But There's a Difference in Wish and Wait.

Things are different.

And to the few of you that read this blog, I suppose I'll have to tell you the thing I'm not really talking about in public because there's still that little voice in my head that says "No. You're not. So just be quiet."

I'm going on a mission.

At least, to concede to the voice in my head, that's my intent.

I've had the notion swirling in my head on and off for about the last year. As you may recall, they changed the mission age last October, and I feel like I've written this before so I won't be extensive with it, I realized I wasn't in an position to serve a mission. I wasn't one of those girls who could grab the phone in that instance and set up a meeting with my bishop and post on Facebook about how my mission papers were a few signatures away from being sent in. And that bothered me.

I've never planned on a mission. Never. I always told myself I'd wait until I was 21 to decide; by then I'd surely be married or steadily dating a fellow that was days or weeks away from popping the question, and the idea of leaving my secular life for 18 months wouldn't matter or be applicable. 

Over the past year a lot has happened. I meant to blog about it on Tuesday, as it was the one year anniversary of that time I met Jason Mraz and it only seemed appropriate, but I haven't had time. And now my mind's on other things. Climbing out of my digression, within the past year I decided to try for the mission thing--tentatively--and see what came out of it. I started reading the Book of Mormon daily. I started saying "official" prayers. I took a mission prep institute class.

And I'd decide to go. I'd share something in a religious context and would feel this buzz that a mission would be the right choice. Then I'd leave institute and it'd be gone. I'd lay everything out and conclude it was best to stay home and continue on in the schooling and the hunting for a man. And then an hour later I'd want to go on a mission.

I couldn't keep an answer, and it began to worry me that this was one of those instances the Lord was leaving up to me; that I would be fine and could progress in whichever course I should chose, but there was nothing critical hinging on the choice. That's all it was: a choice.

And He was letting me use my God-given right to chose.

And that scared me. If you've ever worked with me, you know I tend to be indecisive about a lot of things, or that I at least require someone else's opinion to balance out my perspective before I come to a conclusion. Deciding to set aside 18 months of my life is not a small choice. And I hated that I had to chose. 

I wanted a Saul of Tarsus moment. I wanted to be struck down with the right option and to rise from the moment as though scales were falling from my eyes, knowing what course I should tread with the remainder of my life.

I suppose, using that lovely thing called hindsight, I've reached that point. 

Kate Carroll's farewell. I almost didn't go. I had my own church meetings I could be going to, no one was going with me to her farewell. I didn't need to go.

But I went. And I remember writing in my notebook that I was glad I was there, that I had made that sacrifice to come and see her off and hear her speak. I was grateful for the experience, and (and I wrote this at that moment, mind) if I hadn't gone, I wouldn't have had it. What experiences would I miss--never knowing what they could have been--if I elected not to go on a mission?

Every friend I've mentioned my indecision regarding the mission to has told me without hesitation that I would make a good missionary. I had a girl in my mission prep class seek me out after class one day asking me how far along I was on my papers, and when I explained I still was undecided she told me based on my comments in class that I would be an excellent missionary. 

"I'd like to live out of state. At least for a few years." I said in between chips.

"Yeah. I went on a mission; I could live anywhere, I've proven that to myself. I want to live around here." He said it and it smarted; I knew he didn't mean it as a stab, but I took it as one. A mission would cure my itch to get past these mountains and experience something beyond the shade of my current umbrella. He didn't know, but I reacted to it as if he understood my want to know where God would send me, should I ask for the call.

I talked with one of my married friends and she pointed out how the world is getting worse and children born into this world will need a righteous priesthood holder in the family. A girl I've never even personally met but became friends with on Facebook because I knew her older sister posted some quote from an Apostle about who better worthy to raise a righteous generation than a woman who has served the Lord.

I made a pro/con list last Sunday in sacrament meeting. And as I wrote the cons it hit me how stupid they all were. For months I'd been clinging to these factors as my, for lack of a better word, excuse to stay safely sheltered in the linear life I have built. And they were stupid. I had to make myself finish the list because I just wanted to give up because they were so dumb, and I knew--for the first time--in that moment that I've known all along what the answer was. I've known all along what the answer had to be. I just really didn't want to see it. I wanted the Saul of Tarsus moment to knock me off my feet and into the field because I didn't have the strength to come to the conclusion on my own. If I had to go there, I wanted Him to push me there.

That night I was talking with my parents and remembered the one con I hadn't written: money.

And everything came crashing and it all felt so wrong and I could do it. I couldn't go. 

I talked with one my best friends yesterday and she did some math with me, and we determined that if I spend next semester in the way I planned when the mission thing became very apparent, I can finance a mission perfectly. 

And I can't ignore it anymore. Thousands of times I made the decision and changed my mind, then a few days later made the decision and changed my mind. Things are different this time. I made my decision, changed my mind, and since that moment it hasn't left my mind. I haven't had that hitherto. I haven't had this film of "mission" glossing over all my thoughts, I haven't had that as the backdrop in my mind, as the dart board I aim all my darts at. But I do now. I can't get it out of my head. 

And I feel stupid that it took me a year to get to this point, but at the same time I needed that year of unofficial preparation. I needed a year of my optimistic plans falling through, a year of my faith growing, a year of my courage developing, a year to establish an open love for this gospel as something I not only carry but share. I needed this. 

I needed to wait.

I told him I'd prayed about my ex, and that the answer was to keep carrying on; I haven't had enough experience with boys to know if the relationship needed ending or not.

"Did you...pray about us?" He asked me.

"Yes." I told him, truthfully.

"And what...was your...answer...?"

"Wait." I answered, almost before he could finish his sentence. 

He laughed. 

I've been waiting for a while. I wasn't sure what for, only that good things were coming to me in due course of time.

There's a difference in wish and wait. Abby said the hardest part was deciding. And I don't think I can hide from it anymore. 

All the time was worth the wait.

Don't Ya Dare Fell

It's a good thing I was the most proficient at treading water in the community pool;
it's smart to develop skill in something you think you'll never use.

***

I know what you mean,
At least I keep saying I do.
It hurts more to misinterpret.
I've allowed us to continue
Because it feel so good with you,
But I forget how much it hurts
When you're gone.

I told myself no,
I started bolting the locks
And shutting down shop
And hunkering in for the storm.

Stop doing this to me.
Stop taking 90 and leaving 10,
I go to meet you and you're gone
Again.

***

She remembered it like a painting,
Art crafted out of time
And laced upon a canvas
Sprouting truth and bliss
And unfathomable reason to continue.

***

You keep me from sleeping.
I pushed my chair back from the desk.
It's done. I said it. It's out there.

***

Have enough faith to fall.
I never climbed a rock wall,
I didn't go the extra mile
On that hike in Zions,
I kept both ice skates on the ice.

I've constantly been plagued
By the idea of injury
Induced from falling from some height.
That's how bones are broken,
That's how structure is shattered,
Destruction descends from high up.
I stayed planted to the earth,
Arms and legs in at all times,
Trying to enjoy the ride
That took me nowhere.

I've lived a linear life.
I've gone the mundane route;
I haven't climbed,
Haven't felled,
Haven't experienced the suspense
Of pain
Or the revival of vitals and life.

Life.

I haven't lived life.

But that's more than can be said for you.
As fond you are of painting
These pictures and how-to's
For my inexperienced naive mind,
As thrilled you are at zig-zagging
Through the maze,
You refuse to climb
More often than I do.
Or even worse,
You climb, but not far enough.

I'm tired of all the nothing
The wind blows in my face,
Tired of the specks of frayed leaves
Scattering about my eyes
At the close of their journey from
Up above.
I'm tired of the remnants of
An altitude I refuse to know.

So I started to climb.

I'm ready to fall.
I'm ready to let go and fall.
I've stumbled for this, but
Kept carrying on
Because the bruises and
Scars are better than the unknown;
Better than knowing I could have had
But refrained.
Of knowing it was coming
But I abstained.

Have enough faith to fall.
Have the strength to look at me
And see beyond
What you can't decide;
Stop making mountains
Out of mole-holes
And take your own advice.
Stop telling me I'll scare you off,
I already have.
You're terrified.
Forget it.
Forsake it.

Have enough faith to fall.

I'm trying to catch you
-I'm waiting to catch you-
The way I expected you to catch me.

Find Out Where The Good Things Are

He gazed up at the sky, but there were no stars.

I told him not be silly, that nature breathed and nature lived regardless of our awareness of it; told him there were stars, he just couldn't see them with these clouds and inversion and the shimmering lights of a society not yet put to bed.

He was insistent, pulling me back down against him, a position from which I would never worry about the stars or lack thereof. In fact, the stars could shatter and crumble and land in blazing heaps across and around my body, but if it happened when my hip was touching his like that, I wouldn't notice.

I would never notice.

I would never notice the world melting with him, for with him the world's already melted.

I wondered what it would take to convince him about the stars, to convey that they were waiting, hidden, quiet, subdued, but existent. And waiting. I wondered how to narrate such a thought.

I didn't say anything, a symptom of contempt I develop in the dark, where my mind is too logical and fluent than my mouth wants to be, and I leave words to my eyes to convey. I speak at night with my face, for my mind can't manage to work my lips for that purpose.

It's a marvel how he sides with the idea of his heart, that conclusion that the stars are missing, vacant, gone. That undercurrent that he's looking for them, that he wants them dearly, but can't manage to believe they're beneath the clouds, they're present without the city, they thrive above the mountains. I want him to understand that a search of grandeur will be wasted, a quest of high proportions will be futile, for someday soon the clouds will fade, the city will sleep, and the stars will twinkle where they've always been.

Waiting, as they've always been, for a boy to open his eyes and look up.

I Don't Want to Hurt Anymore

I'm wishing on stars and counting the planets and laying under the table and dreaming.
There is my folly. Aye, there's the rub.

I feel like I'm falling. I get a brush of weakness, a sag in my spine, and that's when it crumbles. That's when my hopes and ambitions tumble in salt from my eyes. I have to remind myself. I have to actively press the board to my back, straighten up and smile, as half-hearted as it may be. I have to remember that my greatest heartache, my greatest trial, will lead to the greatest outcome; the greatest version of me.

"Know thou...that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good." (D&C 122:7) "Thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment." (D&C 121:7)

Whatever is coming down the pike, how ever far off it is, is far superior than anything facing me at this moment, anything that's shaking my confidence and solace. Far, indefinitely more incredible than my current woes.

The folly, the rub, is looking too far ahead to that silver lining that I've constructed doesn't qualm the anxiety of the now, because that may very well not be His outcome for me. Life should be lived in the present, however undesirable the present may be. I can't look forward with optimism, because I don't know where forward is. I can only look to Him in faith, and wait for forward to be now.

Here is my test, here is my trial. Endure.

Wait.

Trust.

He will do right by me. He will not allow me to fail.

It's only difficult if I focus on how difficult it is.

Pull yourself together, for heaven's sake.



Don't you dwell in the future, for it's miles away.

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.

How many times can I break till I shatter?

It's hard to shut your mind off when it's the only thing you have to comfort you.

The trouble with the mind is it moves quickly, and has thousands of thoughts to consider and provide. A lot of little things can lead back to what you want to avoid, a lot of closed doors can be open by round-about routes.

I'm left with my thoughts, and can do no more than think.


Now is the winter of our discontent.

I'd quote the rest but we rearranged my room and who knows where my Shakespeare collection ended up.

I'm feeling it again, a constant drum against my temples, a throbbing in meter down my spine; I'm growing tired of this place, these halls, these barriers between where I am and where I want to be.

Peace.

Peace alludes me again, peace stands at separated distances and waves primly in the breeze, powder snow wafting fast, drafting my vision and leaving me blinking, yearning, searching, and constantly--ever constantly--falling short.

There is a strength, a will of heart, I have to invoke. A courage and power to keep on keeping on, to trudge another moment in this swamp of sadness, to make it to the end. There is a faith I must exercise that an end will ever come, that an end will be something worth trudging for. That an end will be better than where I was, where I inevitably couldn't stay.

Because people wake up and dreams shatter.

And anything that was once held as reality eventually must become illusion; all that has passed is not fact any longer. The condition of time and life is that it changes. Truth changes, people change, rules change, responses change. I can't look back because back is not real any longer, back is a memory and only exists in the spaces of mind. Back has become a faded reality, a dimming truth. I cannot argue that it was there, it happened, but to revisit and search for all I found before is a futile mistake. The past has passed.

It takes near constant pinches to wake up, an underlying chanting of affirmation that now must be faced. Now has become what it is, I have traveled my roads and there is no altering the station in which I stand and the ground I occupy, whether it's desirable or not.

My trouble, my fault, is that it's not desirable. I find no comfort here. I yearn for pastures or past years, of mountains beyond my own. I'm craving Virginia, the ocean, a Washington forest, anything to smudge away or mar all I'm left to stare at now.

This isn't what I wanted, this isn't what I'd hoped. And in my despair my mind flies back to moments of surety and contentment, happiness and ease.

But those moments are passed, those moments are not real. I drown my heartache in happiness that is false now, happiness that is reserved and saved and soon will dry up. I keep dishing out peace from a limited supply, and the levee's running dry.

And under frantic tears and the whirring of gears in my tumulting mind, I know my answer lies in heaven. I know my peace can be provided. I just have to ask.

I ask and He says wait. I ask and He says patience. There is no guideline, no support, no idea of what I'm waiting for, what I keep waiting for. This blindness is harsher than sorrow. This blindness births discontent.

I feel so good then immediately so terrible. I feel faith and fortitude then weakness and worry. I stumble and my mind wonders and I remind myself my charge to wait; I walk forward and wait. But I constantly must remind myself there is purpose, somewhere beyond the sight line of my mortality, there's reason without my comprehension. It requires ever fiber of my soul to consciously continue, to chant consoling catch-phrases, to provide my own peace.

I know He knows, I know He has grand things coming. It's getting to them and waiting for them in this dark lonely state that I can't seem to handle. It's knowing good is coming but not seeing it that terrifies me. It's being left with the workings of mind to tide me over in the time between now and when that something arrives, it's my mind's enjoyment of memories that destroy me. It's my inability to cease seeing the truth of yesterday and the forlorn fiction of it all today that breaks me down. It's hard to shut your mind off when it's the only thing you have to comfort you.