"But that was then, and this is now" are the saddest words spoken.

HAPPY

After giving a "don't yell at me for at least 24 hours" lecture, the professor handed back our literary analyses. That 17-page sob totally got an A-.
Then I remembered everything on my Chinese final. 很好！
Then I got free cookies in the bookstore. (This easily beats everything else.)
Then the dearest Jason Lucas posted my graduation pictures.
Then I hopefully owned the editing final. (I need a perfect score to barely pull an A- in the class. NBD.) (Update: got a 92 percent on the final and an 89.35 percent in the class. Rawr.)
And the sun is shining.
Then turned in Flowering Caroline, my first story based on my dreams, and my teacher is going to love it. (Fingers crossed.)
And it's my last day of college, and I'm graduating and seeing my family in two days.

Oh yeah, people. God totally loves me today. I mean, He loves me everyday, but He wanted today to go my way. Thanks, buddy. Love you.

Things to Do in Rexburg, Idaho

1. Sammy’s

Just one block from campus, Sammy’s serves as an excellent date destination. Hipsters and desperate roommates on “girls’ night out” load the noisy environment. With all the distractions, you won’t have to worry about your less-than-attractive date noticing the lettuce from Date #1 wedged between your two front teeth. Wait half an hour for Dinner #2: a gas-inducing burger and battered fries. Send that food baby out to the third trimester with a pie shake. Yes, a slice of pie mixed into a cup of your favorite vanilla ice cream with a grainy consistency sort of like McDonald’s. Sounds great, huh? I was lucky enough once to watch them make those pies. The lovely girls with pixie cuts and cuffed jeans work behind the counter opening cans of the ready-to-eat pie filling and plop it into the fresh-from-the-freezer crust. A pie shake straight from heaven.

Nothing would end this night on the town better than moving back to the music room. Sit back down on the bed-bug infested couches to hear some more of your favorite music played loud enough for you to bypass the awkward talk with your date. In the meantime, loosen your belt a notch or two or use the nursery-sized bathroom in order to not scare your date away with your fumes. Unless you don’t mind staying strangers.

Going to Sammy’s without a date? Don’t worry, there’s something for everyone. Come alone and sit along the wall watching people have the time of their lives. Pretend to sing along to the same mediocre music the hotties, hipsters, and hornies know by heart. Come here often enough and you’ll be able to sing along to the garage-band music as well. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll start dressing like them too.

2. Campus Gardens

What could be more romantic that roaming through the hundreds of feet of paths through trees, flowers, and streams surrounded by the world’s largest population of kissing couples? The pheromones in the air will surely draw your special someone closer to you.

Now that you’ve spent your food allowance on a ring, Disneyland is out of budget. This is the next best thing to the happiest place on earth. Just drop down on one knee in the gazebo donated by the class of 2005 and hear her say yes to a third date. This time, use Facebook to invite your whole family and all your acquaintances to either the reception in a Provo cultural hall or at her house in Colorado. Don’t forget to Instagram it.

Oh, and while you’re at it, tell all your classes about how romantic the gardens were and how your roommates were so thoughtful as to hide in the bushes and record the whole ordeal. Don’t mind the couples in the foreground. Their roommates kicked them out too.

3. Saint Anthony Sand Dunes

Yes, technically, the dunes don’t classify as Rexburg. And you need a car, but honestly, there is nothing more thrilling than driving for twenty minutes squished between five people in the back seat of a Honda Civic with Adele blaring from only the left side speaker. Stumble out onto the warm sand and imagine the sound of the ocean.

Then, remember you’re in Idaho, nowhere near the godliness of the west coast.

Also, remember to remind the fortunate driver to park his car somewhere conveniently close to the intended bonfire destination so when the coppers inevitably drive by, they can leave a fun, expensive letter under the wiper. Shiver while a bunch of Eagle scouts show off their lack of knowledge in the fire-starting category. Once the firelight is bright enough (two hours later), it will completely hide the fact that you didn’t spend the previous two hours on your hair and makeup to impress the person your roommate swore would be there.

And it’s perfect that tomorrow is laundry day. Two runs through the washer will take out the smoke and the sand in your jeggings and TOMS from when Handsome-In-The-Firelight and What’s-His-Face-Playing-Guitar challenged you to roll down the dune. The rocks hidden in the darkness make every trip a suspense-filled adventure.

4. Actually Attend Class

Maybe prove to your parents that they actually pay for a decent education. But keep Elementary Education as your major. Really, it will get you married.

5. Nothing

There is nothing to do in Rexburg, Idaho. Good luck, ickle freshies. I’m outta here.

Fret

     Sometimes I think that I shouldn't let tiny things bother me like they do. BUT, as my brilliant little sister says, it's part of my life and I am allowed to worry as much as I want. Yeah, keep perspective, but also don't make things smaller than they ought to be made.
     Good way to keep perspective? Write a story about it. Begin it something like this: "When I was twenty-one years old, my best friend blah blah blah." It sure sounds stupid to ramble about your roommates who won't do their dishes, or your best friend who you can't forgive, or the boy you probably won't even know in a year. It might even make a good story.
     I'm just talking to myself.

Confident

     I want everyone in the world (or the three people who actually read my blog) to know that I'm happy exactly who I am. Sure, a "key" to happiness is probably bull crap, but confidence is my key. That's because God made me exactly the way He wants me. It's a happy thought. Even those stupid things like how I am way too sarcastic most of the time come from my divine DNA (not doctrine, don't quote me). But it's totally cool. I'm rad.
     Also, I'm super hilarious. I make myself laugh basically every other second of my life. The remaining seconds I spend sleeping. Or laughing. Or in pain with stupid headaches. Whatever. Pain means I get drugs which means I get uber happy again. Also, I'm funny cause I don't care what people think about me in that "she's strange" sort of way.
     And adventure makes everything exciting, and it isn't necessarily traveling the world. (By the way, job interview for Taiwan went well. Hoping a position will open up for February.) Adventure is changing your routine, learning something new, doing a headstand. Seriously. Try it. I can't, they give me headaches. I found adventure in editing and writing cool things. (This doesn't really count as cool; it's actually pretty dull.) I've given up bumming with people who don't like to have fun. I've got to laugh. E'ry day. Make me smile or I'll throw myself into an industrial blender. Except when I'm sleeping. Even then, I get pretty funny at four a.m. One time my friends and I drove down to California from Idaho. We all slept (except the driver, hopefully) like roadtrippers do, until like three in the morning. Then we woke up and had a glorious time together. Strange how night does that to people. Day=serious. Though I'm a morning person. Always a morning person. So I'll go to bed at nine and wake up at four and parteeee with all the sleepy zombies.
     This isn't like a normal essay with a thesis in the first paragraph and reasons in the body and a (w)rapper  in the conclusion. I ramble. Get over it.
     I do things I want to do. I have this idea that if you admit that something's annoying or stupid or biased or naive, you're allowed to do it without the normal repercussions. That means I can text someone six thousand times in a row with the preface of "I'm just about to be super annoying," and they can't do a single thing about it. Also, that means I answer to no one. I hate the idea of having to account for every second of my day to anyone (except maybe the Big Guy).
     One time I kayaked down a river with a guy I had a super crush on. Oh, how lovely and romantic it could have been. Instead, I shredded all my thoughts through a filter until only gargles and bubbles came out. He never fell in love with me. That's when I learned to stop caring.
     This is me. Not caring. ♥

     P.S. I graduate in exactly a week from this moment (give or take an hour or so). Good bye, Rexburg. Good bye, friends. The next few blogs will be dedicated to the people I will miss and the reasons I will miss them. It might be gooey and vomity. I hate sentimental rot.
     False. I won't write all the reasons I'll miss everyone. That'd be boring.

Fairy Dust

I found this list today. Untitled. Undated. But I'll give it this title, Think of a Wonderful Thought, and this date, November 14, 2012. They still apply.

Old houses

Grave yards

Sprinklers on bike rides

Children's laughter

A great, unique chord progression

Alliterations on accident

Biting hard candies

Peppermint ice cream shakes

Free food

Cool dreams

A good mood

An inside joke that no one else understands

A crush on a boy you can never date

A conversation with a stranger

Telling a secret and losing that burden

Kicking over soda cups left in parking lots

Clapping after movies

Finding a secluded spot to blow my nose

Letting go of balloons

Accidentally touching someone’s hand

Compliments

Freshly brushed teeth

Crossing things off lists

Giggling to myself

Singing to myself

Masking truth with sarcasm

Purposely touching someone's hand and writing it off as an accident
Warm water
Best friends
Sleeping in

Mellow

Then there’s another feeling called mellow.

You honestly can’t remember why you stayed up late last night but it had something to do with that giddy feeling, or its opposite - the feeling when you think deeply about possible outcomes and weigh them against the desires of right now.

You don’t know if it’s worth risking whatever you’ll risk but you really just want to have what you want to have.

Screw next week, you tell yourself. I want the world. I want the whole world. I want it now. For just one day can’t I be a natural, carnal, selfish devil?

But you know it doesn’t work like that.

Consequences.

Your friends give you disapproving glances and you yell at them. You say you’re sorry and that you just need to do it before you regret it. You’d rather have the “I shouldn’t have done it” than the “What if I had?” You don’t want regrets but you’ll regret either way.

But will you regret making that giddy dream a reality, just for a day, to know if it is or is not meant to be?

Even though there’s no such thing as meant to be.

“Meant to be” is what you think God has in mind for you combined with what you want for yourself.

Remember: God’s not going to push you down a miserable slide. He’ll make you climb steep steps in haunted houses holding the hand you’ve wanted in yours since spring. He’ll make you trip over your friend and bonk heads with another until you’re all bonked out and you can’t even keep your head up at dinner. He’ll give you cuts and scrapes until even the sun can’t keep you awake and you know crap sometimes gets hard. He’ll make you understand that your wish is not His command.

But He’ll fill the chasm between you and your best friend. He’ll put that hand in yours even if it isn’t the best for you right now. He’ll put your mind in a pencil sharpener until it writes clearly, and He’ll give you an extra hour of sleep every November just so you can catch up enough to make it till December, and He’ll give you a chance for adventure even though it scares the living hell out of you, and He’ll forgive you when you say living hell. And again. And He’ll make it all okay.

And just like your giddy feeling, you can’t really make people understand this feeling called mellow unless they too have an existential crisis and they too can’t discern between now and then and want and need and fate and choice and doom.

So instead of even attempting to tell someone, you just tell the story of how his hand found yours in the dark of an empty theatre and maybe, just maybe, they’ll fall into your mind and take a slice of God and understand that He has a perfect plan for every imperfect person and all it takes is a little faith and understanding and time.

And maybe they'll see that giddy always falls to mellow.

And that this is mellow.

Giddy

There’s that feeling when you’re just so utterly happy and nothing can ruin it.

But because you can’t share that happiness with that certain person at that certain time, you keep all the happiness inside and it makes you all bubbly and your tummy rumbles (or maybe you’re just hungry) and you fall to the ground and kick your feet in the air and stare at the bed frame with those big sad-kitty eyes and think so hard in order to push the happiness into your subconscious dream state.

Then you wake up eight hours later remembering your brilliantly happy dream that wasn’t real but feels real and all you can do is tell your dentist and your Chinese tutor and your mom (especially your mom) and your sister and everyone you talk to.

You say, “Oh my goodness, I had the most perfect dream” and then you tell them but they don’t ever quite understand how very perfect it was.

But you know and you’re happy and the happiness overflows into everything you do and you get lots of work done on this happy energy and you cheer up the days of others every time you sneeze your happy juice on them and you smile happy germs to everyone and make other people happy. But they only have a portion of your happy.

That's okay. It’s a miracle that you’re so happy because you didn't even take your pill today.

Truth

I grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Living the Gospel was as expected of me as going to school. My parents played the “you know what is right” card so many times that not even the angels keeping my record could take count. Having a testimony, as such a personal thing, was expected, but my parents could not evaluate exactly how they did raising me. They just hope and pray each day that my siblings and I will make the right choices. Still, as a senior in college, there are few things I can honestly say that I know, without any doubt. I believe it all. I believe that the principles laid out in the scriptures will lead to a long, healthy, happy life. I believe that Christ suffered for our sins. I believe that when I die, Christ will greet me and eventually judge my deeds. Among the few things I know is my faith in the eternal family. I know for a fact that I can be with my family for eternity and that very fact gives me the power to move forward on the challenging, yet correct, path back to my Heavenly Father. I know the priesthood truly God’s power on earth. Of the numerous blessings I’ve received, each one has been fully or partially fulfilled. Worthy priesthood holders can work miracles by proxy of Heavenly Father. Most importantly, I know God exists. He governs His children on earth. He knows me; He knows my weaknesses; He knows my strengths; He loves me enough to answer even the simplest prayers. On the knowledge that God lives stands each and every other principle and commandment. With this knowledge, I have the necessary foundation on which to build my testimony. As long as I know that God is real, I have started on a lifelong effort to assemble the pieces of my testimony.

It's Just Something.

The Consequence

gold

fish are

crunchy and

salty. known as

tasty snacks that

smile back until you

bite their heads off

but sometimes

the juices

from

watermelon

leak onto my treats

they

get soggy

i throw them at

mommy. they

stick for

a

moment

before falling

she

gets mad

calls for daddy

unfastens

his

belt asks

me how it felt.

i wont ever

see

sun again

never will see

their son

again

son: the tasty

snack

cant smile

              bac
                   k    

Book review? Really, this isn't the place.

Yes, it is the place. Cause I said so. A review of a great book:


The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a war story. Classified as postmodern fiction, O’Brien recounts the experiences his fictional character Tim O’Brien has during the Vietnam war. As the story begins, O’Brien lists the things that the soldiers in Vietnam carried. While the lists included guns, rations, letters, and other mementos, the heaviest artifacts these soldiers carried were memories, fear, and responsibility. The intangible burdens had a tangible weight. Each experience these soldiers had added to their loads and as they went through the battles, the emotional loads were the heaviest. Dropping a backpack would not relieve them of the burden of death, pain, and suffering. Throughout the novel, O’Brien tells stories to relieve himself of the emotional burdens. He compares dropping a backpack to storytelling. The important part, though, is that the message is properly portrayed. The facts of the story may be more or less true, but the feelings involved need to be properly represented.

Tim O’Brien based his stories on the experiences he had while serving in the Vietnam war. The way he relates the stories may differ from the way he experienced them, but the feeling is the same. He differentiates between these two recollections by calling them “story-truth” and “happening-truth.” The fictional version of himself relates, “Right here, now, as I invent myself…I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth” (O’Brien 179-180). Distinguishing between these two types of truth and, therefore, telling his version of the truth, allows O’Brien to release the emotional burden he has carried for nearly twenty years. The general idea is that truth is subjective. There is not one perfect way to recount an experience. So whether or not O’Brien tells us exactly what happened to him, he does tell us exactly how he felt and that alone is the purpose of storytelling.

Read it.

Dear John...ahem...Chris

Hey Chris*,

Sorry I guess it’s Elder Opeeda. But you only have a month and a half left. Why bother calling you Elder? How are you?

I talk to your sister sometimes. Kartna says you hardly ever write her. That would explain why you hardly ever wrote me back. Anyone would think you forgot about me. How? How could you possibly forget? We had something really special. You promised you’d write and that you’d still love me in two years. Well two years has come and gone, darling. And only one letter? After two months I got the letter and I started to get discouraged. People told me I was crazy for waiting. They say, “Rachael, he needs to focus, let him focus. That’s all. He still loves you he just is busy with the Lord.” “He’s trying to do what he’s supposed to do.” “Missionaries aren’t supposed to have girlfriends anyways.” But listen to this… someone actually said this. “You can do better.” They said that! They seriously said “You can do better.” But I know. I know they were lying. Trying to make me feel better. First off, how could that make anyone feel better? Basically telling me that I wasted three years and eight months of my life on someone that I had to settle for. I wasn’t settling! Plus, no one could do better than you. Really, truly. You are the better that people talk about. You’re the best I could ever get. But that perhaps is the reason I’m writing today.

Chris, before you left I swore you’d be the only one for me ever. And I swore we’d get married one day, no matter how long I had to wait. We’d be together forever. Now that I write it in past tense, it makes a lot more sense. We would be together if… we could be married if… As soon as you left I felt the gap in my life. It throbbed and that attachment I had to you needed to be filled. Two years without you and without anyone to fill the void? That’s just not how it works. Quitting cold turkey is not my style. I needed something or someone else to wean me off of you. With that being said, do you remember your one friend from high school? Simon Daves? He got back just a month or so before you left. Well, he was there at your farewell and while you were talking to all your family and eating that adobo and lumpia (really good, by the way), he was so nice and listened when I told him how I felt. He gave me his number and told me to call if I needed to talk. But I didn’t call. My heart was set on you. Two months after you left I got your letter. That first letter wasn’t until May! I was heartbroken that you only wrote half a page. I sent you at least one letter every week. You wrote half a page. You replied to my ten pages with half a page. I was furious. I had to tell someone. Simon would listen. I knew he would. It was late, maybe eleven. But I called him anyways. And he listened while I cried to him. I told him how much I missed you and how I loved you so much. I never wanted to be with anyone else ever. And I sobbed. I told him that I was lonely and my family all left for the weekend. My mom wasn’t there to hold me like she normally did. It wasn’t meant to be an invitation. I swear. I was just talking and he was listening. Then I heard a soft knock on the door. It was funny; I heard it both through the phone and down the stairs. He came so I could have a shoulder to cry on. By this time it was well past midnight. But no one was home to tell him to leave. I sat on the couch with this stranger. He let me lay in his arms, and he played with my hair. The best thing he did, though, was distract me. He made me laugh. He let me forget why he came in the first place. One in the morning, two, three o’clock. Finally the conversation died down. The time in between replies steadily grew longer. The next thing I remember was waking up alone on the couch. I thought maybe I dreamt the whole thing. But that headache was unmistakably from crying and staying up far too late. Then I heard the toilet flush. The rest was like a movie, a very slow movie. I swear it. Our first date and all the dates to follow. Meeting his parents. The delayed kiss. Hearing him confess his love.

You have to understand, Chris. I loved you. I loved you so much. You were all I ever needed but that empty space needed filling. Please don’t hate me, Chris. You know that I loved you. But he was there. He was ready for me and I for him. I waited for as long as I could. But I couldn’t keep him waiting. He was so patient with me. We dated for a year and seven months. I waited for so long but you never sent another letter. I couldn’t wait any longer. Neither could he.

You have to understand, Chris. I loved you, but now I love him. He’s not better, just different. Different because he’s my husband now.

Two years ago, I couldn’t have dreams of anyone more dear to me than you. Two years can do a lot to a person, huh? Well, there it is. I’m married.

I hope all is well with you.

Love, Rachael

PS- I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you. It didn’t seem right to distract you from your work. See you at your homecoming.

*Disclaimer- none of this is real. Names have been changed to protect identities.

Slow down.

This is the beautifulest butterfly in the world. I adore it.

I'm No Poet

Slip ‘n Slides and Blanket Forts

Poems
By
Amateurs
Are not poems at all.
They don’t
f--
l;
o:
w.
They lack verse.
They scuttle and toddle
Like a half-witted horse.

Poems
By amateurs
Have no set form.
They stop
At creation,
Defy regulation,
Challenge expectation.

Poems by
Amateurs
Fail to make sense.
A fat bird covers the
Ocean. And dreams.
Birds.
Oceans.
Dreams.
They follow every cliché.

Poems by amateurs
Really suck.

My friendly is making this for me. :)