A Self-Propagated Let Down

Two things bridge the gap between people far better than any other thing: laughter and giving good gifts. Christmas is a time to bridge those gaps between siblings and friends and bring souls closer together.

This Christmas has been both the worst and best for me. I I got most everything on my list mostly things for New Zealand like luggage, band aids, fingernail clippers, balloon animal balloons. My parents got a Wii for the family, which is a complete shock because my parents oppose video games on principle. Plus, I got a few bonuses. God blessed us all with a beautiful five inches of snow for a white Christmas and Mike and I decided to have a little pre-New Zealand fling, which makes me sound alarmingly shallow but we're both fine with it.

But despite the wonderful gifts I've been given, I have had quite a disappointing Christmas. I am a Christmas fanatic. I thrive off of making Christmas presents for scores of friends. I love bringing Christmas cheer. But this year I was greedy and saved all my money for New Zealand. Whether I am justified in this greed is not important because the fact still holds true that I have given next to nothing. Last year I got presents for everyone in my department, all my friends, plus a few doorbell ditchings not to mention some good stuff for my family. The only thing I gave this year was a $5 crescent wrench to my brother....and I didn't even wrap it myself!

What do we learn from this? That Christmas truly is about giving. Failure to give cannot compensate for all the good things received.

If I Weren't a Human

I love knowing people. Not just knowing their names and states of origin but I love knowing about them. I love knowing their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. I love knowing their favorite Disney princess. So in my quest to get to know people I often ask questions people don't usually ask:
"Who's your favorite Disney princess?"
"If they made a statue of you, how would you be posed and would you be with any objects?"
"If you weren't human what would you be?"

I rather enjoy the responses to these questions. For the former question I get a myriad of responses. My sister said that if she weren't a human she would be some animal that goes fast like a cheatah. My nextdoor neighbor Aaron said he'd be a bottle of barbeque sauce so he could bring joy to everyone.

I would be a swingset. I would love to be surrounded by playground politics of an enthusiastic mob of third-graders. Or perhaps I would be a source of comfort for a middle-aged woman trying to find her lost childhood. Now and then I might provide romance to a couple so infatuated with one another. I would try to swing myself over the bar and take a good gander at the mountains reflecting a blue hue at night.

Growing Up Down a Steep Hill

Do you ever have those days when you just want to curl up in a big nest of blankets and sulk yourself to sleep? That's basically how I'm feeling right now. I just want to be a kid again. I am sick of the "big people" games of credit cards, rent, contracts, roommates, and Ramen noodles. I miss my childhood when my biggest problem was a scraped knee or being too short to reach the soap. Things were simpler then. Feeling this way made me reflect to my emotions the day before high school graduation more than a year ago. When I wrote it I just kind of thought about how when you are little, being old and "independent" is so cool, and how much you admire the high school kids. And so you want to be old. But then the innocence of youth turns into a contest for being the smartest or the best looking. Eventually, usually at the tail end of your senior year you come to realize a little more what truly makes a person seem incredible. And just about that time is when high school is cut away from under you and you feel for a time like you're just hanging until you can find something else to stick your foot on for a while.


Growing up
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Growing up. It’s like when you start at the top of a really big hill and you’re happy at the top of the hill until the bottom starts looking pretty cool. And you say things like, “I’m so anxious to get out of primary!”, “I can’t wait till I can date and drive!”, and “One day, when I move out…” And that is when you start pedaling; once you have the smallest yearning to be older than you are. And then you start pedaling really hard because you are excited to go down the hill and get to the bottom.

But you gradually slow your pedaling and now you’re not even pedaling at all, but you’re approaching the end of the hill faster than ever. And you are just speeding down the street screaming, “I’M GOING TO FAST!!” and you’re looking around hoping for a car to pull along side you and somehow take you off the street and back to the top of the hill to your house so you can read bedtime stories and eat vanilla wafers and not worry about making life-changing decisions. But there are no cars. And you realize your breaks don’t work so you can’t just stop and go back yourself. And then you come to accept that you have two options: either continue down the street until you run out of street, or biff it at the side of the road.

And you don’t have a helmet.

And you decide to just keep going down the street. And out of nowhere, hundreds of other bikers come down the road, engulfing you.

And suddenly it’s a race.

And you don’t know where the finish line is or what the prize is and you think everyone else knows, but really they don’t know anymore than you do. So, just like them, you pretend you know where the finish line is and you want to get ahead of others and they want to get ahead of you. And you’re getting weary from biking, and you see if changing lanes helps you feel better, but it doesn’t. And your butt hurts from sitting on the seat for so long and you just want to rest, but you can’t because you have to win. You don’t know what you want to win, but you just have to be the best…

Until you realize that it’s not a race against others, but a race against yourself.

And then all the other bikers disappear. But you’re still biking and now you’re worried about if your shoelace will suddenly untie and get caught in your chain, and you wonder if you really like to bike, or if you should have started rollerblading instead of biking, but it’s too late to change now. And after a long time of biking and wondering and finally coming to accept your decisions, the color of your bike, and yourself in general, you will see a finish line. It is your finish line. And it has your name on it. And you will win because the first person to cross the finish line wins, and no matter when you cross it, you will win, because you will be the first. And just as you are four seconds away from the cheering crowds and whistles and tape, just when you think you have figured out how to win and why you were biking, you find yourself lying on the road in dirt. Scraped up and skinned up and bleeding and missing chunks of skin and not having any band-aids with you and wanting to cry but not knowing if it’s okay. And you wonder why you didn’t just biff it at the beginning. You wonder why you came so close, but why you didn’t actually make it.

That is what it feels like to be a week away from graduating. That is what it feels like to think you are finally getting a grip on high school, and that if you just had one more year you would do it perfectly. This is what it feels like when you have changed so much and you have learned that your own opinion of yourself matters more than others, but you’re not so sure if you have a good opinion of yourself and how you’ve done things. And you’re about to loose your bike, the hill, and the people you’ve met along the way.

So don’t pedal so hard. Just roll with the times. The laws of physics and evolution demand that you will eventually get down the hill. But you can either pedal too hard, or you can just enjoy each moment in its season and accept each stage in its due time. We all must grow old, but it is a choice to grow up.

And the Pianist shall Cleave unto the Soloist and they shall be One

Sacrament meeting today consisted of the yearly Christmas special. The bishop began to sing O Holy Night while his wife was at the piano.

Their two tempos were connected by rubberbands, his breathing leaved something to be desired, and his pitch waivered.

But it was the most moving number I witnessed today.

Two bars into the second verse the bishop stopped singing all together and into the microphone said, "Sister Hansen, would you please stand by me. I'm shaking so bad I just can't read the words." The bishop asked a ward member to take the role as accompanist and the bishop and his wife began the second verse.

Their nervous gasps of air were not sufficient to hold notational duration. But through the jagged words her voice weaved in and out of his. They harmonized. They sang together. Alone they could not measure but side-by-side they were stirring. While her warm hand calmed his shaking arm the couple shared the sheet of music; symbollic of their shared life. Since they tied the knot, decades of sharing joys, sorrows, dish duty, and house payments have made these two inextricably bound. It can never be untangled. Perhaps this is what it means to cleave to your spouse.

In Search of Life

I am one to believe that everything has a purpose. Although science can't quite put a finger on the use of tonsels, appendicies, or arm pit hair I am sure there is some use we humans haven't quite discovered. I've been thinking about the other seven planets in the solar system.

What good are they? Were Venus, Mars, and Neptune all just blooper planets; planets that could never support life because of something gone terribly wrong in the planet lab? Maybe planets exist so that there is a reason for NASA and so people can work at NASA, allowing them to have jobs and provide for families. Did God put them there so that after we had taken over every corner of Earth we could have a new frontier to discover? Does God factor in hobbies to his creations? Or-in Mormon belief-if we're all to become Gods and make worlds, but still at the same time believe that there is only one God, are those planets the sorry attempts to measure up to the one true God?

Shrug.

In physical science we have been discussing outerspace-one of my favorite subjects. Hearing about other galaxies and solar systems fascinates me. But you know what! We have yet to find life in outerspace. My thoughts aren't so much questioning why we haven't found life, but rather why are we looking?

We spend tax dollars to make probes to send them out there in the vast dark, emptiness we call space. They come back with rock samples, gas samples, and other data gibberish. Sometimes they send out information. Voyager I, for example, is a probe launched in 1977 carrying an array of music so that if ever encountered by other intelligent life forms a small bit of Earth may be portrayed. All of this in hopes that somewhere between here and eternity there might be one-just one-other being.

And why do we need to find this other life?

Never mind that there are a few billion people on the planet not to mention the hundred billion plants, insects, and animals. We feel lonely. We refuse to accept that in an infinite space Earth is the only bouncing ball that supports life.

Steadfast and Immovable

Little known secret: I am applying to be an EFY counselor next summer. The theme for 2008 is "Be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works" (Mosiah 5:15). I was thinking about possible interview questions: What does this theme mean to you?

I looked up what steadfast means. It means unwavering. It means fixing on a target and steadily going toward it; undeterred by distractions. It means when you find yourself approaching an obstacle you do not go around it but blaze right on through it and get over it.

It means nothing holds you back.

Burried in Blankets

It's 8:43AM on a Tuesday morning and I have not left my bed yet. My legs are toasty inside my pile of blankets and I appreciate it more because my nose is still exposed to the frigid air circulating in my heater-less house. I haven't slept this well for a long time. Mostly my alarm clock forces me to get started with my day at a much earlier time. But not today. Today I have quite leisurly become well acquainted with my comforter.

I know today is going to be a good day because, without leaving my bed, I have already been complimented, listened to Christmas music, returned a message, and written. I don't think the masses understand how much I love writing. I love writing from here to the moon and back three times. Why? Because it's honest. I am one to believe that people are generally good and the world is a beautiful place, but still I know lies exist. Mostly the lies are embedded within us. We lie about ourselves to others and to ourselves. But such is not the case when I write. Writing allows me to reveal myself on paper. Here I am, my true, untainted self.

Well, it's 8:56 now and I suppose a shower might be in order.

Baby! It's cold outside!

Oh baby! My feet are cold. My fingers are cold. Nose is cold and I keep trying to warm it with my upper lip without much luck. And the beauty of it all is that I'm sitting on my bed. Freezing my poor limbs INSIDE my "heated" house.

So, you should probably watch the movie of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" located to the right of this post. Click on the second box down, with the picture that looks like it's fromt the fifties.

Hurrah for hot chocolate and Ramen noodles that warm you from the inside out.