Thoughts on a Tuesday Eveing

I haven't written for awhile, not necessarily because I don't have anything to say.  Of course I have things to say.  Don't you know me?  I always have things to say, long involved stories often about nothing.  The problem is right now I have too much to say.  I can't even get a handle on my emotions.

I want to write about my thoughts on serving a mission (29 days.  Twenty. Nine. Days.)  but being aware of the depth and vast range of those emotions, I can't even begin to delve into them.  It's much much easier to recognize that I'm leaving, and stop there.

I'm excited mind you.  I don't want that to be a question for a minute.  I don't doubt my choice.  But humans are hardwired to fear the unknown right?  I think I wrote an essay about it way back in my AP European History Class.  And I'm adventuring into the unknown, a weird kind of structured unknown where I kind of think I know what I'm doing?  The general logistics and overall goal and all that, yeah. But the details?  No clue.  What will my companions be like?  No clue.  What's going to happen to my family, friends, and certain relationships while I'm gone?  No clue.  I mean I have trust and faith and all that, so I'm not really to ulcer level anxiety or anything but if I'm being real then yeah, there's a little bit of fear there.  (Read: TERROR)  And I could go on and on about that.  But I don't want to.  I don't want to concentrate on that.

I want to tell you about visiting my family back east, the sights we've seen, the states we've visited, my lovely and interesting relatives.  And of course the stories of finals, heavily studded with Billy BYU moments.

You know I'm a nostalgic old man right?  Papa Jim style?  Well I'm brimming with nostalgia and sentimentality, and maybe even a few fond tears and I want to talk about that.

Mostly though I want to continue the tradition I started last year, cataloguing some of the people I found in these two semesters of school.  I need to tell you about my roommates, how I'm drastically happier than I've ever been since beginning college.  But two of the most important relationships I've experienced... well I don't think I have the words for those. Here's my conundrum.

1.  These two experiences were crucial to my development and I want to do them justice.
2. I don't want to gloss over them like they didn't exist, though they turned (or may turn) out not so happily in the end.
3.  And I hate people who give mysterious allusions to an event without actually giving details.  Usually I tend to think those people just need validation from others begging to know what happened.
4. I don't want to be like that, because that's not what this is for me.  I write pretty much for me.
5.  BUT this online any joe shmoe can read.
6.  And because it's online and involves other people and is very personal, I can't really say everything I need to anyway.

So I can't NOT write about them, I can't KIND OFF write about them, and I can't COMPLETELY write about them.  I don't know.  I'm pretty sure this can be categorized as a quintessential Catch-22*

All this leads to being a little overwhelmed.  I'm tired already.  Too much to say, too little time.  But I'm going to try.  Beginning tomorrow I'll peg away at the ice block of my brain, hopefully fast enough before it melts into a mess.

Let me put it this way.

"i have come to believe that writer’s block is not so much an absence of ideas as it is a tremendously strong desire to take a nap, all. the. time.

when the desire to sleep is greater than the desire to write–to say something–that’s writer’s block.

perhaps it is that the act of writing or thinking or forming words is the very thing that overwhelms and exhausts. sometimes it’s just harder. sometimes it just costs more.

All this thinking and pondering and remembering crap has worn me right out.  So in light of that, I'm going to bed.  Sweet dreams.  I'll see ya tomorrow.

* I hated that book.  Call me an uncultured unappreciative neanderthal**.  I don't care.  Really, go ahead, do it.

**Irony: needing to look up how to spell "neanderthal"

So Fetchin' Grownup

I don't know if I've really established this before.  In case I haven't, let me just put it out there for the record.
I am a child.
While I may pretend to be blase about many things, inside I'm a screaming romantic, making a big deal about every stinkin' thing.  The smallest of things excite me.  Let me give you an example.
This weekend I boarded a plane to visit my best friend Lizzie in Texas.  I've ridden planes before but this time I was all BY MAHSELF, not family.
My dad dropped me off at the curb and I'm all, "ok dad, thanks, see ya in awhile!"  Completely calm and collected (or at least trying to be) because you know, this is no big deal.
Sike.
This is a HUGE deal.
I just felt so grown up.  There I was going to visit my married, pregnant, best friend living in another state.  All I could really think was, "this is the terminal.  I'm walking through the terminal.  alone."  "I'm going through security.  I went through security without getting confused or losing my mind!"  "Oh my gosh.  Now I'm walking onto the plane.  I'm on a plane!  I'm touching the plane with my hands!"
And this, my friends, is why you should be thankful I don't have twitter.
Don't even get me started on the actual flying aspect.
"I'M FLYING!!!!" was my very mature thought process.  I swear I've done this before.  I took off and landed a total of 6 times in the past 4 days and it never got old.  I was on a fetchin boeing 747, a giant metal contraption holding a hundred people or more and we were in the FRICKIN AIR.  So cool.

Now let's see if I've mastered the picture thing yet.

Looking super grown up on the late night flight
Don't judge my ghetto phone for taking crappy pictures.

Normal signs in the Vegas Airport

Welcome to Texas my friends.  Isn't is gorgeous?

This is my best friend.  I love her more than I can say.  She's gotten me through a lot.  Thanks for such a wonderful time LizDawg.  (Sorry I can't stop calling you that.)

i WILL enjoy this

Right now I'm sitting in my front room, with the windows open because it's raining, wearing a sweatshirt and and blanket because the windows are open and it's cold but hey, it's raining and smells good and that way I can hear the car that passes every once and awhile.

Last year when I needed ambient noise for studying I used to search "rain with cars" on youtube.  People make videos of this for real.  Three hours of just rain and a highway.  But right now, I'm experiencing it first hand.

I want to remember this moment.  It could really suck, because I've been up for an hour already and I'm tired, but I'm up because there's tests to be studied for, papers to be written, and because of the procrastinator I am, very little time to accomplish it all.  But it doesn't suck.

Because this is not forever.  Someday (soon) I'll be studying scriptures in the morning, doing companionship study, or maybe prepping lessons.  I'll come back to school yes, but it'll be a different place, with different roommates.  Carla won't be down the hall in the kitchen also studying.  And then there will be a man roommate (not in the way of cohabitation mom, don't worry) and eventually little teensy (loud and smelly) roommates and then bigger roommates (still loud and smelly) until it's empty again.  Maybe I'll still sit in the front room early in the morning then and listen to rain but I'll probably be in an adult diaper or something by that point.

This is a sweet moment.  Right here.  Right now.  My computer has been acting up and it freezes for ten seconds every time I stop typing or moving the mouse.  So even when I need to pause and think or edit, I'm hitting spacebar and delete.  Spacebar and delete.  It's annoying usually, but right now it seems only a vague and endearing quirk.  And as a result this is a word vomit (as my dear friend grace so charmingly puts it) blog post.

You see, the thing is, I like studying.  I like the mornings, even the painfully early ones.  I even like being kind of tired, in the way that I know it's because I have things to accomplish, in the way that it pulls me from homeostasis.  I like being just a little bit cold, on the parts where the blankets doesn't cover.  I'm warm almost perfectly, with just a hint of a reminder of that I could be cold, but I'm bundled up and I'm not.  I like the rain and since I'm up, I like sound of the birds.

It's everything cliche right now, essentially I've written a hallmark card, or a commercial for a brand of coffee.  But it's true.  Everything sentimental has been wrapped up into this one weird moment and I feel nostalgic and wise and life stretches out ahead of me and I remember that I won't remember this, but I want to.  This is what makes up life.

Sometimes things are special because they don't last.  This is that.  So I will enjoy it.