On to the Next Thing

I've been inspired to blog again.

Of course, this has happened at the worst of times, because right now I should be packing for a road trip. And I'm not. Which means I have to get up earlier than I'd like so I can pack in the morning and be ready to leave the house at a quarter to seven, all because I need to get to the beautiful Cedar City quickly enough to try to get last-minute tickets for the world-renowned Les Miserables. (Though the likelihood of me getting those tickets is incredibly low, and the trip is really for the purpose of me helping my roommate move into a house that is no longer mine. Sigh.)

That brings up my desire to blog.

You see, I miss Cedar. I spent nine months out of the year in that tiny little town for the last four years, and it has been more of a home to me than my actual home. That's the thing about moving away from your parents' house; you begin to realize how much you've been missing. Living away from home gave me the chance to actually figure out who I was and how I wanted to live life. Before I left home, I depended so much on other people that I couldn't even call a pizza place to order a pizza, even when I was required to for my job.

Because I didn't have my mommy around to make all the big calls and decisions for me, Cedar fixed all that, and now, more than ever, I am wanting to go back.

The problem with finally getting a degree is having to make the change from 17+ years of constant school to the real world, where there is no summer vacation and finding a career takes precedence over having fun. I'm trying to juggle getting internships while keeping the job I have while building up my name in my field while trying to write my own work. I'm actually thinking about buying a car (even though I have no money) because then I wouldn't have to worry about not having a way to get to the many places I need to be. I go to church every week and scope out the congregation hoping to find a new face that screams "marry me now" because, even though I'm only twenty-two, it feels like I'm falling behind when it comes to matrimony, especially now that my friends are having babies with their husbands.

It is all terrifying, and I want nothing more than to make my trip to Cedar City a one way drive.

And yet, even if I don't think I'm ready, it is time to face the "real world" and see just what it is school is supposed to have taught me.

Hello, world. I'm Dana. This is going to be interesting.

The Ride of Your Life

It's time to contemplate life again.

I feel like I have't done this for a while, which is why I'm writing about it again. We can never think too much about life and how we're a part of it, in my opinion, unless you think too much about how it sucks.

And sometimes it does. Suck, I mean. Sometimes life hits you square in the face and then laughs at you when you fall to the ground with a broken nose. It can be cruel like that.

The best part is what you choose to do once you're on the ground, looking up into the eyes of life.

Some people choose to stay down and wait for the kick, the one that will always come if you sit and wait for it. Life never hesitates to kick you when you're down, because let's face it--it's too much fun. For life, I mean. Why settle for a simple punch when you can get a few good kicks in at the same time? For this reason, I think a lot of people hate life. They always get one or two or three kicks after the initial smack in the face.

Personally, life and I are great friends.

Now, I've received my fair share of hits to the face. Things happen, things we don't plan on, things we think will be the end of us. I've had people die, boys drop me and ignore me, friends decide I am no longer worth a text or two. My life has never been easy, just as I'm sure your life has never been easy. That's the thing, though. I don't think life is supposed to be easy. What good would that do us if all we had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride? We need that thrill we get after climbing the long and rickety slope that brings us a lot higher than we'd ever admit to being comfortable reaching.

It's that first drop that is my favorite.

Has anyone else been on a roller coaster, gotten to the top of the chain, and thought, "Oh no, what if the track isn't even there? WE'RE GONNA DIE!"? Okay, maybe that's just me, but the analogy is working in my head, so I'm going to stick with it. Even if it is a little backwards once I explain it.

Sometimes, we're going up and up and up in life, climbing and climbing, getting more terrified as they days pass. "This isn't where I want to be. This is all wrong. I want to be safe on the ground with the butterflies and bunnies where I can't see the vultures circling." Life is pulling us along and there's nothing we can do about it. "Everything is going wrong--I'm going to die."

(In case you didn't know, this is the face-smacking before the down-kicking.)

It's hard to know when you've finally reached the top of that roller coaster, especially when you're not in the front of the coaster--and let's face it; most of us are nowhere near close enough to the front to see where life is going. You have no idea where life is taking you, and it feels like everything is just going to fall out from under you, leaving you in midair with that expression cartoon characters get right before they fall off that cliff.

This is where it all comes down to you.

The way I see it, on this, the roller coaster of life (which is ridiculously cliche, I know), you get to decide if you stay in your seat. If you choose, you can lift up that bar and jump right on out. You can give up and decide life isn't worth it; it isn't worth the smacking. The only problem with this is, because by this point you're pretty high up, you will fall to your horrible and painful death. Metaphorically. Personally, I like to stay in my seat. The ride is a little more fun that way.

If you want to keep the ride going, you have to decide to put life back in its place. You have to tell it that it has no business kicking you; you've already been smacked. It's your turn now. I find great pleasure in knowing (or at least thinking) I have the power to hit right back, and give life a good smack in the face. Sure, things go wrong. But man, the ride that follows has got to be the most amazing thing I could imagine--better than I could imagine.

That's the thing about roller coasters--you can go on the same one over and over again, but somehow, the ride never feels the same. Every time it is different, because you're always in a different seat. Sometimes you can see where the tracks are taking you. You can see where your life is headed so you can anticipate the twists and turns and feel just a little bit safer. Most of the time, though, you have no idea, and you're just there for the ride, ready to take it as it comes. That's my favorite.

So yeah, life sucks sometimes. You feel like the punches in the face (or the clanking of the chain) will never end, and you just keep going higher and higher until you feel like there's no way but down (in the sense of that lovely metaphorical death). Unless you decide to stay in your seat and keep facing life, you'll probably end up on the ground. Maybe you won't be dead, but you'll be stuck licking your wounds and waiting for the paramedics to arrive--and sometimes they take forever. But if you're on the ground, you miss the ride! If you don't tell life you're not going to let it give you a good kick, you won't be able to experience that jolting turn as you go through that corkscrew, or get that unsettling feeling you get when you drop down and temporarily leave your stomach behind. You'll have more ups and downs, good and bad, but you won't find the same exhilaration anywhere else.

So which will you choose? When life hits you right between the eyes, are you going to give up and jump out, or are you going to go for the ride of your life? Literally.

Let Me Show You How It's Done

So today while I made a delicious grilled cheese sandwich, I also cleared out the dishwasher to be a kind and helpful roommate. Any time my sandwich slowly cooked to perfection, I unloaded the clean dishes and put them away. Then, while I ate, my roommate took on the role of putting the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, also being a kind and helpful roommate.

Problem with this?

I think she was making sure we'd have to work extra hard to fill it.

Okay, it probably doesn't look that bad. But our dishwasher has some space issues, and we really have to play tetris to get seven girls' dishes to fit. And this is not tetris.

So, my lovely roommate, as helpful as you were trying to be, this is not your forte. You might want to leave this part to us.

Best. Costume. Ever.

And I don't normally do single word sentences. That's how epic my costume was this year.

I think the best part was the fact we made almost everything ourselves. Not the boots and pants, but the shirt, bow, bracer, and swords were all homemade. Pretty cool.

Do you see those awesome bows and swords? Yeah, I thought they were pretty cool, too. We won't go into the fact I cut a live branch from a tree to make mine...I wanted it to be bendy, okay?

Okay, ignore how ridiculous I look pretending my sword is an arrow. We didn't have any... But really I want to talk about the epic arm bracer around my wrist. Fun story about those. I made them during General Conference to help me focus, but I was a little lacking in proper tools. That meant I was pounding little holes into the suede with a tiny nail so I could get a scissor blade through it (for the leather bindings), which took quite a bit of effort. And resulted in four sliced fingers. And a lot of blood. But that's okay, because they look awesome!

As you can see, we took ourselves very seriously, especially after I found me a stick to act as my arrow.

But really. Our costumes were totally epic. And I'm sure you would agree.

The Game's Afoot

Here's a special post in honor of a dear friend whose life is full of complicated boys.

And they've started a war.

Let me show you the first battle. Hereafter, the two boys fighting for my friend's attention will be known as Thing 1 and Thing 2. Now, Thing 1 thought he had it good. He did everything right, got a couple smooches, and sent flowers to show her his love and devotion. Basically, he was leading the race by a landslide, and the flowers were absolutely beautiful.

Enter Thing 2.

He didn't just send flowers. No, he drove three hours to secretly put a bouquet in her room. He spoke to her for just long enough for her roommate to get the flowers into her room without her knowing, and then he left, driving three hours back because he had to work in the morning. Mysterious, Thing 2, very mysterious. Then my good friend walked into her room and saw the flowers he brought.

Now, you tell me who won this flower battle:

On the right are the flowers from Thing 1. The giant of a bouquet is from Thing 2.

In my opinion, this the victory belongs without question to Thing 2. But that's just me.

Today is a Perfect Day

Today, someone asked me how my day had been. When I replied that it had been fantastic, he asked me why, and I had to think for a moment. Why was my day fantastic? Quite literally, nothing extraordinary had happened. I slept in so I didn't get the chance to shower, I went to class and didn't pay attention, I worked on my novel, made some muffins, went to work, went to class, went to a meeting... It was before the meeting when he asked me the question, and as I thought about my day, I really had no reason to be as happy as I was.

So why was I?

Optimism!

That's what I choose to write about today, seeing as I'm beginning to be a failure at blogging. This whole once a week think didn't really work out when school started up again. But that's okay! Because today is Tuesday, blogging day, and I am bloggin'.

Anyway, optimism. I am a firm believer that life is as good as you think it is, no matter what circumstances you might be in. Take me for example; I think the only reason things are so good for me is because I've told myself they're good. No matter how hard school gets--and I had some major stresses at the beginning of the semester--no matter how hard I have to try to talk to people--which I never liked doing--things are good.

Story time! You know how, in The Music Man, Harold Hill explains the "Think System"--think really hard about something, and you don't have to do anything else? Yeah, we're going to say that's how things really work sometimes. Before spring semester last year, I decided I needed to change. I had spent too much time sitting around in front of my computer and hanging around the edge of game nights just watching because I had always told myself I was too shy to really have any fun. But once I decided that needed to change, I just told myself I wasn't as shy as I thought, I didn't have to sit on the edge because I couldn't talk to people, and I was a person with good ideas that could be shared.

And now, if I were to go back to then and look forward at myself now, I would never believe it.

I tell jokes in front of complete strangers. I talk to boys. I engage in conversations even when I have no idea who I'm talking with. I play games like Ninja and actually win on occasion. I tell my roommates stories of boys I see and things I do. I take classes just for fun even though I know no one else taking those classes. I joke with professors. I actually enjoy tutoring and put in enough energy to show other students I really do want to be there. I do crazy things even if people might be watching. I take baseballs (though made of foam) to the face and simply laugh about it because I wish I could have seen myself when it hit me. I actually want to teach Relief Society and give talks in Sacrament Meeting. I talk to people like they're already my friends.

And all because I told myself I could.

Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't me trying to talk about how awesome I am. I'm just trying to explain how good life can be if you let it. It doesn't matter how many things go wrong, like a wet bike seat in the rain or a store that closes just before you get there. As long as you tell yourself there's a funny side to the story, there's a good side to it, there's something you can learn, it'll be a good day.

I think I finally understand something my dad told me a couple Thanksgivings ago as we sat on Top of the World.

"Every day is a perfect day."

Passion in the Rain

 (It's not what you think)

Today's post involves playing in the rain. ^ That's me playing in the rain.

There's something about rain that really gets to me. In a good way. I live for rain, basically. That's why I want to live in London someday. Or Washington. Pretty much, if it rains a lot, I'll love it.

So yesterday's amazing rain storm (half an hour of pure Part Two downpour, as I call it) made my life complete for the time being. I spent the entire time standing out getting soaked to the skin, simply because I didn't want to miss a moment of it. There's something about the feel of cool water falling down from the sky, about the fresh smell that can't be replicated, about the water rushing down the gutters in a frenzied race...

If I go too long without rain, I tend to get a little crazy. I don't know if I've always been like this, but I think part of it stems from my novel (hence the Part Two downpour). I've given seven years of my life to a character who almost constantly lives in the rain. I've definitely become a part of him, and he has become a part of me, and sometimes I wonder if we're not really the same person. He craves rain almost as much as I do. I just hope it's for different reasons...

Anyway, I just wanted to share this passion, because we all need some of that in our lives. If we have something we love hard enough, whether it be rain, a person, a story, a pet, or anything, there will always be that something for us to hold on to so we don't get blown away when life hits us hard. 

Because life is always coming.