Anything But Nothing

"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." That's great advice, right? But think of what a different and infinitely more marvelous world it would be if we would equally emphasize the teaching that if you can say something nice, you should say it. All of it. Regardless of the potential for awkwardness. Regardless of the possibility of coming on too strong. Regardless of whether or not the recipient of your affections echoes and returns your sentiments. 

It's a sad time when giving, passionate people start to feel that their love for someone is only worth cultivating and expressing if they already have at least a 90% assurance that it is equally reciprocated. 

It's a sad time when past rejections cause brave people to fear being bold and honest with someone who means the world to them. 

It's a sad time when people are more comfortable using the anonymity of the internet to waste their energy, their power of words, in fawning over a watered-down, 1-dimensional view of someone they don't even know than they are in sharing their admiration and respect for those they are intimately connected with daily.

It's a sad time when generous, beautiful, flawed-but-faithful people start to doubt themselves and their goodness (not just their inherent gifts and fortunes, but especially the goodness they have learned and earned) simply because they don't receive the validation from those they are closest to. 

None of this is intended to imply that there is no place for anonymous acts of kindness, that our goodness is only worthwhile when adequately praised by others, or that self-esteem is forged from anything other than one's own inner strength. But when hard times come and that confidence wanes, and the most beautiful, complex, incredible people start fearing they may have been way off base in appreciating themselves, the kind words a sincere friend has to offer may just be what reminds them how irrevocably worthwhile they are.

Express your love, no matter how small. Shout it from the rooftops, write it in a note, share it in an embrace, or anything else. 

Anything but nothing.

This weekend, I came down to Raleigh to visit with Brad, Natalie, and Emmett. Greg and Jayne came with Penny and Wilco as well, so we have been making a big ol' party of things. It has been a fantastic time, despite the exhaustion that inevitably ensues when we stay up until 3 AM visiting with each other, and it has been wonderful to spend time with my brothers, their awesome wives, and my sweet niece and nephews.

But sometimes when I look into these precious children's eyes, I wonder if I'll ever have my own. I know this may be the most obvious statement ever made on this blog, but I want a family so badly. I want to be a wife and a mother. Most of the time I feel like those things are all in store for me someday, but sometimes it feels like a dream for some distant future, perhaps not even in this life. And that's ok if that's what Heavenly Father's plan for me entails, but I'd be lying if I said it felt ok right at this moment. Tonight when I was snuggling those babies, my heart hurt, my throat got tight, and my eyes kept getting soggy. I didn't want to have a breakdown in front of my family, so I drove to the temple. I'm sitting here now, and even though the grounds are closed and therefore the gates are locked, even just sitting and looking at it fills me with this intense peace and comfort about everything.

I have now started five or six prayers trying to express my despair with my current situation and pleading with Heavenly Father for some answers regarding whether I should stay where I am or go somewhere else to seek these things. But each time I have tried that prayer, His Spirit has quieted my fears, spoken peace to my soul, and removed all those frustrated words from my vocabulary. I still don't have any specific answers, but I have what I need: the quiet, calm assurance that He knows me, He hears me, He is looking out for me, and He intends to bless me with joy, beauty, and love so far beyond anything I could even try and conjure up in my daydreams. And that's enough for now.

Death Bed

Lest anyone become concerned, this isn't some vague announcement of my impending fatality, but rather an amateurly-poetic, generalized bucket list of how I want to live my life, no matter how much of it I have left. Because sometimes I wonder about the possibility that I might die young, and I don't want to miss out on any of this stuff if I do. Because the love and hope I have for all these things are kind of what makes my world go 'round.


If I must have a death bed
Let it be a grassy knoll under the stars
With cool, dewy blades tickling my skin
And that of my Love beside me, the deepest of our affections
Wrapped up tidily in the simple, intimate gesture of our
                                     Hand-holding.

If I must have a death bed
Let it be a floor—hardwood, stone, carpet, or kitchen—
With disco, strobe, black, or incandescent
(Just not fluorescent) lights
Illuminating my soul-expressive
                                     Dancing.

If I must have a death bed
Let it be the cinema
My loud-mouthed friends and I making messes
Of buttery kernels and bubbly beverages
Thanks to our uncontrollable boisterous, body-shaking
                                     Laughing.

If I must have a death bed
Let it be a freshly-muddy baseball diamond
Where I dirty my clothes beyond salvation
As gunk puddles splash, weaving glorious filth into every fiber
And I revert to childhood, inhaling joy and life as I'm
                                     Playing.

If I must have a death bed
Let it be a giant hunk of metal
A wing on each side, moved for my pleasure—
Or perhaps by my command—
So I might as well be a superhero
                                     Flying.

If I must have a death bed
Let it be a rooftop garden
Diverse with fruit trees, Venus fly-traps, and lilies
Each seed planted and nurtured
By my hands, new life born and
                                     Ever-growing.

If I must have a death bed
Let it be a two-wheeled, leg-powered steel frame
Pedaling eternally toward who-even-cares-what
Curves in the road meant just for me
Metaphors for life's patterns discovered and contemplated in the
                                     Cycling.

If I must have a death bed
Let it be a search for the good, the virtuous, the beautiful
Breaking way to despair only momentarily
For my heart hasn't the time for such a thing
When it gets caught up in all this
                                     Living.

Rejection: A Broken Heart's Education

It's Valentine's Day, so I want to write about love, specifically when it isn't mutual. Don't worry though, this isn't a bitter anti-Valentine's Day post. This is about about when unrequited love teaches you something, which—spoiler alert—can be every single time. (Get it? Single time? Haha.)

I've been, for lack of a better term, "boy-crazy" pretty much my entire life. I distinctly remember my first kindergarten crush (who is also the main character in the only recurring dream I've ever had) and almost all of my puppy love episodes since then. Off the top of my head, I can count about 30 crushes from just my first 9 years of formal education. That's more than 3 boys per year!

My third grade portrait

In high school and college, similar patterns were evident, though I started becoming slightly more selective in my crushing. Much of that growth can be credited to the time my high school boyfriend and I were together. Our relationship taught me how to distinguish attraction/fascination from actual compatibility. It also taught me that although giddy butterflies and twitterpation are really fun, mere infatuation is nowhere near as great as real, tried-and-true, well-worked-for yet comfortable and natural love.

*Side note: I kind of wish it were possible to experience First Love again, because it's amazing. But I'm also grateful to have already had that opportunity, and for pretty much every detail about it.

Anyhow, to this day, I still find it easy to become extremely fond of people after very little time, which, as I've written before, is both a blessing and a curse. It's really amazing to be able to recognize and appreciate the good in people so easily . . . but repeatedly letting myself "fall in love," so to speak, can be exhausting.

As you might expect based on the ridiculous number of crushes I've had, the majority of my great loves over the years have been unreturned, so I've learned a thing or two about rejection. Sometimes I was "rejected" because I didn't even make an effort toward expressing interest, whether that was for lack of self-confidence or a bummed-out understanding that the chemistry just wasn't there. Other times, the rejection was more forthright, as it came in kind response to my more valiant efforts (e.g., the famous four-page long "You're the noodles in my spaghetti, you're the syrup on my waffles, you're the sugar on my frosted flakes" note that I wrote in seventh grade. . . . Those metaphors are direct quotations from the letter, FYI. I still don't know where I got the nerve to actually deliver that thing.)

The point is, to my knowledge, I've been the crusher a heck of a lot more than I've been the crushee. That used to be a major slam to my self esteem, until I realized that my worth is not measured in the amount of affection I get from others. Plus, it's not that I wasn't good enough for these guys, but that I wasn't good (meaning "right") for them. Or that they weren't good for me. And when it all boils down, I'm only going to end up with one, so why get heartbroken or angry when another possibility that wasn't meant to work out anyway gets crossed off the list?

The pain of being rejected by a crush is only skin-deep.

In my extensive experience as a lovesick girl, I've learned that sometimes love feels exciting. Other times it feels difficult, confusing, agonizing, awkward, or just plain sucky. But opening your heart and loving people is always a good thing—even in the face of rejection. I'm sure one day I'll find the perfect kind, witty, musical, knowledge-thirsty, hand-holding, Nacho-quoting, dog-loving, uninhibited-dancing man for me. But in the meantime, I don't mind letting my heart ride roller-coasters with a few of the others I encounter.

So to all my adorable, fun, smart, talented, goofy, kind, charming friends who never liked me "like that," thank you for earning the title of Crush by doing just that with my heart. Whether I confessed my affections in person, stuck a sappy love note written with neon gel pens in your locker, declared it in one quick sentence before blushingly logging off of AIM or Yahoo! Messenger, or just hid my feelings entirely, you have been part of my love education, getting me one tiny step closer to Real Love each time.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love to see the temple

Last Friday, December 6th, I had the privilege of going to the Raleigh, NC temple and receiving my endowment. I'm writing this both as a record of remembrance for myself and as an opportunity to share some of my feelings from this special day with anyone who reads this.

(For those of you who may be unfamiliar with LDS temples, here are a couple of videos (1, 2) that talk about why we build temples, why they are sacred, and why we live our lives in a way that keeps us worthy to attend. The endowment is a spiritual ceremony in which we learn sacred truths and make covenants with God regarding how we conduct our lives on earth and the blessings that await us in the life to come as we are faithful to those promises.)

This is something I've looked forward to for a long time. Several months ago, I spoke with my bishop about my desire to attend, thinking that I would plan for sometime next year. As we talked week after week, we determined that I may be ready sooner than I had originally anticipated. With my brother Parley getting ready to leave on his two-year mission, I decided I would make it a point to be ready to go at the same time he did so that we could go together.

As we were warned would happen, plenty of things seemed to get in the way as we prepared to go to the temple. Schedules conflicted, finances were scarce, the temple was closed for two weeks for maintenance, I allowed little things to take hits at my happiness and self-esteem (e.g., my last blog post), etc. But, trying to remember that much of the opposition was simply that, I continued to press forward and look forward to the blessings that would come as a result of my preparation. 

I am really blessed to have had many friends and family members who have been examples of faith and strength in making and keeping temple covenants. I owe much of my spiritual preparation to the advice and testimonies they have shared with me. Two comments in particular have stuck with me and were particularly helpful before and after my temple experience. The first one was when, about four years ago, my best friend told me that all the truths taught in the temple could be found in scripture. He said that studying the scriptures and learning how to recognize the symbolism and spirit of the Lord's words would be one of the best ways to prepare to receive temple blessings. In the time that I have been more seriously preparing for the temple, I have remembered that advice time and time again. While I know that I benefited from the increased measure of the spirit that always comes from feasting on the words of Christ, perhaps the more amazing thing to me was how familiar it all felt. That brings me to the other piece of advice that I felt strongly about, which was from my sister-in-law. She suggested that when I go through the temple for the first time, I shouldn't worry too much about remembering every individual word, nor should I try and analyze everything, but that I should instead focus on how I feel while I'm there. I did my best to do that, and that feeling is something I hope to always remember. 

In the temple, I felt still. Even my naturally active, curious brain was calmed, quieted, and enlightened with an overwhelming, yet perfectly simple understanding of Heavenly Father's love for me and for each of His children. Even though the covenants and ordinances were new, the experience did not feel the least bit foreign. It was comfort. It was peace. It was joy. It was love. It was home.

On another note, I've never felt more beautiful in my life. In the temple we wear white as a symbol of purity, and since we are all dressed alike, it also evokes feelings of equality and community. Temple clothing is simple, without ornamentation, in order to keep the focus on Christ and on the ordinances taking place rather than more trivial, worldly things, like how we look compared to someone else. Mama and I have been working on making my temple dress, but we weren't able to finish it before we went, so I planned on borrowing a dress from the temple. The first dress they picked out was a beautiful style, but it was too small, so they brought me another one that was pretty much like an oversized choir robe or my grandma's muumuu. So, to say the least, it wasn't the most flattering piece of clothing I've ever worn. But standing there in the temple, thinking of the covenants I was about to make and remembering my identity and destiny as a daughter of God, I could not have cared less how the dress fit. I was keenly aware of how beautiful I was, not because of the way I looked, but because of the potential within me. I am one of God's creations, and a marvelous one at that!

The Raleigh temple. To my recollection, it is the first temple I ever stepped foot in. Attending the Open House when I was 10 years old is still one of my most vivid childhood memories.  

I am so happy to be where I am now. As is true with everyone, it took a lot of hard work and spiritual growth and change for me to get to this point, but every difficult thing that stood in my way was so incredibly worth the sacrifices it took to overcome. So to those of my friends who are preparing to go to the temple: Do it. Even if you're still young and it will be a few years before you're old enough, start preparing now. Even if a mission or marriage is not imminent, immerse yourself in the scriptures. Do whatever you have to do to become (and remain) worthy to attend. Blessings and beauty await.