-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."

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.

Throw Away Genius

Improv is teaching me a lot about life. For instance, the things I do or say don't matter after I've done or said them. It's become past action; it is of no benefit to beat myself up over how I could have done that better or responded differently to my fellow actor. I cannot fix it. The best I can do is acknowledge things could have been different and make a mental note for next time. To succeed in improv, to succeed in life, you have to pay attention to what's happening around you, you have to listen to your surroundings, and react as best you can in the minimal time you're allotted. No two situations will ever be the same. You can never fix what happens. The thing with scripted theatre is if I screw something up I can say "Next time," knowing that next time I have the ability to execute things in the effective way. Life and improv are unscripted. I can only count my losses and hope "next time" I'm more focused on what I need to do.

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.