Rediscovery

I’ve debated writing this and putting it out there for anyone and everyone to read. Close readers of my blog know my feelings about all that kind of stuff, but I’ve been attempting to be more open. I think it can help me, even if there are some negative consequences…like sympathy. :)

With that said, I’ve been making new friends lately…and re-discovering old ones (mostly of the female gender). I think I’ve been a pretty poor friend in the past. Someone once helped me realize that when you have someone you love and who is very special to you, it’s not very appropriate to flirt and be alone with members of the opposite sex. And although I agree, and while most people would say I was justified in the way I’ve handled my situation, I wish I wouldn’t have let so many friendships fall apart / disappear over the last year.

What I’ve found, though, is that your real friends tend to be very forgiving about things like that. For which I’m grateful. And help can come from people and places that you never expected. Like when you go out to ice cream with the girl you dated briefly last year, and you’re both content being good friends this time around. Or when a teenager you hardly ever talked to two years ago suddenly becomes the person you confide in more than any other. When you find solace in writing a short story because a friend encouraged you to. Or when you feel you finally really connect with your boss and coworkers.

So I’m grateful I have good friends to soften the blow. But I like to think that I'm tough enough to take a pretty good hit. I think I can get over it – I’ll be able to move on with my life and be happy. But I think the hardest thing to get over is suddenly being just another person. To not be different from anyone else – not to be special. And it’s hard to know that she doesn’t care anymore. That the last phone call was just a courtesy. It was for me, not her – something she would have done for anyone. That my words and tears didn’t mean anything – that they didn’t touch anything inside her.

Bet you didn’t tell him
About those weekends at the coast
Or how we used to argue
About who loved who the most
Well I guess I won that one, cuz I still need you so
But to you I’m just someone you used to know

Like a friend, like a fool
Like some guy you knew in school
Didn’t we love, didn’t we share
Or don’t you even care?
I know we said we were through
But I never knew how quickly I would go
From someone you loved
To someone you used to know

It seemed like I was a fairy tale sometimes. I used to love randomly taking her in my arms in the kitchen and dancing with her, while I sang softly in her ear. Or when she’d lay her head on my lap so I’d stroke her hair while we watched TV… and then how she’d fall asleep like that, while I watched her instead of the TV. :) How she could practically read my mind, and how I felt like the luckiest guy in the world when she would cuddle up to me and move my arm so it was wrapped around her. How whenever I had exciting news, I wanted to tell her first. How she would kiss me with her eyes closed so tight. How on one day off, we planned to do something fun and outdoorsy, but I got sick, so she stayed inside and took care of me, even letting me fall asleep for a while with my head on her lap.

When Cinderella found the writer had appended
What did she do when the fairy tale had ended?
And the rain falls down, and I’m standing here with no umbrella again.

So what happened to my happy ending? Where’s my happily ever after?
Like I said, I'm sure I’ll be okay… I just don’t believe in fairy tales anymore.

A Brief Note

I watched an episode of Scrubs today. Well, let's face it - I watched about five episodes today. By the way, they're still funny, but they're just not as good when you're watching them by yourself.

But something struck me from that episode. I've heard it dozens of times before, but hearing it this time really hit me. Dr. Kelso said, "Nothing in this world that's worth having comes easy."

It's made me introspective about my current situation. There are a few people who really know what's going on in my life right now - most don't. But suffice it to say, life is not easy for me right now. In fact, it's incredibly hard. I don't say that to get sympathy. I say that because I recognize that what I want is worth having, and I shouldn't be surprised that it hasn't been handed to me on a silver platter. That's not the way life is.

Love is Never Wasted

I'd like to start off by saying that I apologize if anyone who reads this is hurt by it. I am not upset - that's not the reason I am writing this.

Living in Provo can be fun, but it also has its downsides. One of those is that everyone wants to know everything about your dating life. I'm not immune from it either - no one really is. It's a cultural thing. And facebook has somehow played into all that. People see your status message, or your relationship status, or whatever, and assume that you want everyone to comment on it. Technically, we all know that all our friends can see it, but sometimes, maybe we only put it up for one person to read. We couldn't care less if anyone else saw it, and would prefer they just ignore it. That's happened to me, and I'm sure I've been guilty doing it to others in many instances.

And no matter where you go in Provo, people ask you how your love life is. But you know what? If anything exciting happened, like you got married or engaged, that'd probably be one of the things that would naturally come up in a conversation. You don't have to force things like that. And if s/he just went through a breakup or something, do you really want to bring that up? Probably best for everyone to just ask how things are going.

Point is, I said goodbye today to my girlfriend of about a year and a half. She's going home for the rest of the summer, and we don't know what's going to happen from here. That's all. Normally I wouldn't say anything about this - I like to play things close to the vest - but I'd rather not have people constantly asking me about it.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend today online. A girl I haven't really talked to in a long time - we were in a play together almost two years ago. She's only 16 years old, but she was the best person I could have talked to today. She, like everyone around here, asked me about my girlfriend. But for some reason, I was completely open with her about my whole situation. She made it easy, because she didn't judge me or offer me any counsel or advice, and she didn't offer her own commentary on the situation. She just listened. And it was exactly what I needed. In the course of our conversation, she said something to me that amazed me that it came from someone her age.

She said, "I think it is so cute that you love her [my girlfriend] so much. You LOVE her... I think love is unselfish. You don't love someone to get love back...you love them because you care about them so much you love who they are. You love THEM."

Then she asked if that was cheesy. And I can honestly say it's not. It's a true statement, because love is selfless. A wise man once said this statement, after which I will make an end of my writings. He said:

"Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest on reciprocity."

So...Where Are You From?

I can't really say that I "grew up" anywhere. I've moved around so much that I still have a hard time telling people "where I'm from" (which I know is bad grammar, but I know the rule, so I'm allowed to break it). As evidence of this non-growing-up-in-one-particular-place-itude, I currently have a Washington driver's license, Oregon license plates, and I live in Utah (don't tell the DMV).

My parents met, dated, and got married in Portland, Oregon, where I was born. I am the oldest of five kids, and the only one born in Portland. Because of the economic situation, my family briefly moved to Utah so my dad could go to school, but quickly got the heck out of there and back to the Pacific Northwest, when my dad took a job in Washington.

When we moved, I was almost four years old. Shortly afterwards, my baby sister was born. Then my little brother, and then my dad got job with a new company, which required us to move to Oregon. Over the next 11 years, we moved four more times and ended up back in Washington. By that time I was 18, and moved to Utah for school, back to Washington, to England for a mission, back to Washington, then back to Utah, where I've been (more or less) for the last four years. In the meantime, my family came full circle and moved back to Portland.

Now, if you've made it past my family's moving history to this point, thank you for sticking in there. But the point I'm trying to make here is this: I never grew up anywhere. I don't know what it's like to have lived in the same house my whole life. I don't get those kids who have such an incredibly hard time their first year of college, being away from their hometown. I don't understand the desire some people have of never wanting to leave home and who live in the same neighborhood as their parents and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles. But that's because I've never had a hometown. I don't understand what a hometown is.

Sometimes my sister and I will say something about how we didn't grow up in one particular place when my dad is around. Then he'll start to get defensive about it, saying that if we hadn't moved, that Taylor and I wouldn't have had the opportunities that we do, etc. We try to calm him down and tell him to relax. Because we agree with him - we know that. We understand. And the thing is, we're not complaining about it. In fact, we're glad to have moved around like we did.

Personally, I'm glad that there's no one in my family's ward who feels comfortable enough at Christmastime, simply because I've grown up in the ward (regardless of whether or not they know me that well), to say something to me about how I should be married by now. I like going home and getting lost trying to get to my house, simply because I've never driven that way before. And I like that when I go home, I go home to see my family.

Maybe I've never had many close friends because of that, but I'm okay with that. Because what I learned, growing up in Mantec-Kinley-Spring-Port-Belling-land, was so much better than making a friend or two along the way. I learned that the most important part of life is family. And I'm grateful to my parents for teaching me that.

I'm no Superman

How do you make sure that you have a good relationship?

My girlfriend and I are big fans of the TV show Scrubs, and she recently bought the first season, so we’ve been watching it a lot in the evenings. I recently wrote a blog entry berating sitcoms, but Scrubs is not your typical sitcom. It is funny, but deep at the same time, which is an amazing feat for a half hour TV show. Although it is absolutely hilarious, it also manages to teach something about human emotions every time.

One of the episodes we watched really struck some kind of chord with me. It was about Elliot and JD’s brief relationship. How it started so amazingly, then spiraled downhill and finally ended…badly. Throughout the show, there are clips of the doctors talking to a psychologist. After their relationship ends, Elliot is talking to the shrink and says something about relationships.

“But, relationships.... I always heard that when they were right, they were easy. That--that, even when things got hard...that they were easy. I don't get that at all, you know?”

Dr. Cox is probably my favorite character – he always has some good insight.

“Bottom line...is the couples that are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but, the big difference is, they don't let it take 'em down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time, if it's right, and they're real lucky. One of them will say something.”

I can honestly say that I used to be like Elliot. I always thought that relationships would be easy if they were “right,” whatever that means. But I’ve learned, as Dr. Cox did, that the difference between a good relationship that works and a good relationship that doesn’t, is that in the relationship that works, someone will fight for it. There is at least one person who wants it so bad that he or she will contend for that relationship.

Couples aren’t always both working equally for the relationship to work. Sometimes, someone has to pull the other. She’s willing to pull him for a little while, so long as he doesn’t drag his feet too long. And sometimes, maybe down the line, he will have to pull her until she can pick up her feet and start walking. But as long as one person is still pushing for the relationship to work, it’s possible. But if it takes too long for him to pick up his feet, she gets too tired, and they both sit down. Or if they both get tired at the same time, but neither is selfless enough to stand up and pull the other back up, the relationship is over.

I was going to go off on something about married couples talking to other people about their relationship issues, or mentioning faults of their spouses to others, which I think is dumb and a sure road to marital problems, but I’ll save that for another blog. For now, I’ll just leave you with this bit of wisdom.

No matter how good your relationship is now, there is going to come a time when you’re going to have to make a decision to either fight for it or to give it up entirely. Now here’s the bit of wisdom. No matter what she says or does – even if she gives up on the relationship – you can’t give up. You fight for that relationship with all you have in you, and then some. Because if you give up without a fight, that tells us something about you and the weakness of your character. But not only that – it also tells us that she wasn’t really worth it to you anyway.

--
I can’t do this all on my own. No – I know I’m no Superman.

Ten Years

Brother Landen dropped me off that morning after seminary. I remember walking up the front walkway towards the main entrance to the high school, just off to another day of school. As I approached the gate, with the office on my right, I suddenly saw students begin running out of the cafeteria through the side door, coming my direction.

I was very confused and not sure how to take it. I tried to find out by saying, “What’s going on?” “What happened?” A kid I’d never seen before (and never have again) exclaimed, as he moved along with the crowd, “Someone’s shooting!”

I don’t think it sunk in right then – it didn’t seem real. But then I heard a loud gunshot, and I turned around and ran with the crowd toward the street. We stood beyond the school gates, a huge mass huddled together, until a teacher beckoned us to come back. He ushered us through the main gate and to the right, past the main office and across the quad from the cafeteria to the library. Dozens of students were in there, and we were all confused as to what was going on. My friend Ben’s girlfriend Shy came up to me with tears running down her face, saying she’d heard that Ben was shot in the head. Nothing was real to me – I tried just to comfort her, telling her I was sure he’d be okay. He wasn’t – he died in the hospital later.

No one really had cell phones back then. The school officials in the library with us let us use a phone at the back of the library if we wanted. When it wasn’t so crowded, I made my way toward it and used it to call my family, but the line wasn’t working. I realized that the lines around this area were likely very crowded with phone calls, so after several attempts, I called my dad at work. My dad’s secretary answered and said he wasn’t there. I told her it was me, and told her that I was okay. I realized later that that was the best thing I could do for all of my extended family, because when they couldn’t get through to my house, they called my dad’s office, and his secretary would tell them I was fine.

My parents probably had to wait longer to know that. They were taking my little sister to middle school when they saw everything near the high school. They drove her to school and dropped her off, then headed back to the school. They parked somewhere and stood across the street from the school at the church with other parents. At some point, a police officer read a list of names, and asked for the parents of those children to come talk to him afterwards. My dad told me he was standing with my seminary teacher’s husband when they read the list, and neither mine, Taylor’s, nor Lacy’s names were read. Brother Stockwell put his arm around Dad as they both cried.

After what seemed like forever, we were finally informed we were going to be leaving. We exited the library through the back door instead of the door that faced the cafeteria, and joined with hundreds of other students who were being let out of their classrooms where they had also been locked down. I wondered if my parents would be there. We walked the entire length of the hallway before we got to the parking lot on the other end of the school. Right when we got to the opening, I saw my parents standing there. I only remember their faces being so relieved, and my dad crying as he swept me up in his arms. I’d never seen him cry before, and I knew then that I would never in my life need to doubt his love for me. My mom was crying too, of course. She hugged me too, and we walked to the car and drove home. I don’t even remember where they parked it.

In the aftermath, I watched the news, I read the newspaper – things I had never really done before. I listened to national news anchors mispronounce words like Willamette, and I read about how my friend, Ben Walker, had died. I learned of how people I knew, and people I eventually met and became friends with in the years that followed, had been injured or killed. I went to Ben’s funeral. I visited the wall of flowers that, until the shootings, had just been the fence in front of the school. I watched my father help one of my friend’s dad give a blessing to her. I talked in my seminary class with a reporter from the New Era. And I continued on with my life. 

I finished high school. My family moved – to Washington, then six years later to Portland. I served an LDS mission to the south of England for two years. I went to college. I graduated from college. And now I’m 25 years old, living in Utah and working for a market research firm. But in the last 10 years, I haven’t forgotten what happened on that day – and it is still one of my most vivid memories.

Please remember the families of Ben Walker and Mikael Nicholauson, as well as Kristin Kinkel (Kip killed their parents), in your prayers. And good luck to all the survivors of the Thurston High School shootings. But not just those injured – the community members of Springfield, Ore. are also survivors.

Television

I am not the biggest fan of sitcoms. I hate that the plots are so weak, and that all they go for is the cheap laugh. It seems sitcoms are actually getting worse nowadays, if that’s even possible. The comedy is so lowbrow that it makes you feel disgusted with yourself when you finally manage to peel yourself off the couch and jumpstart your brain. You wonder where the evening went, and why you didn’t engage yourself in something more worthwhile.

I recently read an article recently about sitcoms, and how they are wasting America’s time. But not only their time, but their brain power. The article goes on to say that Americans spend 200 billion hours a year just watching TV. It also mentions in comparison, that Wikipedia took approximately 100 million hours to get to where it is now. Think about all that ingenuity and intelligence and research (come on – some of Wikipedia is reputable) that went in to making that glorious, informative web site. And at only a tiny fraction of the time we waste mindlessly watching TV (0.05%, to be exact).

Now on a personal note, I enjoy watching Law & Order. This likely comes as no surprise to my girlfriend, my family, or close associates. This show is different from most shows – it makes you think, it engages you. And yes, it may be a little dramatic, but at least the situations are somewhat more realistic than shows such as CSI.

Is it predictable? Yes. Is it the same format every time? Yes. But is it more interesting and entertaining than a sitcom? Also, yes.

I think that I also relate to the main character – most often, my ideas and thoughts are the same or similar to Jack McCoy’s. I cheer for him every time he gets the bad guy, or argues with his boss over ethics, or disagrees time and time again with his incredibly liberal (and apparently homosexual – as taken from her last episode on the show, although that kind of came as a shocker to everyone else) one-time partner. I can’t even remember her name – she was the blond chick who was always freaking out about something.

But you become connected to the issues. My girlfriend says I get really involved in it. But how can you not? The show is charged with issues: political, ethical, moral, legal. You can’t help but get involved in them.

Anyway, my suggestion to all of you? Stop watching sitcoms and watch Law & Order reruns.