For J. & S. & A.

I'm sitting in the pit snuggling under foofie, trying to get into the zone where I really want to read the thing I don't really want to read. A lot of things lately have been about eternal perspective. I can get through this, because it will only be a moment. Isn't that comforting to know? That the hard things won't last forever, even if they feel like forever? It makes me appreciate the good things even more because I know that soon they will be gone. In a way, that's kind of depressing. But I think it makes you live your life more immediately, more in the moment because you know that things will come and go but FAMILY IS FOREVER! Have you guessed by now that I promised my best friend that I would write a stream of consciousness blog? Have you also guessed that my friends are the family I choose? I'm listening to Pandora right now and Matt Nathanson is playing an awful song. Somehow my study music is deplorable and if I heard any of it on the radio I would turn it to hip hop. I remember the first time I drove to school with my friend Missy she was shocked that I prefer rap and hip hop to a lot of kinds of music. Why can't a girl just like what she likes? Why does my whole image have to project hip hop for it to be okay for me to like it? I've been thinking a lot about our perceptions of people and what they really are. I want to know how people really see me, because I feel like I am a lot different on the inside. Is that what makes a close friend? Someone who sees you for who you really are? I feel like my closest friends see the things that even I don't see. They are my foil and tell me the good and bad things I can't see for myself and then help me become a better person. Of course it is all done with love.

I went to Kevin's jazz concert yesterday. It really made me miss the musical side of myself. I grew up playing the piano and being in choir. I was actually pretty good at both of those things. And then I came to college, didn't have ready access to a piano, and wasn't accepted to Women's Chorus...so it gently drifted away. I can't remember the last time I played a piano and the last time I performed in a legit choir besides ward choir was five years ago. It's so true that the talents you don't cultivate will leave you. I think it's the same but opposite process for gaining talents. So many people categorize themselves as being talentless in so many areas because they've never taken the adequate time to become good. A lot of talents do require some initial talent, but after that, most of it is work. Do you really expect to be Elvis the first time you sing? No, he probably put in his 10,000 hours like that one book Outliers said. BTW, that book might be the most interesting book I have ever listened to on tape in painting class...slash the only. 

My time at school is winding down. I'm student teaching next semester and then I can do or go wherever/whatever I want. A year ago I would have been on the next plane to...well, anywhere. But I realized that a big part of finding a good job is your connections, and I've formed some pretty good ones here. I've made a family here for myself in a lot of communities. Dare I say I want to stay here? Remember that one time I tried to move to Portland for the summer? J and I searched and searched for four months and even went there on a scouting trip and literally not one.single.thing worked out for us. Hundreds of resumes sent out and not one prospect. I think if one had come up, I would have taken it. And then I look back at what happened instead and think how silly I was to try to plan my life for myself. I mean, you can plan and you SHOULD plan, but really, what's best for you comes from God. So God took over my decision and told me to stay in Provo. I'm pretty sure it's the best decision I haven't made all year. Besides being awesome. That's lifelong, I guess.

A lot of people my age talk about how they hate this transitionary phase of life. Things are so up in the air, so impermanent, so ready to blow away with the wind that it's hard to see three feet in front of you at any given moment. There's this unsettling fog between us and our real lives. But really, I love that fog. I love not knowing what's going to happen next, who I will turn into, where I will end up or with who. I do love me some stability, but isn't it exciting? Isn't it liberating to know that you have almost limitless choices and possibilities and you just have to pick the best-fitting one? How boring would it be to know that in five years you will be living in a house in Utah and have one kid? I can plan my dream homes on all the American coasts with my 5 kids and my tall husband and my art teaching job, but what if, in reality, I'm meant to move to Ireland and not get married for another four years but fall in love twice and marry a fatty? What if that's what's best for me? Do I dare tell God no? No. And what about this whole "real life" thing? Yes, David Goes To The Dentist, this is real life! Your real life is happening right now!  And mine is, too. I am trying harder to stop talking about one day and start doing today. I just remembered my 43things.com list and went and checked off like five goals that I wrote down a few months ago. I feel so accomplished. kRo out. Your turn, J.