weird.

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.

Word.

I mean,

Weird.