I’m sitting here minding my own business, just having some chocolate and diet coke, and all of a sudden I hear this noise.

eee-uuhuh-eeee, gurgle gurlge, eeeeee.

“Whatever can that be?” I think to myself.  But pay no more heed.

A few minutes later, I hear it again:

eeeeeeeeeeeuhuhuhuheeeeeegurgleeeeeeeee.

“Hmmm……..Anyway.”

Finally- I can’t ignore it.  So I turn down Gilmore Girls and just listen.  Is it carbonation leaving my coke can?  I hold it to my ear and shake.  No.  Is it some sort of brain gurgle, escaping through my ears?  As far as can be ascertained…no.  And finally I zero in.  The salsa bottle.  It is just open enough that salsa-y-air is escaping soooo slowly.  I tightened the cap.

I daresay it’s almost fall.  Driving to work this morning I almost ran over a small child running willy-nilly across the street with a green backpack flapping up and down on his back.  Where was he running to, you might ask?  To school!  I can’t believe it’s already started!  That’s crazy!  Don’t people know that children need summer vacation to last as long as possible?  Ask me yesterday, and I would have had a different opinion.  I ran to WalMart yesterday for some things for work, and I swear, 13 different children came up and touched me.  Just touched me.  How odd.  One had a car from Cars, and ran up, thrust it into my face and yelled, “KAPOW KAPOW!” I looked slowly down at him, not really reacting, and squinted a little, as if to say, “Are you really shoving your car in my face at WalMart, small child that I do not know?”  He turned and ran away and tried it on another woman who said, “OOoooh, how scary!”  Great.  Let’s help children learn that scaring strangers is fun.  The one thing that strikes me about Utah is how HAPPY everyone is.  It doesn’t matter if a woman is pushing a cart with two infants, trailing 3 toddlers and a couple of older children…she’s got this happy look on her face as if she’s just found the aisle where you can sign up to receive free diapers for a year.  And if her five year old comes over and leans up against me and pulls at my pant leg, she just gives me a look as if to say, “Oh!  Cute!” Oftentimes, they even travel in packs, so you’ve got 3 mothers and about 4,352 children.  Hmmmm.  Maybe I just need to be more tolerant of small strangers touching me for no reason.  I don’t really get why it unnerves me.  I love playing with kids…mostly kids that I know.  Who knows.

So yes.  While I was driving to work this morning, I had a series of very vivid memories run through my head.  First, I remembered my first few days in Scranton, PA.  When you go to the U of Scranton as a freshman, you get the ROYAL treatment.  You can pull your car right up the cobblestone commons to the front of your dorm room, and student volunteers dressed in purple bring all of your belongings to your room for you.  After that, they show you were to go, where to sign in, where to eat, and provide activities for a couple of days.  The smell in the air this morning reminded me of standing on the curb, watching people shuffle my stuff into a big building, and watching my Mom, Dad, brother, aunt and cousins (yeah…I apparently brought quite a few people that day) helping and getting ready to say goodbye.  Then, almost immediately after that, I remembered going to a little shop in London, across from the house I was living in on a Tankerville street.  I needed to buy my bus pass for the next couple of weeks.   I remembered what London was like this time of year.   The seasons sometimes confused me in England- because the kids go to school year round.  There are no small boys in backpacks to announce that September is almost here.  “Autumn” was a little more wet and chilly that I’ve experienced here in Utah.

I  can’t believe I’ve been here a year!  I’m pretty sure by this time last year I was either here, or driving across the county with my Mom.  I was moving into a house with Becca and Shelly, wondering if I’d ever fit in around here.  If I’d be happy.  If anything big would change.  I should say so!  A lot can happen in a year, apparently.  Now it’s almost my FAVORITE time of year.  Time for pumpkins and turkeys, spicy perfumes and candles.  Almost time for the heating to kick on and for me to go buy some socks and throw out the summer’s flip flops that I’ve worn every day for months.  Ok, maybe we’ve got a few weeks yet.  But I’m excited.  I LOVE fall.

So. I think (I’m not sure) that I am afraid of dinosaurs. One of the VERY first dreams I can remember having (not the first, that’s a story for another time) was of waking up in my room at the end of the hall on 7 Red Oak Rd, and hearing a low grumbling coming from outside. I tried to bury my head deeper in the pillow, only to hear the “thump, thump, thump,” of fat feet stomping towards my house. I got out of bed and ran down the hall into the only room that didn’t have windows: the bathroom situated in the middle of the house. I guess it wasn’t a good enough hiding place, though, because after a moment of silence, there was this horrible scratching/tearing sound as a huge dinosaur ripped off the roof of my house, and peered down at me as I sat, shivering, in the bathtub. I have no idea why I remember a dream I had as a 5 year old little girl in so much detail. It was terrifying.

So, flash forward, I don’t know…about 19 years. I’m still having dinosaur dreams. I had a dream about a month ago that made John hug me and say, “I love you. You are so weird.”

I was standing at the back of a large room filled with people. The room was kind of like an amphitheater, you know, at a slant. I was standing at the back near the door, at the very top of the steps. Below me there were hundreds of seats, all facing an enormous glass wall. Behind the glass there was a ton of fog, and I think, not sure, but think I was lecturing on whatever was behind the glass. There was a little dog to the right of my podium. All of a sudden, a red light started flashing on my podium. I thought to myself, “Holy Crap,” and proceeded to try and get everyone out of the room. I was terrified, but had no idea why. I think my dream self knew why I should be terrified, but my awake self was new to this whole situation, and had NO idea what to expect. SO, I grabbed the little dog and ran out the door behind me. As much as I yelled and screamed, no one listened to me or acted like they wanted to go anywhere. I was forced to leave them all to whatever doom lurked behind the glass. The glass wall started to rise and all of a sudden, T-Rexes and red, electric guitars with teeth were escaping from behind the glass and attacking the people in the room. I couldn’t do anything but sit and watch them all die- holding somebody’s weird little dog and listening to it whine.

Ok, so fast forward again…two nights ago. I dream that I’m camping with Brigid (a girl I went to Scranton with) and we find this weird house to spend the night in. There are lots of beds in one room, and I go in to find us two close together. Keep in mind, I’m still getting married- so I’m trying to find a place to put all the stuff I brought with me: my wedding dress, makeup, clothes for Maine, shampoo and shower stuff, etc. As I’m looking for a spot to stash my stuff, I see something moving under the bed I chose to claim. The bottom of the bedspread is pushed out, and then pulled in, and I hear a little tapping noise. I go closer to look (for some reason I think it’s a bug) and as I lean down to lift up the side of the blanket, a tiny, mini-poodle-sized raptor leaps out and attempts to attack my leg. The thing is vicious. I look over and find John’s iron skillet thing that we keep in the cupboard (handy, huh?) and bring it down on the top of the mini-dinosaur. Having never smashed anything bigger than a cricket, I was pretty grossed out. I just sat there, freaked out and sad, and wondering how I got so off course to find myself camping a few days before my wedding, anyway.

The only reason I bring this up is because I’ve never felt like I was afraid of dinosaurs. And yet, in all my scariest dreams, there they are. Weird, huh?

It’s RAINING. It’s raining. It’s raining. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. As I was driving Jonathan to work this morning (he works landscaping) I said, “What will you do if it rains?” I meant, “Will you need to be picked up because your job is an outside job,” but he responded thoughtfully and seriously, “I will prance around like a gazelle. One of the small, light ones.” And that’s what you get when you stick two New England kids in a desert and expect them to get by with cool showers and lots of lotion. Actually, that was my first tip off this morning. I woke up, and didn’t immediately run for the lotion in an attempt to rehydrate my hands and face. Sometimes I wake up feeling so dry I think if I move to quickly I’ll crack and fall on the floor in a little pile of dust. Ok, maybe that’s taking it too far. But, anyway, I’m very, very happy that it’s raining. I hope it lasts past noon. I’m wondering if it’ll even last an hour.

So yes, everyone, I picked up the dress. It is currently hanging on the wall in my bedroom on a hook specifically installed for this purpose. When we picked it up yesterday, I was soooo nervous. It’s definitely fitted. It’s definitely heavy. So- I’ve started a new “be strong enough to wear the dress” program. It sounds silly- but I need to walk more and go to the gym a little more (meaning at all) so as to not be huffing and puffing around in this thing. It fits- but I don’t want to Dorito myself out of a dress in a month- so I’m going to be a little better about the millions of chips and peanut butter cups I usually consume daily. But it’s pretty. So pretty. It makes me feel pretty. I’m very, very happy.

My Mom is also sending me out a print of the painting we’ve chosen as the theme for our wedding, it’s Chagall’s Three Candles. We’re going to use it at the reception (my mom also used it for the stamps on the invites…she’s a crafty one), but then just have it at our house when we’re done. It’s so beautiful, what a good mom, huh? She’s also sending me out my map of my mission area in England and some lace that we had framed when I got home last year. This home is going to get decorated, yet!

I have to say, for the record, that I feel like the luckiest girl in the universe right now. Too many good things, a fiance who I LOVE, who cracks me up and and makes me think and supports me in all of my desires and endeavors, a brother who loves me enough to brave utter dehydration to spend a couple months with me before I get married, parents who understand and love me, and support my life choices, AND, ON TOP OF ALL THAT my new expanding family is loving and supportive and wonderful as well. Oh yes, and don’t forget a cozy, attractive place to live and good friends (the soul kind) scattered from coast to coast. Don’t know what I did to get it so good, but I’m happy about it.

Ok. I think I’m done running at the mouth about how I love my life right now.

I swear, I should have never entered my car today.  It all started trying to get out of my driveway (we won’t get into the wonders of a shared driveway) and then extended to a crazy man pulling a U-Turn, crossing in front of me and STOPPING while I was traveling at a very legal 50 mph.  It was almost BAD.  OR the OTHER man who decided that his desire to take a left at a light was stronger than the LAW giving me the right of way to go straight.  Almost two collisions later, I’m home.  And I’m getting a ride to the Relief Society activity tonight.  It’s a swim party.  And I’m meant to bring a salad.  So, as I’m standing in the grocery store I realise that I have NO IDEA what “salad” means.  Do they mean lettuce and carrots, or are we talking about potatoes and mush?  I opted for potatoes and mush.  So…yeah…I considered backing out of this little evening a few times for fear of being judged because of my inability to actually a) make something myself and b) know what they were talking about in the first place.  (Why don’t they make those sign up lists more specific?)  But, I can’t hide behind my lack of domestic talent.  We’ll see how this goes…

Yesterday was the Fourth of July. I have been struggling with my idea of patriotism for awhile. When I was a kid growing up on the Navy Base in Connecticut, Patriotism was easy. Patriotism was saluting the flag and singing songs before school started in the morning (am I the only one that loved that?). Patriotism was seeing my Dad put his uniform hat on when we walked outside to go to the base in the morning. Patriotism was pausing at 5pm every night to hear the sound of bugle music playing from down near the river, and knowing that the flag was being taken down for the evening. Out of respect any traffic on the base stopped- and if I happened to be walking around there at that time of day, it felt good to stand and feel the breeze and just feel united. I felt like my country was a place where people worked hard, did their best, and were free to pursue happiness for themselves and their families. It felt good, secure, easy. I loved those feelings.

Now, things are a little more confusing. Last year was my first Fourth back in the country after living in England for two years. When I lived in England there were fireworks all of the time. On of my first few nights in the country was Guy Fawkes day. I’ve never seen such riotous celebration in my life! Quite an interesting story, as well…but the point being, while living in the UK I needed to find a new way to express my patriotism. I realized early on that it wasn’t always appropriate, in every circumstance in every place, to display my passionate and loud love of country. I toned my own feelings down for awhile, and let the rest of the world in. As I had the chance to meet people from different places, I saw the value and unique nature of other cultures. London was quite the melting pot, and there were flags everywhere. Jamaica, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, India, Morocco…not to mention Columbia, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Spain, France, Italy. As I say the names of those countries in my head, I can see people, I can hear names of people whose houses I have been in. Hands that I’ve shaken. Stories that I’ve heard. Those places finally became real to me. There was one flag that you didn’t see very often, though. And that was ours. It was hard to be patriotic in England- because so many had come before proclaiming America to be the one and only “Promised Land.” Little by little, Americans and Europeans have built up an interesting little relationship of cooperation and distaste. I don’t even want to talk about why, but I have my own ideas resulting from things I’ve seen. I think the blame is on both sides.

Yesterday I was hit with quite a lot of leftover confusion from all of my experiences, culminating into one big question: Am I a Patriot? I am old enough now to have seen wars start and end. I have seen people abuse the system. I have seen the system abuse the people. I hear men singing the words, “Let all that breathe partake,” and then talk about toughening up our borders. I’m not saying that I have all the answers, quite the opposite! I mostly have questions. It hard to keep myself from being completely disenchanted with the idea of America.

I got to thinking about the idea of a Fatherland. I heard the term in a movie we were watching and realized that I had never thought of the US in that way. I think, generally, it’s a term used by people who have left their home country for somewhere else. When I was little watching Fievel: an American Tale, it was just natural. Why wouldn’t people want to come here? When I lived in Scranton, I knew a woman from Bosnia. Through our conversations I realized that sometimes people leave their homelands because they have to, not because they want to. She had grown up in a beautiful little town, but as she got older, the violence got stronger. One day she came home to find that her house had been blown up. Most of her family was dead. She had no choice but to become a refugee, looking for somewhere to live where her kids would be safe. I’ve never seen things like that happen here. It doesn’t mean they don’t happen. It doesn’t mean that they won’t happen. But I grew up riding my bike around the neighborhood and buying Pushup Pops from the Dolphin Mart down the street. Why did I have one experience, and Yasminka had another? She would go back to Bosnia in a second if she could, if it were safe. I had to do some serious adjusting to allow room for the thought that maybe my country could be best to me, while another country could be best for someone else.

So, where do all these disjointed thoughts leave me? There are still moments when I feel that old, simple patriotism coming back to support me. We sang a patriotic hymn in church last Sunday, and I felt that peace strongly for just a moment. I am proud of our country. We’re all a mix of bad and good, but I think we’ve got a lot of good. In the end, belonging to a country is like belonging to a family. There are things that happen that make us sad sometimes. We can be disappointed in our leaders. We can try to voice our opinion, and feel like we haven’t been heard. We can look forward, and fear the fact that we don’t see change coming anytime soon. Maybe, sometimes, we feel like we’d just like to leave the mess behind and go set ourselves up somewhere else all together. But no one’s got a perfect family, and just like there are very few family rooms paved with gold- the streets of our country are cement, just as hard and gray as I’ve seen anywhere else. But just as true as all that is, I can see in most families a certain level of loyalty. There is a hope, deep down inside that someday things will change. Maybe next Christmas we’ll be able to get over our stubborn disagreements and have a meal together. Maybe we’ll finally get ourselves balanced out- just enough attention turned inward to address our own problems without forgetting those around us that need us to reach out and help. Maybe we’ll have to go through a painful process to get to the change that we need. Now, my family isn’t better or worse than anyone else’s, but it is my favorite group of people. I think that we’re at a peaceful place right now. Nothing raging on our battlefront.

I have decided that I am a Patriot. I choose to belong to this American Family, and to not give up my hope that someday we’ll get it right. Celebrating July Fourth, for me, is about a lot of things. I want to take time to remember the genesis of this space where I just happened to be born. It’s a day to feel the gratitude for my life, lived safety, and the freedom given to me to make choices, to quietly (or maybe not so quietly) be Erin Swigart (choosing to become Erin Hattaway), a Mormon girl with feminist tendencies who just wants to go to school and do my job and fly back and forth between coasts, to drive to where ever whenever, and to fly whatever flag I feel like flying. I would never give up on my family, I love them too much. Just the same, although I feel disconnected sometimes, I cannot give up on my country. I want to believe the Pledge that I used to repeat every morning.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I’ve seen us stand indivisible. It seems like when it really, really matters, and we realize where the threats are coming from, we’ll stand together to try and push it out. Sooner rather than later, an obnoxious sibling or two will complain about something and disrupt our harmony, but I’ve seen it achieved. And I think it can happen again. My allegiance is not blind faith, it is a commitment to my community. It’s my word that I will contribute, somehow. My allegiance will be a lifetime of questioning, challenging, appreciating, and cherishing my county.

When I was young, really really young, I thought that I was meant to meet the man that I would marry by the time I was, oh..I don’t know, 15? Date for a few years, graduate high school, and get married. This was about the time that my cousin Melissa and I would gather up our girl scouting books and play “college,” carrying books and pens and pencils from room to room in my house (because that’ s what you do in college). The hysterical thing was that we didn’t only have our college books and notebooks to tote around, we’d also have diaper bags and dolls- because of course we’d have babies by the time we were in college! Now, babies + college is definitely possible (especially at BYU…), and I’m sure that it works out quite well for a lot of people, but I think I had my own personal sequencing a bit mixed up. Growing up in a Navy town, I was taught that a college degree was “optional.” Marriage, however, was not. If I was lucky, I’d marry an officer. I’d pray for shore duty. Until he drove me crazy and then I’d pray for him to go out to sea. It was a really interesting place to grow up, especially considering that I didn’t realize that the pressures to create a country-serving family were even there. I had some problems in school- I didn’t really have too many friends and spent a lot of my time with my family and babysitting. Any extracurriculars I got involved in were because my cousin had joined. On top of all of it, I didn’t understand why the guidance counselors wouldn’t let me take classes that interested me. I went to them to ask if I could take Physics, and they told me that “sophomores don’t take physics.” I really, really didn’t get THAT logic- and went ahead and “took it at my own risk.” I figured out quickly that any rules they had weren’t necessarily rules, just standard procedure.

We moved away from Connecticut when I was 17, so I had my senior year at a different school entirely. I went from a class size of over a thousand to a class size of about 82. When I went to my homeroom the first morning I was there, I was told that I had caused all of the lockers to shift (for everyone with a last name that started with Sw and below, anyway) and, even worse, I had displaced the top ten. This school was ALL ABOUT preparing for college. I had always wanted to go to college, but it was only moving to MA that I was given the information that I needed to find out where I wanted to go, and how to get myself there. It was about this time that I stopped worrying about marriage all together. I didn’t (and don’t) believe in soul-mates. I don’t think that there is one specific person created for every other person. What I thought was that my choices would ultimately lead me to a position in life where I’d be ready for commitment, and someone else would have made choices that brought him to that same place, and we’d find each other. Romantic, huh? At the time, though, I had a teacher named Mr. Duquette. He made us memorize a saying, “True lovers don’t just find each other along they way. They’re in each other all along.” I can’t find where the quote comes from, I may have gotten it a bit wrong. I usually grabbed onto and believed EVERYTHING that Mr. Duquette said, but what about this? Just a romantic notion- and as I analyzed myself right at that moment, I didn’t feel anyone with me, or waiting for me. I never imagined there would be someone out there looking for someone else, not me necessarily, but someone with my qualities, the qualities that I would someday have because of my experiences. So, fast foward to my decision of where to go to college. I did NOT want to go to BYU. An expectation was set by my community (mostly, churchy community) that I go. I didn’t even apply. I applied to small, catholic schools- mostly Jesuit, and choose Scranton. After about 2 wonderful years there, I got antsy. I knew it was time for somthing to change, but what? I went home for Christmas and drove my parents crazy talking about a mission, no, maybe BYU? no…a mission! By the time I decided, I was heading into my junior year at Scranton. I had to break it to my best friends in the WORLD that I was leaving before senior year, I had to get my life together and realign every goal I had ever set, and prepare to go where ever I was sent. I think this was the first time in my life that I started thinking about marriage in a serious way. I knew it was going to be a priority, I’ve always wanted marriage and a family, and while I had “dated” some people in Scranton- it had amounted to a whole lotta nothing. None of my peers were even thinking about marriage yet, but I still felt a draw. Whether it was my LDS upbringing, my Navy upbringing, the fact that I was now 3 years beyond the age where my Mom and Dad were when they had gotten married, I don’t know. But I felt the pressure. I’ve always been more interested in people who were a bit older than me, and my silly, illogical fear was that by the time I got to where I was going (after the mission…) all the “good ones” would be taken. It sounds so silly now, but I was seriously freaked out that I was making the wrong choice, and delaying a life that I might not have the opportunity to choose again. I had to make a choice: go somewhere where I could possibly meet someone and start THAT life, or go on a mission, delaying it all for another year and a half. I knew, though, that I was meant to go on my mission. Before any serious doubts surfaced, I had my call- and I was preparing to go to England. I just figured that whoever I was meant to be with would wait for me, somehow, without even knowing who I was. If it was meant to be, it was meant to be.

So, I went to England. Again- so many reasons why I was meant to be there when I was there, but too length to discuss just now. I had decided, before I left, to apply to BYU as a transfer student for when I got home. It was crazy- the place I had hated and despised and made fun of and rejected, I was now applying to. I was accepted, given a leave of absence for the time left of my mission, and that was that. I knew where I was going when I got home. I didn’t feel much about it, except that it was right. When I got here, it was MAJOR culture shock. I was the only woman in most of my classes. Aside from the girls that I lived with, I didn’t spend much time with other girls. Most of my friends were the guys from my classes, and my social life consisted of class, study groups, work…and that’s about it. I didn’t expect to run into the same kinds of warnings I got in my first high school, the “there now little lady, can you really handle this class?” kind of warnings. It was an interesting mentality to overcome. When I went for job interviews on campus or talked to advisers, they always asked, “Are you married? Are you engaged? Dating seriously?” As if that would seriously change the advice they’d give me. At one point when John and I had first started dating, I was encouraged to get my doctorate in Comparative Religion. With a degree like that, and “being a woman,” I would have a place at BYU waiting for me. I have since decided that CR is not the path I want to take, but I wonder if the advice would have been different if I was engaged when I asked for it.

It’s like I’m in some kind of weird, “other-wordly” place. It’s not the same mentality as Groton, Dalton, or Scranton- that’s for sure. In some ways better, in some ways worse. But I guess the thing that remains consistent is that I will choose my own path no matter where I am. It’s too hard to conform to what people expect, it’s much better to follow your passion and your goals and your FUN to where you want to go next.

So, now I’m 24. Not to far from 18 (I’d like to think, anyway…) and I’m getting married. Do I believe that John and I were two pieces of one cosmic whole torn apart in the cosmos before being thrown to earth to find each other? Um, no. I don’t. But I DO know that I’ve made choices. I’ve gone places, I’ve felt the urgency to leave one place and go to another for reasons I didn’t understand at the time. I’ve needed certain experiences. I’ve gone through a few things that afterward I thought, “Now, well, I needed that!” with no specific explanation of WHY I needed that. I know that John has experienced the same thing. Do I think that maybe, just maybe, there is someone who knows us both so well- and has some amazing ability to get two people in the same place at the same time, first guiding them through a series of experiences in order to allow them to work out their own happiness? Now THAT’S a yes. So, in a way- without me even recognizing it, we’ve been there together all along. Maybe to a God who sees all time in one instant- it was just a waiting game, and when we were listening, we were encouraged to wait. And I guess that’s the point,  I’m finally understanding what Mr. Duquette meant.

I wish that the sink would actually eat the dirty dishes, and they’d be gone forever.
I wish that being on the computer was exercise. Good, good exercise.
I wish the the fax machine worked.
I wish that the necessities of life had reproductive qualities: laundry detergent, gas, shampoo…
I wish that every single person could feel just how excited I feel when I see baby things, especially puppies.
I wish that vegetables tasted good.
I wish that toenails grew in a pretty color.
I wish that I could get to Massachusetts by clicking my heals.
I wish that I had 8 hours added into the day just for sleep, so I could do stuff the rest of the time.
I wish that I actually used my gym membership.
I wish that there was a screen in the window in the living room.
I wish that I had never seen the part in Home Alone when that wet bandit guy stepped on the nail. But I still want to have seen the rest.

More to come, I’m sure.

Yesterday John and I went out for a bit. We were picking up the long awaited engagement ring, made with my Grandma June’s diamonds. It’s absolutely breathtaking. I asked John if I’m fancy enough for it. He said, “Well, some people wear fancy clothes, and some people are just fancy.” Not sure what that meant exactly…but it made me feel better. Haha. In honor of the occasion, we drove past the theatre where we saw the worst movie EVER and then went to Borders, where we ended up on our first date after somehow making it through the movie. As we were waiting for our hot chocolate and cider, we had the third and final moment in our “engagement.” What were the first two moments, you might wonder? Well, there was the first time John proposed and I accepted, then…after a brief freak out by yours truly, there was the second moment when I proposed and John accepted, and now third and finally…the ring.

After hanging out a bit in Borders we took a drive, headed towards Manti. In my head I was thinking things like, “I have to go to bed, make sure I get enough rest for work tomorrow,” and “I hope we don’t go to far.” I asked John where we were going, and then something just, clicked. I remembered when we were first dating. I lived in a house with two others girls, shared a room. We could hang out there sometimes, but more often than not it was not suited to what we wanted to be doing- so we’d go out. We went everywhere, sometimes we’d go to a movie, sometimes to Borders, sometimes we’d go on long drives up Canyons into Heber or Park City or up to Salt Lake or out to Manti. We went and saw a lot of temples. We took some long walks around campus, up and down the hill, through the different paths around the duck pond. We went night hiking up a canyon near campus…I can’t remember what it’s called… We would stay out and up until 1, 2, sometimes 3 in the morning. I have no idea what we talked about. We didn’t talk about the things we talk about now: the wedding, the house, our jobs, the honeymoon….money… We walked and drove and talked ourselves into hunger pangs and sore feet and cold hands and runny noses and sheer exahustion. I’m honestly not sure how I handled school and work on top of all that. And knowing John better now, I don’t know HOW he got enough sleep to function at all, especially considering the fact that he was living in Salt Lake at the time, and whatever time we were done “being together” he still had to drive at least another half an hour to forty-five minutes. And that all started at night! That doesn’t even take into account meeting up between classes just to talk for a minute, the time I spent sitting next to him as he was working in the library, or our time in class together.

Compare that to now. We wake up and go to work. We email back and forth a little or send each other text messages throughout the day. After getting home, talking to various people on the phone, going to the grocery store (which always makes me feel like a family, especially at Harmons. Love Harmons.), running errands and watching a little TV, we say goodnight. Sometimes we go to the gym, work on our websites, and more lately John has been trying to take some concentrated time to write. At the end of the day, we’ve spent just a few hours together. We’re both so tired, we go home to our separate beds and sleep. Usually I get a little sad that we have to say goodbye. On the weekends we try to plan some fun things to do in with all the things we just want and need to have done about the wedding and around the house- and then there’s church. And then the week starts again.

This is what was running through my head as we were driving towards Manti last night. At first I felt a little sad that things had changed so much that I was more concerned with sleep than just getting away and having an adventure, but then I started thinking about how although my feelings aren’t so impulsive and reckeless as they were before, they have definitely deepened and become more consistent. I don’t necessarily need to get away and go on long drives until early in the morning (as romantic as the gas prices are currently…) I really do just love sitting on the futon, sending emails and watching a movie with John, convincing myself to eat dried fruit instead of the big monster peanut butter cup in the fridge. I like, every once in awhile, when he figures something out on joomla or sees something funny on TV when he laughs and the corners of his eyes crinkle up and I think, “Yup, we’re going to be pretty happy.” Not to say we don’t need to get out and do something now and again- but I think we’ve got it pretty good.

Learning to share is sometimes hard, as well. My brother recently moved in, so he demands more of my and our attention these days. Also, just making time that we each spend with family and friends, whether it be going out to visit someone together or finding time to spend with other people alone. It’s good and healthy to NOT be together every single moment that we’re free, but it’s defintiely an adjustment. I’m right in the middle, on one side looking at the people who are just beginning to date and devoting every moment to beng together, and looking at the other side finding those who have been married for awhile, juggling time between work, church callings, life “chores” that just need to get done, extended family, and da da dummmmmm…..kids. I guess there are all kinds of seasons of life, and I can’t honestly say that I have any idea what’s coming up. Things seem to change and evolve so quickly, and it makes me very, very happy for the eternal nature of our relationship. The most amazing thing about getting married in Manti is NOT that it looks like a castle (although it does) and not that it holds special sentiment to our family (although it does). The most amazing thing is that we will not only be married, but also sealed together. That means that no matter what, we belong to each other. It’s the most beautiful aspect of our faith- a marriage in the temple means that we will always, always be together. So if we seem a little busy just trying to get through life and make good on all of our plans and study and work and write and cultivate relationships with our families, we’re not loosing time together at all. Ultimately, time is what we have an eternity full of.

All that said, I will be very happy when he doesn’t have to go home at night anymore. He’ll come home instead

It’s Friday again! That seems a little crazy- the week has flown by so fast! Work is good. We’re getting a process down, the book feels full of promise. I wondering if I’m as passionate about the subject matter that we’re writing about as I am about this new experience in writing and editing. Only time will tell- all I know is that I’ve found a job that’s giving me daily insight into something I think I may want to be doing for awhile in addition to insight into things I’ve never considered but find rather interesting. That’s pretty good, I think.

That brings me to my next topic. I picked up my application for graduation today. I stood impatiently as a soft-spoken man reviewed the last four years of my life, deciding for me if it was time to move on. I’ve just got some odds and ends to finish- more a result of transferring than anything else. Also, my little foray into “International Studies” proved a bit of a time waster- I should have met up with economics sooner. As he scrolled through my life, muttering and making notes to himself, I realised that it’s happened AGAIN. I’ve made it through (or almost made it through) yet another milestone just to realise it’s a joke. Don’t get me wrong- I’m SO GLAD that I’ve chosen to get a degree, I’ve loved my major, and I feel (contrary to popular belief) that I’ve learned some valuable things. However, that illusion that college somehow helps you decide what to do in your life is shattered. It seems like there will never be an end to decision making. Sure, I’ve almost completed a degree, but most people don’t end up working in their field. I still get to wake up every day and wonder what I’m going to do- what I’m qualified to do.

John and I were talking the other day, and I came to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people. People with experience, and people with promise. Most people have a bit of both, but start their career expedition at one end of the spectrum. I’m (hopefully, at least) in the promise end of all that. I’ve had some experience, sure, but when I’m forced to pitch my abilities, talking through my experience lasts about 14 seconds, and the rest is pitching the promise. It’s not a bad thing- it just happens to be the stereotypical state of post-undergrad, pre-grads.

So: current plans, pursue editing/publishing. I need to take a deep breath and remember what my FAVOURITE teacher told me once. My senior year of high school, I took two (maybe three?) of Mr. Duquette’s classes. (We were on a block schedule, so we went through more classes, less time.) At some point during the year, I “realised” I wanted to teach English. I was madly passionate about books. Mr. Duquette supplied a list of books I’d never considered before, and had quite the experience reading. For example, he had us reading Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace while simultaneously reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. He seemed to concoct reading recipes- putting seemingly disparate subjects together to make a point. Some of us got it, sometimes.

ANYWAY, after one particularly interesting lesson, I felt completely overwhelmed. I wanted, so badly, to be able to do what he did. And Mr. Duquette had a nasty habit of giving me D’s. I was a straight-A student in High School, but for some reason, Mr. Duquette gave me D’s. I would ask him and he would just say, “You missed it,” or “That’s not your best.” It drove me CRAZY. Turned out he was trying to teach me something he thought I needed to learn…but that’s another story for another day. I went up to his desk after class one afternoon and had to fight back emotional alligator-type tears to ask him if he thought I could ever be a teacher. He looked at me and said, “I’ve got a secret to show you.” He moved some things around on his desk, and uncovered three huge, black binders. Inside were magazine clippings, articles from the newspaper, photo-copies of passages from books, hand-written notes… I don’t know how old Mr. Duquette was, probably early 60’s, but it was clear that he had spent a lot of time finding things and reading things and learning things. He told me that there was no way I could remember everything. That’s why people started writing things down in the first place. The next day he gave me something. A book called Alicia’s Journey. He said that he had picked it up from the bookstore and was thinking about adding it to the reading list for next year. He didn’t have time to read it, though, and wanted me to check it out. I went home and read it all in a couple of hours. I was expecting an amazing book- I thought it was going to give me direction in life, contain some secret message/wisdom from my mentor. It sucked. It was weird, and I didn’t enjoy it at all. I told him the next day that I hadn’t liked it - that I didn’t feel like it had any kind of coherent message, and that it made me feel lost. He said thanks, and that he wouldn’t bother adding it to the list. Looking back now I realise that he was actually just showing me what kind of skills you really need to do his job- and it had nothing to do with knowing everything. He was a smart guy. Sometimes I wish I could still have him as a mentor. He died shortly after I left town to go to college- but I’m glad I got to take some classes from him and form an attachment. He was remarkable.

Anyway…I didn’t really expect to remember all that. I guess that point is that I don’t feel qualified to pursue some of my goals in life. I guess the point of this is that I really haven’t ever felt qualified to take the next step, and yet, it always seems to work out. College applications, Freshman year all the way up to my mission, transferring schools, the various jobs and opportunities I’ve had along the way. I think I expect things to happen Bass Ackwards sometimes. As if I need to be qualified for life that I haven’t lived yet- that I have to be “ready” to experience the things that will make me ready and make me qualified.

A very long entry saying that I just need to chill out.