It was in that moment, facing the microwave, that I had to realize I wasn't that girl anymore. I wasn't that Molly Mormon from 9th grade who ate up seminary and the gospel and was going to do everything possible to get to the Celestial Kingdom with flying colors and "Exceeds Expectations" stamped on her report card. I wasn't that girl who studied the scriptures and prayed and acknowledged or received spiritual guidance and promptings.

That girl would have been like the many thousands that day that cried and jumped and squealed and submitted their papers. That girl would have gone on a mission.

I wasn't that girl.


I'd spent a year investing in makeup to paint my image in what I remembered a diligent Mormon looked like. I donned the knock-off apparel of someone who at first glance might look like a dedicated member. I spent a year trying to look like I was trying instead of actually trying.

It wasn't until the microwave that I fully acknowledged it. It wasn't until the age change, and the realization that I was nowhere near submitting papers, and that 21 was suddenly just over a year away, that I wouldn't be worthy to submit them by the "old" sister missionary age, let alone the new.

And things started to change. It took a few more nudges, and one excruciating act of courage and discomfort that--sorry--I'm not going to post on the internet, for me to start to come back.


Perhaps the trouble was that I'd never considered a mission. Girls aren't "required" to serve. I'm lazy. I always have been. Each time missionary work was brought up in every church related anything, it was always prefaced with "girls aren't required to serve," so I'd dismiss it. I bundle up the mission notion and toss it in the corner with the laundry I keep forgetting to fold, dust off my hands and say "When I'm 21 I'll decide."

That's great for an eight-year-old. And a twelve-year-old. And a seventeen-year-old, but suddenly you're twenty, and suddenly everyone a year younger than you is signing off of Facebook and signing in to the ranks of God's army and you're....staring at a microwave.

I'd always thought it would be easy. I'd obviously continue in righteousness, so worthiness wouldn't be a question when I reached that crucial point of 21, but there was something else that stopped past-Erica from daydreaming about skirts and tracting.

Marriage.

I was going to be in a relationship, nearing or in the process of getting married, because it's not hard to find a soulmate in the movies, it's not hard to court and wed with Barbie dolls. It's not hard to locate love in Disney.

I wouldn't have to go, because I'd have a man to keep me here.

Spoiler alert: there's not a man. So far there's never been a man. Just a series of daydreams in dreamclouds above my head that are popped before they can progress.

So far I'm everything past-Erica didn't want to be. So far I'm nega-past-Erica. And, along with waking up to the realization that life isn't as cookie cutter as you can make it with Barbie dolls, I had to acknowledge that I don't have an excuse not to go. I could honestly serve. There's nothing keeping me here.

I took a mission prep class as an Institute class this semester. It seemed like neutral territory; either way I'd emerge a Mormon more comfortable with sharing the gospel, whether I did that with a nametag for 18 months or as an average Jane for forever. I kept waiting for this ah-ha moment, this bolt of lightning, this angels chorus, this earthquake of a revelation that YOU ARE TO SERVE A MISSION.

Spoiler alert: there's not been a revelation.

At least...not like that.


Part of the conditions of my excruciating act of courage and discomfort was that I turned to the Lord in tear-streaked prayer and received no answer. I pleaded and read the scriptures and waited for His hand, but He didn't lend it. He left it to me to decide. He left it to me to be brave or continue on in my solitary laziness. He let me choose which path.

I feel He's doing it again. There's been no revelation, no realization that I need to go. I want to go. I'd like to go. It makes sense to go. But it makes sense to stay. It makes sense to continue as I have been, to remain secure in my finances, to graduate on track.

But mission prep is doing what I was afraid it would; it's talking me into going.

I just...I feel excellent all the time. Good things are happening to me, and in the past four months I've become closer and more lenient on the Lord than I ever was in 9th grade or any heightened spiritual point of my mortality. He is with me. He loves me. And I love having that feeling, that spirit, I love carrying this gift of God and siphoning it off to others in word and deed. I love giving what He gives me. I love the feeling of testifying, the strength of His doctrine. And I could spend 18 months sharing it. I could run away to wherever and whomever He needs me to be and lose myself in Him.

I don't know. I'm not deciding any time soon. 21 has been too long stuck in my head for me to go against it. I've got some months ahead of me. A lot can change. For now I'm sticking with the answer He gave me facing the microwave, the sliver of truth I was ready enough to receive when the thousands of girls became sisters:

Live like you're going to go. Live like you're preparing for a mission.

That may be all I need, or all I need for now. It may be up to me and if I decide to make that sacrifice; He won't screw me over for straying from my course for His work.

I don't know. And maybe I won't know for a while. But I'm putting Him on my horizons and letting Him worry about all the little things. I'm living my religion, loving my religion, and working again for heaven.

To be, or not to be.

That is the question.

The Rest is Silence

It wasn't like he was my favorite person or my best friend. I remember him as the boy with the duct tape on his hands as a method against warts. I remember him as being there, always being there.

I remember he was one of two people I knew in my first theatre class in high school. But we'd never talked in elementary, and I believe he went to a different junior high, so there was nothing more than his face and name that held memory. I remember I sat and listened to questionable conversations at our table, and he'd get up and move. He'd leave the uncomfortable moments. I remember he was kind-hearted. I remember he was Polonius in our comedic rendition of Hamlet. I remember wondering how this quiet person could do theatre. I was so caught up in discovering myself that I failed to acknowledge the existence of others beyond their existence. His memory was still a name and face.

I remember him with dark makeup on his face, playing a Puerto Rican, the equivalent lesser part to my role as a Jet Girl. I remember I didn't see him much that year; I guess that's the problem with large musical casts and different sets of friends, different places to fit in.

I remember he changed. He wasn't the quiet shy boy who had duct tape on his hands. He'd been altered. I remember on my off-nights in Cinderella I played his wife in every villager scene. I remember we sculpted a life our characters lead: we were cannibalistic back woodsmen who didn't eat our daughters because someone had to help chop the wood and sell it in town. We also marketed decapitated squirrels and carried axes.

I almost bought us prop axes just to complete the truth to our illusion, to extend it into the reality of the audience instead of something we joked about between ourselves as we hungrily eyes the dancing villagers and their children.

I never bought the axes, but I told him I thought about it.

I always kind of regretted I hadn't.

I even tried to get him to ask me to the prom. I knew no one else would, what would it matter if he did or didn't?

He didn't, but I didn't really expect him to.

He always had some comment to make on my Facebook updates, or just liked them at least. Sometimes his personal posts seemed obnoxious or over-bearing, but I could never bring myself to remove him from my news feed. He was doing different things with his life than all my other friends. I liked seeing the diversity of people. It became common practice for me to see what he'd written.

But the Lord saw it was time to take him from my Facebook feed, time to take him from this existence and call him home.

I can't comprehend why I feel so sick and so sad over his loss, other than perhaps, as distant of acquaintances as we were, he is the closest person I've ever had pass. As few disjointed memories as we share, he was there. He was always there.

And having to comprehend that that was the last, that I've lost another Facebook correspondent--another friend, is something I'll have to learn to cope with.

To Bruce Droge, for being there and being himself, as quiet and small an impact he made, he made one. He was there, and I remember him.

Goodnight, sweet prince, as flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.