Success!

Today I had a funny little conversation with my supervisor after he had given me a little assignment. I was leaving work in 20 minutes but said I would do it before I left. In an attempt to make it clear to me that there was no rush and that it could wait till tomorrow he used the word "fail" in this context: "If for some reason you fail, I'm in no hurry so don't worry about it." I responded with, "I will not fail...but I may put off succeeding until tomorrow." HA! I'm so brilliant. That is exactly what life struggles are all about...trying, failing for the present just to put off succeeding for another day. I'm not saying procrastinate success but realize that, if it doesn't come right away, it will in time. It's like Christmas... The presents waiting under the tree create anticipation! Or purposely hoarding your Halloween candy just to be the only kid in the family with some still left over at Thanksgiving (I was never this child...Erin was). This sounds fun and all but typically current set backs are not seen this way (I may or may not be speaking from personal experience). I'm just saying though, things will work out. I am saving my successful career till next fall for example! (Wink, wink)

"I do not fail! But at times, I may need to put off success until tomorrow!"

Life's a Circus

The smell of funnel cakes and fried food floating through the air. Vendors haggling... "Come one, come all!"..."Everyone a winner!" Bright flashing lights on spinning rides. Peels of laughter...

The Utah State Fair boasted the Worlds Smallest Woman among it's attractions this year. I saw people paying a dollar to see her. I didn't take the "opportunity" but from my vantage point, could see those who were seeing her...they were just staring...staring in awe or disgust. No one was even saying anything...just staring. I asked a group of teenagers coming out of the booth if this was legitimate. They said she was just a really short woman...a midget. I asked why no one was saying anything to her. She's Haitian and doesn't speak English. What must this woman be thinking? Maybe she loves traveling. Maybe she gets paid really well. What is her perspective? Foreign place...different culture...different language...How much of what she's experiencing now has she experienced before but has just been turned into a way of paying the bills?

The smell of funnel cakes and fried food floating through the air. Vendors haggling... "Come one, come all!"..."Everyone a winner!" Bright flashing lights on spinning rides. Peels of laughter...

Laughter.

Plan

Short blog:

Last week I thought about the difference between these two phrases.

I never planned on being _____. (fill in blank with, unhappy, fat, grumpy, mean, disorganized...whatever it is...)

and this

I planned on never being_____. (same adjective...)

One is a backward glance at what should not have been but was, accidentally, anyway. The other is the forward thinking planning for what is wanted and not wanted in life. I imagine that it is not unhappy, fat, grumpy, mean, disorganized, etc. people who say, "I planned on never being_____." If they planned against those things they didn't want and for the things they did, then they are likely happy, healthy, kind, etc. The Cheshire Cat is known for having this conversation with Alice (and for little else I imagine, including for the place Cheshire, from which the fictional character is supposed to have come and which is not addressed at all in the story):

Alice: I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.
Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.
Alice: Oh, it really doesn't matter, as long as...
Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn't matter which way you go.

It matters to me very much which way I go and so I plan on being happy, healthy, kind, etc. and I work toward that little by little so I never have to use the phrase, " I never planned on being_____." Because I did...I did plan on being...I planned on being quite a lot!

Love The One You're With

Walls walls everywhere...and they ain't padded! I had a conversation with a co-worker this week. He is older than me...single...sad. I invited him to an activity we were having and he explained that he didn't do the single thing anymore...he's just too old and he doesn't fit in anymore. I asked then if he hangs out with people his age...no, they're married. So, let me get this straight...you don't hang out with single people and you don't hang out with married people. You're alone. Basically...I've resigned myself. Wikipedia defines resignation as the following: "A resignation is the formal act of giving up or quitting one's office or position. It can also refer to the act of admitting defeat in a game like chess, indicated by the resigning player declaring 'I resign', turning his king on its side, extending his hand, or stopping the chess clock." This general vibe of giving up I find in a lot of single people. But I don't mean giving up ever finding someone to fall in love with, thought that it is included. It almost seems that if they can't have the one an only, they won't have anyone! It does seem to be a formal act of giving up and deciding not to have relationships of any kind. It's like they need to keep a comfortable distance from others...must not get too close. There seems to be the unspoken, "We're not in love so we can't offer to each other love of any kind." These people leave activities early and miss the small group that always ends up talking at the end. They never commit to too much time with you or can't decide if they'll be able to make it. They don't want to be counted on... and so success...they're not! I need people. I need to be needed by them. And there are more than enough of them around to care about. I find myself reaching out even more to love others when I think about not having ONE to love. Friends, married friends, old and young friends. The options are endless and the ability to commit to any and all of them is mine...yours! Invest!



This is, of course, a harder issue with members of the opposite gender. If you let someone into your heart who is, as far as gender goes, an "option" for you then be prepared to get straight armed eventually when one or the other decides that because happily ever after is not an option then happy as friends right now can't be either. I'm not talking the "Love The One You're With" kind fo love where you get what you can from someone who you don't plan on commiting life and eternity to. I'm talking about genuinely letting yourself become a part of each others lives. I can't count how many times I've thought to fight the urge to text or call a male friend, FRIEND, because I don't want him to think that I think that he thinks...ARGH! I made a commitment to myself once. If I see a movie, hear a funny story, see interesting people, have something fun I want to go do or whatever and am reminded of anyone I care about or I just have a thought to text someone or drop a note in the mail, I do it! If the thoughts that make me second guess what they think my thinking of them might mean come to mind, it just makes me that much more determined to follow through. You wanna know where it's gotten me? You want to know where caring and not being afriad to show it to people who can't be one thing or the other has gotten me? YOU WANNA KNOW? YOU WANNA KNOW? I'll tell you! I have loved and been loved more than I have heart enough to handle. The "one true loveless" life I lead is filled with so much love that my extra large body doesn't even seem big enough to hold it all. Some of love is seasonal, and situation or location change will make it different. And a lot of love is very long term with the children of these friends knowing your name and seeing you when thier families come through town and eventually living in your basement when they go away to college. If we were meant to only feel love for that one person in our life, then what would be the point of all of the other great people we have the blessed chance to meet existing around us even be. They are there to be loved... without dwelling on what they aren't, won't be, or what will eventually change. I have looked down the two options of life that lay ahead of me...the one with a handsome man to love and raise children with and the one on my own with the chance to love many people in my community, church, world, neighborhood. And what I see down both options is the opportunity to be a part of lives and to LOVE. I'll be happy with happily ever after... in whichever form it takes. I will be happy because loveless is not an option...for me anyway. Is it for you?

17 Again and Very Green Grass

Yes...I saw the Zach Efron movie. It was really good actually. And yes, there may have been a musical number involving basketball...maybe he wouldn't feel at home in a movie unless it had that element. Anyway, great flick, good message. The reason for the main character's transformation is regret. He has lived a great portion of his adult life regretting decisions he made at 17 that took him on a different road than the one he had planned. So, in a very It's a Wonderful Life, way, he travels back in time. Anyway, see it... but the point is that it got me thinking. I have regrets. In my very short 8 years since high school, I can think of things I wish had been different. Here we go:

1) In high school there was a guy on my swim team (tall with an amazing swimmer/ Greek god body) who had a heart of gold. A heart, that at one time in it's 17 year old capacity, beat for me. I should have kissed his face and kissed it good.

2) I should have gotten better grades at BYU. I could do the work...somehow it just didn't feel like I could keep on top at the time...I was young...

3) I should have gone to Disney World with the little paying internship to be a performer...I got the job of Tigger. I was too tall for a princess and was crusty about it. I didn't go...it could have been fun and could have fulfilled this little wish I still have of being on stage (it would have been in parades but hey...we'll call it stage).

4) No mission...

5) That amazing (again tall) boy who wanted to love me. Heaven bless him...and his beautiful new wife!

6) That first go at a teaching career...I sucked at it. I really did and there were so many things I could have done differently and should have figured out how to... There were a lot of turns I could have taken to get me on track earlier. I didn't take them.

These things I regret are here for you to see. I want them written down, acknowledged...and done with. I look back on all of them and realize that I always had something else I wanted to be, somewhere else I thought it more important to go...and if they had all worked out, and I was not regretting them, the list would be different but, having done one thing, would have kept me from another. Most of the things on the list are things I regret, but know were supposed to be or were guided somehow. Some I would change if I could. But last on the list is this...

7) I regret ever having spent time regretting...

The movie Mansfield Park ends with a quote from the character Fanny Price. "It could have turned out differently, I suppose. But it didn't."

On the Crayola website, there are listed 9 shades of green. The dictionary defines green as any color between yellow and blue on the color spectrum. So in reality, no green can be "greener" than another. They can be more on the blue side, or more on the yellow side, but none are greener. They're just different. Why then do we even have that saying... "The grass is always greener on the other side." I can think though of a lot of "other sides" that have coveted green grass on them. The other side of these last 8 years seems really green...back when I was in high school. I had so much potential then and no mistakes were made yet. But if I think hard enough, I remember the brown patches. Sometimes other people's lives look like they're a green I could get used to. But I don't see everything. My life hasn't been exactly what I had imagined... but when is life ever that way. What do 17 year olds know about their futures? Nada. At 17 though I did have some anchors and those things have not changed. And my life has had a lot of good in it (keep in perspective that this blog is just about the regrets...there have been successes). Wishing, comparing, regretting, crying, wishing some more...doesn't get ya far that's for sure. I'm gonna work on living in the now from now on. That way, at the end of the next 8 years, wasted time thinking about the past, won't be on my list of regrets. Likely there'll still be a list... but I won't be wasting time thinking about it.

Is the grass greener on my side?... Nope. But I like this shade.

Voice Lessons

I overheard a conversation at work a couple of weeks ago. Rather, I overheard a tone...you know the one. It's the one from which you hear snatches such as these: "And can you believe...[murmur, murmur, murmur, tsk!]. Well I never! [low tones, low tones..... build....and] REALLY! And did you know she... [secret, secret, eye roll]. I know I would never... [condemn condemn condemn]." It's not the kind of conversation in which you expect to hear a person's highest points acclaimed. I thought at that moment that if I could work out a way to never again hear my voice use those tones in that order, I would somehow have broken the mold. Along with all of the beauty and grace and gentleness associated with womanhood, there is also the gossip and the nag. This frustrates me.

Last week I was in a place of worship. It was clean and beautiful and the people inside were dressed simply and beautifully. As I sat pondering, I decided to tune into tone again. I listened to these tones in comparison to the tones I'd heard before. They were different. They were subdued and gentle. Because there was very little talking at all, the talking that was done was important. Couples and families and loved ones spoke of that which was most important and uplifting. They were likely speaking of children they loved, close ones they worried for, and love they shared. They were talking with the intent to help and hope for and heal, not disgrace or put down.

In the places I feel most peace, I hear the tones described in the second paragraph of this blog. It is a goal of mine to create that same tone for my home and all places over which I have any influence. Wish me luck!

Self-Storage

I can't help but laugh every time I drive by a storage unit and read a sign that says something like "Bulldog Self-Storage" or "Wilson's Self-Storage." Now what exactly is being stored? When you think about what happens by attaching "self" at the beginning of a word, as a type of prefix, it usually means about the same thing and that, I hope, is not what it means in this case. In the case of self-help Books, one reads up on a topic in order to help one's self learn something new. If one is self-righteous, then they put themselves above. If one is self-depreciating, they put themselves below. But where do they put themselves in the case of self-storage? I picture something like the case of a wholly mammoth found in some frozen part of the world but instead a human in a huge block of ice in some kind of chilled storage unit. Maybe they should rethink the name of the whole business... it is not "self" that is being stored but "junk belonging to self." Couldn't they call it instead, "Wilson's Storage of Stuff You Don't Use Now and Won't Use Later but Will keep for Ten years and Then Throw Out?" Maybe that'd be a little long... And if they are using "self" to mean stuff belonging to self, why does that qulifier need to be included... I'm not going to store someone else's stuff! If I robbed someone and had their stuff instead of mine and didn't have room for it in my house, would I still be allowed to store it at a Self-Storage unit place.
"Hey, can I store this here?"
"Is it yours?"
"Nope, I'm 'borrowing' it from the rich family up on the hill whose place got broken into last week."
"Oh yeah. Okay then. You can't store it here. You'll have to go over to 'Dan's Stuff You Snagged Storage"... next block over."
"K...thanks for the help."
Back to the idea of actually storing yourself for later, I ended up trying to think of why that would be a good idea. This is what I came up with: anybody living in the 80's may have wanted to just hold off ten years to avoid the whole mullet thing; someone socially awkward from the 1950's may have wanted to wait until our technology based time to live so they could have a virtual social life from the comfort of their own basement bedroom; a garbage man from a few years ago may have wanted to continue his career now that they have those arm things that will lift the garbage cans for him...I'm sure there are more. (Please share any you think of!)

***I could take this to a deeper level with something to the affect of, "Don't put your life on hold...LIVE NOW!"...but I'm not going to...