I'm lucky enough to be in San Francisco this Thanksgiving. And while it's not like home and while I still have hours of homework ahead to be done this weekend, I have been loving every minute of it.
Yesterday we spent the day travelin' around the city. And what a beautiful one it is. Urban and natural. More conservative me in a liberal place. Old and new. So many amazing moments&things.
Of course, we went to the ocean. The part of the San Francisco beach that we visited was rocky. We stood on the ruins of bathhouses built in the 1920s and crossed our fingers that none of the waves would be quite high enough to touch us.
The sea has always appealed to me. Something about how wild it
is on the surface and so infinitely peaceful underneath.
Later that day as I was hanging off a cable car, with the wind whipping in my face and the sun settling into the crevices between the skyscrapers and the uneven roofs of quaint colorful flats, I knew that I loved the city. Not San Francisco, in particular, but the city. You know what I mean? I love the hustle and bustle, the vitality, the heritage, the stories, the diversity, the culture, the individuality.
so anonymously personal.
I don't know if I'd live in the city indefinitely, but I can see myself living there for a couple years. Maybe after I graduate with my master's, I'll move to the big city and rent myself a little flat and work. And after a long day of work, I'd either stay in with a couple friends, or I'd go out with a couple friends. [running, art-appreciating, shopping, reading, walking, writing, snuggling, thinking, eating, traveling]. Either way, it'd be brilliant.
Anyways, I'll write more about San Francisco and what we did later.
You know how I made that goal to finish Mere Christianity? Well, it's such a small book that it really shouldn't be that difficult at all...except for I keep forgetting about it. Nonetheless, it's a good one, and I'm almost there. Here's a little thought from that book, in honor of Thanksgiving.
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death: I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and help others do the same."-C.S. Lewis.
There's no way to possibly list all my blessings. So I'd just like to say that I'm grateful for all my blessings, especially in the context of the bigger context. I am extremely thankful for all the little things, but hope that I never get so caught up with life that I begin to lose myself in them. I mean, after all, Thanksgiving is a time to not only remember your blessings, but to also remember the giver of those blessings.
Happy Thanksgiving!
P.S. Family gets a special mention. You are the greatest.
But every time I go to the salon...I leave with hair much shorter than first intended. It's even more obvious when your hair is pretty short to begin with.
shaggy to short...er.
Also, it's really hard to find motivation to study for a chem exam two days before Thanksgiving break begins.
Especially when you know that your professor is going to drop an exam.
Some man answered and introduced himself as Nick. I was confused because I couldn't recognize his voice, and then I missed part of the conversation, and then somehow I thought he was a telemarketer.
And I was thinking, How do these telemarketers get my cell phone number?!?
Point of story: I almost hung up on the guy offering me an interview for the internship I had applied for two weeks ago.
Every moment of light and dark is a miracle. Walt Whitman.
Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys; To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you—however long, but it stretches and waits for you.
"There are moments when a man's imagination, so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily level, and surveys the long windings of destiny. Archer hung there and wondered."
-The Age of Innocence.
I feel like those moments don't come often. That they come in brief snatches-- caught up in that instant before you lose yourself to sleep or in that first blast of cold air as you open the front door. That second-to-last step before you reach the summit of a mountain, that strangely detached moment just as you knowingly let yourself fall. In the first caress, the last blow, right before you flip the light switch--on, or off.
It's a little scary hanging there. Maybe even scarier to wonder.
But exhilarating.
I find a piece to my puzzle every time one of those rare moments comes. When I was fifteen, I thought it'd be nothing more than a 25 piece puzzle. Now I realize that it's closer to one of those 5,000 piece ones. You know, the ones that sit on a coffee table in a basement surrounded by faded mustard yellow [or maybe floral] couches dating back to the seventies.
The idea that it might never get done isn't so bad though.
Is it weird that I'm a little freaked out about everything that's due this week and I'm blogging instead of doing my homework? Yes.
Is it weird that I've loved this song ever since I heard it as the credits of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe rolled (which incidentally happens to be the first movie I can remember ever seeing in theaters)? Mhmm...
Is it weird that every time I think about Europe, I want to go back for 'just a little bit longer' with all my heart and that I am insanely jealous that my roommate Haley is going to Spain for winter semester? Okay, definitely not weird to that one.
Is it weird that I'm obsessed with the same things as my roommate right now (namely, The Awful Waffle, The Next Iron Chef: Super Edition, and Chicken Amore)? Did you notice that all three of the above have to do with food? ha. Well, that's kind of weird, but not really.
Is it weird that the longer I'm away from home, the better it feels every time I go back? I don't think so.
Is it weird that I'm so anti-commitment? Probably, especially considering the fact that I'm living in Provo, UT, home of the fastest-made commitments you or your great-great-aunt have ever set eyes on. But here's the truth, I'm not. Really.
For a while, I wondered if maybe I was doing it just as a statement. You know, the entire shebang. I would sit through stake conference with my arms crossed whenever they would talk about marriage and grumble about it to my roommate the entire way home. [Baaad attitude, yes. Ya lo se (pretend there's an accent mark over the 'e').] I would also laugh at things like "tie/shoe dates" and roll my eyes at things like the "date box" or grow slightly hysterical at the thought of a "dating committee" alongside the "Sunday school committee" and get a little close-lipped around the entire "obligatory-date-a-week" conversation topic. And, to top it off, the entire 'Could you be the one?' dating mentality is SO awkward for me. And that's not because I'm a hopeless romantic who hopes that someday a modern-day Gregory Peck is going to spontaneously appear, and then all of a sudden, we'd be in love, and then we'd get married, and then, we would live happily ever after (take that back, who doesn't want a modern-day Gregory Peck?).
And then I realized it's not just a statement. It's just who I am right now. To be honest, who I am right now was probably shaped by a plenitude of things, like past relationships, travel, family, religion, friends, culture, and lotsa self-reflection. Because here's the thing. I'm independent. I hate being pressured. I hate feeling like I'm obliged to do something. I like living. Not saying that marriage isn't living. Not at all. But I like living right now. Not for the day that I'm married. I feel like my current existence is not only 'not that bad,' it's fantastic.
I'm not even 21 yet. So maybe I'm a little naive in saying that I hope I'll never be 'searching' for 'mawwiage' (Princess Bride, anybody?). But I still have lots of goals to fulfill and cosas to do, and right now I want those things so much more than I want to be married. I don't want to be searching for something I don't have or can't find and most definitely can't hurry up. I'd hope that instead--every day I would be breathing in the moment and living a fulfilling life, regardless of whether I'm single at 20 or single at 30. Regardless of whether I'm married in two years or fifteen years. And I just don't know if I can fully live in the moment if I'm always focused on the future. I mean, last winter semester, when all I could think about was how I couldn't wait until that semester was over, I wasn't the most positive person to be around. I was happiest when I was thinking in the present, like I had to do when I was with Brady, the coolest autistic kid I've ever met and a definite spark of sunshine that miserable winter.
Those things that I want to do? Well, I'm going to do every one of those things and keep making up new things to do until I meet somebody who is so right that he's more right than all the right things that I want to do. If that even makes sense. I'm kind of restless as a person. I like to be moving on to new things all the time, making new goals, being busy. For me to be happy, I know I can't give up my hopes and dreams and aspirations. I know myself better than that. So instead of me giving up my hopes and dreams and aspirations, the person I marry has to become and be my hope and dream and aspiration for the rest of my life. The thing is, you just don't stress about that until it happens, and it happens when it happens, in its own sweet time.
I'm not saying screw the future. Obviously, you're supposed to prepare. But that preparation has to come from you wanting to be a better person because you owe it to God and to yourself. You've got to find yourself before you can really find anybody else, and I'm serious about that. So in a perfect world, we wouldn't be asking "Are they the one?" but "Am I the one?" And if we weren't, we'd try to be the one, not for them, but for us.
Back to what I said about hoping I never find myself 'searching' for marriage. Well, the concept of love finding you sounds so cliche. But in my limited experience with life and God, I know that there's a mission that you're destined to fulfill. And at the end of the world, I want to be able to be unafraid. When I see the Savior, I want to be able to tell him that I did my best to find that mission and accomplish it. That's what you need to be searching for and that's when you'll be the happiest. When real love's a part of that equation, the factors and fractions and confusing parenthesis and logarithms in the way will simplify themselves, and I'd like to believe that you'll know that that's what the Lord wants at that time for you. Actually, I know that. And until that moment happens, you can't allow yourself to fool yourself into settling for anything less.
Okay. I'm done. Awwwkward.
[As an aside, as soon as I'd posted this blogpost I was so embarrassed that I deleted it soon after. So why is it up here again? Well, I figured someday I'd go back and read this blog and I'd find this post in particular highly amusing. And then I could drink hot chocolate by the fireplace and be all nostalgic about the good old days when I thought I knew everything.]
To my little sister or to whoever reads this blog in the future, that was a bit of a nonsensical rant to myself and maybe a eensy-teensy bit of advice for you, seester. Sorry about that. But Evelyn, you know I've been living in Provo for...going on three years now. And if you're old enough by the time you read this, you probably knew this rant was going to come sometime. And if you happen to end up out here as well, darling, I bet it will have changed a tad, but not too much. And I bet you'll dig it most of the time, just like me, but that you'll have your moments. Because right now, judging from how loudly you can protest when Jeremiah doesn't let you do something, you're probably even more independent and opinionated than I am.
I didn't even know why I was making myself work so hard over the class.
For some reason, I thought classes for my international development minor were going to be a cakewalk. Thus far, I'm only one class into the minor, but in that one class so far I have over 35 pages of single-spaced 11.5 font work. That's like a 70 page paper. And the class isn't even done yet.
Well, all the work's paid off.
My super-intimidating, my knees-shake-a-bit-when-I-talk-to-you, please-don't-call-on-me professor just asked me to be his research assistant.
I could be passing out from fright in his presence, and I'd still take the job. Research having to deal with international development with a respected professional in the field? Don't mind if I do.
I'd been missing my keys for over a week. After being locked out of our apartment multiple times, I was on the brink of paying $50 to rekey the door...and then I found my keys. I proudly took my keys to school with me...and then in my EDLF 362 class, I realized I was missing my phone. I crossed my fingers, closed my eyes, and hoped to high heaven that I'd left it at home.
Thing was, I knew I had had it in my hand as I was running up the stairs at 7:58 that morning, trying to get to my 8:00 chemistry class on time. Of course I made it- I always do. That didn't help the fact, however, that I seem to have a penchant for losing anything of value that I own.
Just as I was telling myself how smart I was to pay a little extra to get insurance on my phone, I got an email from my dad telling me that the Lost&Found people had called him about my phone. Even though I didn't make it to the Lost&Found office before it closed, at least I know where it is now. Thank goodness for all the honest people at BYU. :)
In other news, my physics test (aka bane of my existence) is this week. I have a ticket home for Christmas (oh JOY). I'm thinking about going to Africa (Dear parents, I'll call you about this. Promise). I'm applying for internships. Writing a 15-20 page group paper (good group=good group project experience. Thank you to whoever was watching out for me up there on that one). Watching foreign movies at the International Cinema (often leaving mildly but happily confused). Still keeping up with Modern Family (no judging- it's hilarious). Meeting with professors (intimidating). Always catching up on life. Always busy. But loving it most of the time.
Life just works out. It's great.
P.S. Donated blood today for the first time since that one time I passed out in the hallway of the Wilk. I was so nervous that the nurse asked me if it was my first time, even though I clearly had the red sticker on, which meant that I'd donated before. I spent my morning drinking my weight in water and my afternoon eating the package of free cookies I got and the whole deal went without a hitch. See, Mom? No cause to worry.
P.P.S. It was snowing this morning around 7:00. I know it's November and all...but no. Not ready for this. Snow's only welcome when I can play Christmas music and I can't play Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving.
