Packing revelations

My original intent for this post was to debunk the popular belief that packing is a terrible chore, akin to writing a research paper or running a 10k. Packing isn't so bad, I thought as I typed away, because if you're packing it means you're about to have an adventure. Maybe a quick getaway, maybe something more permanent. The reason for the packing negates the chore-ness of it because it's a necessary final step before something changes.

But packing for a move? Big adventure, yes. Exciting change, yes. But fun? At first, sure—I couldn't wait to get started, actually—but the delight wore off as my back pain increased. And as it dawned on me just how much work this was actually going to be.

Remember that phenomenon that caused time to slow down while I was waiting for my house to be built? Now it's causing my possessions to multiply, so no matter how much work I get done, I'll never be done packing. This is not just an ambitious chore; it's a near impossible task.

I've had other revelations as well. Like how I buy food I think I'm supposed to have because they're in every American family's household: canned green beans, popcorn, peanut butter, rice. The most respectable of the expiration dates on those products was somewhere in the land of 2016.

I've been living in a one-bedroom apartment for six years, so storage space is limited. And what do I do with my one and only storage closet? Fill it with boxes. Some of which are too small to be of use for anything bigger than pens and some that are held together by duct tape. I figured I'd be thanking myself later when the time came to move, but if I had known how many people would suddenly have boxes to get rid of as soon as they found out I was moving, I would have used that storage space for something more useful.

I've even unburied a few boxes that were never unpacked from my last move, filled with mementos from my life that hold only sentimental value: participation trophies, badges, graduation announcements, terrible stories I wrote as a teenager, signed softballs, business cards, and—my favorite—the Wacky Wednesday book my brother made me when he was about 7. I thought that was gone for good and I was overjoyed to find it.

Did you catch that part where I mentioned I live in a one-bedroom apartment? Yeah. Starting my packing two weeks early was necessary due to the never-ending nature of the project, but pretty soon I'm going to start having nightmares about suffocating in boxes. Kids would have a ball playing the lava game at my place, because there's very little carpet (aka, lava) to be seen.

And there's still more packing to do. And miraculously, still more empty boxes, even after I used about 30 for all my books.

Please keep your "Just wait until you have to unpack" comments to yourself. I'll cross that bridge when it comes.

29

A few days ago, I turned 29. Before too much longer, people won't feel the need to qualify my adult status with the word "young." The cushion between my current age and 30 is gone—which is a little disconcerting for someone who's been afraid of turning 30 since her early 20s.

Because somewhere along the line, I absorbed the "30 before 30" philosophy, the idea that you have to accomplish certain things before you turn 30. I think it started in high school when college was looming on my doorstep and the yearbook staff was asking seniors what their post–high school plans were (actually, I have no idea if the yearbook staff actually did that, and I was on the yearbook staff). So I made a plan. Several plans. I even made a pre-30s bucket list.

But I couldn't plan past 30. That version of me was too old to relate to, and at some point I started thinking that 30 was the end—if I didn't have it figured out by then, then it was too late. I'd have to schmooze around with my regrets for 70 years.

Not to mention 30 is a milestone age in LDS culture that no one wants to reach—if you're not married by 30, then you'll either be single for the rest of mortality or end up marrying a divorcé with three kids. (Or an apostle, and really, does anyone actually want to marry someone that busy and famous without the riches that typically come with that type of lifestyle?)*

*If you don't hear from me in the next few days, it's because I've been struck by lightning.

So I've been spending some time over the last few years trying to unlearn these crazy ideas so I wouldn't have to hit the panic button when I turned 29.

And I think it's working, because I don't feel like I'm standing at death's door. I can look at my past and be proud of my accomplishments, and look forward to my—gulp—30s where I will, yes, continue to experience new things. It still feels weird picturing myself in my 30s at all, but the point is, I can picture it. In fact, now that I'm pretty much an established adult with a stable life, I think my 30s will be easier than my 20s in a lot of ways.

Now that I've come to peace with the fact that I'm not the one person who will get to avoid this nasty aging business, I think I'll enjoy the last year in my 20s quite a bit (maybe I'll even find that ever-elusive perfect Ranch recipe, though I'm not holding my breath).

Provided I'm not hit with a quarter-life crisis in about six months.*

*Although I should probably just woman up and get used to calling it a mid-life crisis.

Thoughts of a soon-to-be master

Starting Monday, I would like you all to refer to me as "Master."

I kid. You can start calling me Master now.

That's right—I've turned in the last of my assignments and I ain't lookin' back no more. Well, except to reflect on my grad school experience, of course. I do have a blog for a reason, you know.

A master's degree. That's a pretty big deal. I keep waiting for the "I'm so awesome!" feeling to descend upon me, but it hasn't yet. And I don't think it will.

Because grad school was never about the destination for me; it was always about the journey. Graduating from BYU was a much more momentous occasion because it was, really, the end of life as I knew it. For as long as I could remember, my life was built around school. I didn't know who I would be without it. Even things like measuring time change when you no longer have school as a frame of reference.

I'm about to graduate for the third time, but there is no terrifying black blob this time. Part of the reason for this is that I'm 26, not 22 (or 18). It's only a four-year difference, but during that time I became completely independent. I already know how to handle car problems and health insurance. I already know what life is like without school to drive you. There are many adult experiences I have yet to experience, but many of the unknowns I had at age 22 are now regular parts of my life. I don't have as much to be afraid of.

The other part of the reason is as I stated above: I didn't decide to go to grad school because I wanted a master's degree—I decided to go to grad school because I needed something fulfilling in my life. Yes, I've complained a lot about school during the last six months. Senioritis can't be avoided, no matter how big of a nerd you are.

But grad school was everything I needed it to be. It gave me something to work toward, filled my empty hours, stretched my brain muscles, and helped me hone skills that I'll actually use. It set me up for a lifetime of continual learning and work, which is why I think I'm done with formal education for reals this time. (Check back in two years to see if things have changed.)

Unlike after my first two graduations, I'm not just looking forward to practicing my pathetic social skills or becoming a part-time couch potato with my free time. I'm not just looking forward to spending more time on the piano and developing other skills like cooking. I don't just want to go back to the familiar; I want to experience something new. I have no idea what that new thing will be, but there are plenty of things I haven't experienced yet. I have a wide selection to pick from. Maybe I'll pick two or three or seven new things to throw into my life.

That's the great thing about graduating from school—you start to feel like you can do anything. I guess the "I'm so awesome!" feeling is settling in after all.

On my last day at work

I woke up smiling this morning. I may have even hopped around my bedroom a bit. (I have no new bruises or scrapes, though, so I can't prove that the hopping actually happened. It could have been a dream.)

I've already been through the first 4 Stages of Self-Induced Change (excitement, doubt, terror, sadness/nostalgia) and have been sitting in the impatiently-ready-to-move-on stage for several months now. Usually when something comes to an end I'm still in either the terror or sadness/nostalgia stage, and then my journal entry that night is full of soul-searching questions and/or an overload of sentimentality.

Rarely do I approach a new chapter in life feeling this prepared. I was excited to turn off my Google news alerts and stop following the health IT blogs I've collected over the past three years (I'm not even sad that I won't be reading HIStalk anymore). I cleaned out my desk yesterday thinking about where I should recycle all of my paper rather than all the memories I was tossing away.

In fact, the thought at the front of my mind isn't that my last minutes are slowly ticking away: I'm too busy thinking about how BYU's WCC tournament run is going to go (I think BYU can totally win it, in case you wanted my opinion). And when I'm going to have time to take my car in for an oil change. And the fact that I didn't utilize my spring break the way I was supposed to and only managed to complete half the catch-up homework I planned to do (which isn't bad, really).

It's a little weird being this mentally prepared for a change, actually. So prepared that there's no need for final reflection or conflicting emotions--just the driving need to officially finish up this chapter and move on.

Temporary things

I was born into a family and a society that believes in forever. The concept of eternal families is not a beautiful childhood fantasy like Santa Claus, nor is it something my parents made up to smooth the hurt of untimely deaths. Forever is a real, albeit incomprehensible, thing.

I've really latched on to this idea that the things I love can last forever. I've valued things based primarily on their potential for everlastingness. I've always tried to keep temporary things in the Not Crucial pile as I've sorted through the people and experiences of my life.

But the thing is, most things in life are temporary. Even really good things. My high school choir experience--temporary. Awesome jobs and bosses--temporary. Friends--temporary. Despite my practicality, I've valued these things as much as the everlasting things. But then those things end, and I'm devastated. I feel cheated that I can't keep something that meant so much to me and that I invested so much in. I start to question why so many things are stamped with to-be-determined expiration date.

After some reflection, this is the answer I've come up with: the value of an experience isn't determined by how long you can hold onto it, but by how it changes you. If nothing ever ended, multiple worlds of new people and opportunities would be closed off. It's okay--and necessary--to acknowledge that something has changed you for the better, and then move on.

You're not left with nothing when you lose something you treasure; you still have the memories and the new self you've become through the experience. In this way, temporary things can become permanent because they contribute to the person you will be for the rest of eternity.

That change thing again

While growing up, I had this perfect image in my head of what my future would be like. It's the future a lot of LDS girls dream of having: marrying a rich, handsome, and spiritually strong husband in the temple by age 21 and getting right to work at being a stay-at-home mom.

In hindsight, it's somewhat amusing to note how few things over the past 10 years have turned out the way I thought they would. All that meticulous planning and preparation doesn't amount to much when life rears its ugly head and forces the dreaded "C" word.

Once again I've found myself in a situation I didn't see coming, a change I really didn't want to happen unless it was on my own terms. Silly me. I should know by now that life takes great pleasure in taking these "terms" and tossing them over cliffs into the turbulent waters below rather than carving them into stone and treating it like a sacred artifact.

But the thing that annoys me most is that the enemy--Change--isn't actually the horned bad guy I like to envision him as. I put a lot of energy into hating Change (though most of the hate comes naturally), but it seems like every time Change comes along, he wins the I'm-righter-than-you-are argument.

And then things have a way of working out. Even worse, I find myself praising Change for forcing me into situations I never would have put myself in, allowing me to learn, stretch, and grow, in turn making me a better, stronger, more empathetic person. It galls me to admit that my life has been enriched by Change, that some of the greatest blessings I have come from the thing I consider my enemy.

So in the end everybody wins, even if some of us incur considerable losses along the way. Just once, though, I'd like to punch Change's smug little face. That'll even out the playing field a bit.

Not part of the plan

When you're little, life is so simple. You don't plan for the future; you live for the present.

When you get older, it becomes necessary to plan and prepare for the future. You find solace in the fact that you have a plan, and you stick to that plan like Velcro.

But sometimes, despite your careful planning and meticulous execution, things don't go as planned. You may have managed to convince yourself that you are in control of your own destiny, but then life steps in to teach you otherwise.

And it's a beautiful lesson to learn, that you're not always in control. If everything went according to plan, we would constantly be selling ourselves short by staying in the safe zone, away from the impossibles.

It's when life steps in and opens the door to the impossibles that makes all the difference.

The winds of change are blowing again

In my case, the winds of change are blowing dishes and cooking appliances around the kitchen, scattering boxes throughout the living room, and keeping the washing machine going into late hours of the night.

It's moving time.

Despite the obvious hassles that accompany every move, the process is oddly exciting. It's rejuvenating to purge your current place of residence of all evidence of your existence and to dump all your baggage someplace else. Your new home doesn't know that you throw your shoes in the closet rather than line them up neatly; it doesn't know that you hit the snooze button at least three times every morning; and it doesn't know how often you heat up fajitas for dinner because you don't want to cook a real meal. Your new home will give you a chance to start anew, to fix the little things in your life you've been meaning to improve upon.

The move I will be making in a few weeks spans spans so short a distance it almost seems pointless to move at all. In fact, I won't even need any big vehicles to transport anything; an assembly line of enthusiastic family members will suffice.

The change, however, will still be significant. More significant, perhaps, than any of my other moves. Rather than replace my roommate (who is getting married on Saturday), I am moving all of my stuff three buildings over to a smaller (and cheaper) apartment.

I have been evaluating the major milestones I've crossed on my journey to big-girl-hood, and I figure this makes number six, after high school graduation, the entire college experience, college graduation, going through the temple, and starting a career. For me, milestone six will be moving into my own bachelorette pad. It will involve unlearning much of what I learned in kindergarten because I will no longer have to share.

In preparing to move from my past apartments, I always felt that twinge that comes with every major change: excitement at the new road ahead, sadness at the one you're leaving behind, and fear of the unknown. I usually celebrated this occasion by staying up all night doing nothing productive, such as lighting peeps on fire, eating lots of junk food, watching Gilmore Girls, sucking helium balloons, and watching the sun rise.

I've finally come to my senses and ended my no-sleep-the-night-before-the-move tradition; I have no desire to lug heavy items from one apartment to another, in the cold and rain, having been awake for 30 hours straight. It gives me a headache just thinking about it. No, this time, I've got big plans to move the TV into my roommate's vacated room and have a movie night in the spare 'oom while eating, pizza, possibly? and then going to bed at the reasonable hour of midnight.

As for that usual twinge, I felt it a little bit this week. I am ending the roommate era, one that is full of horror stories and wonderful memories. However, I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to know that my next roommate will be my husband, not some random girl I have to learn to coexist with until she gets married, graduates, or goes on a mission. That part of my life is over.

From here, its onward to independence.

Change = not always bad

Usually when I think of change, I think of that heart-wrenching feeling you get when you realize that things will never be the same again. I think of the good-byes, the leap into the unfamiliar, and departure from normalcy. I have always considered change a necessary evil in life; it helps us grow, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.

To some extent, it seems odd that I dreaded change so much when for most of my life, I lived for the changes that took place every 4 months--new classes, new work schedule, new people to interact with. Also thrown in the mix were holidays and breaks from school. Those breaks in routine were what kept me going, yet, especially toward the end of college, I couldn't wait for long-term stability.

Now that the novelty of of being a salaried employee has worn off a bit, I find myself looking for a change in my long-sought-for routine. The uprooting of my routine on a regular basis is ingrained into my system. A few weeks ago, when everyone was talking about finals and graduation, I was still stuck at work, a little envious that my life wasn't going to change much in the near future. That was also the week I had moved into my new apartment, and between not wanting to work and not wanting to unpack and put stuff together, I may have experienced just a tad of insanity.

So I'm going to have to change my opinion about change a little bit: change is not just a necessary evil; it is also a necessary good. I am taking my first trip east of Utah next week and won't have to think about work or responsibility for 9 days, and while that has me a bit distracted at the moment, I'm relying on that small change in routine to empower me to be more happy and productive when I get back.

So when the big changes come, I'm going to try not to complain too much.

The terrifying black blob

When I was really little, one of my favorite movies was Little Nemo. For most of my life, I had only vague memories of the movie—I just knew that there was a terrifying black blob, a flying bed, and a fat king. In many of my bad dreams it was the terrifying black blob that was chasing me. (Not that I'm writing this, I wonder why I liked the movie so much.)

But now that terrifying black blob is no longer in my dreams—it is in my waking life.

I feel like I have spent my entire life working toward one thing: college graduation. That day will be here on Friday. I have experienced every possible emotion regarding this subject: fear, anxiety, relief, joy, confusion, sadness, and excitement. But as graduation gets closer and closer, I feel more and more than I have nothing to show for it. I have worked for two years gaining experience as an editor so that I would be prepared to start a career once I left college, but the fact remains that there is just nothing out there right now, nothing but the terrifying black blob.

When I graduated from high school, I knew that I was about to embark on the most exciting adventure of my life: going to college, moving out, experiencing the joys and heartaches of roommates, becoming the person I was meant to be. I knew I was in for a lot of major changes, but I knew what most of those changes would be. I saw a bright future ahead of me. It was scary, but I was ready to tackle it.

Now, 4 years later, when I look into my future, I see nothing. I don't see job prospects, I don't see additional schooling, I don't see any definite plans. Just that terrifying black blob. I have no idea what to prepare for because I don't know what's coming. I know that I need to just trust God and take a few steps in that terrifying darkness, but, being the meticulous planner for the future that I am, that prospect scares me more than entering my first class at BYU did (which I was 15 minutes late for because I underestimated the ridiculousness of parking at BYU), more than going to my first real job interview. It scares me more than almost anything else that I have encountered so far. I have had many trials and trying experiences thrown my way, but I was able to deal with them when they came. But this waiting in the dark abyss of the unknown is a trial that I have not had to experience before, at least not at this intensity.

I saw a list in the JFSB the other day of the English graduates who are going on to grad school. Many of the people on that list have become my friends throughout my time at BYU. While I still feel too burned out to even think about going to grad school, I envied those grad students a little bit. Okay, I envied them a lot. In a few weeks, they will be back in school, discussing literature and writing passionately. In a few weeks, my siblings will be going back to school as well. As unexcited as some of them may be, I wish that I had a year of schooling to look forward to, the excitement of wondering what things I will learn this year, what books I will love or hate, and what the class discussions will be like. They have another year of growth ahead of them—I have nothing.

So while I am floundering through space right now, I am clinging to one hope. About a year ago, Kimberly and I stumbled upon the beloved Little Nemo at Blockbuster. We made Mom rent it, and we briefed Shannan on all of the wonderful things that the movie had in store. However, the movie wasn't what we expected it to be. For starters, it was kind of dumb (okay, really dumb), and most surprisingly, the terrifying black blob WASN'T SCARY.

So that it what I am clinging to right now—the fact that that terrifying black blob isn't as scary as I think it is. Just as Nemo was able to find a way to lock up the blob, I will find a way to light my future with light and colors. The blob will not be the winner at the end of the day.

But this blob isn't just going to go away because I am trying to convince myself that it's not scary. I am going to have to take bigger steps in the dark and keep walking until I finally see the light.

Decisions, decisions

I think it's warped that in our society, we will make most of our most important decisions while we are young adults. What do I know about life? How am I supposed to be smart enough to choose where to go to school, who to marry, where to start a career, and where to live, all before I turn 25? How am I supposed to know when I am ready to make deeper, more spiritual commitments in my life? There are just so many unknowns up in the air right now, and while that can be exciting, it is mostly just frustrating.

But I guess there is some sense to it. We need to learn early to rely on God. When we are children, we rely on our parents, but once high school graduation hits, that relationship isn't as protective as it used to be. Suddenly, God is a much bigger part of the picture because while we may feel ready to conquer the world, we really have no idea what we are doing. There are so many decisions we have to make that no one else can make for us, but at least God knows everything—he can help us out a bit. The hard part is trusting that he will help us out, maybe even point the way every now and then.

So we young adults may feel like we are blundering through every decision we make, but even with our lack of knowledge and understanding about the world, there is a purpose for all the confusion: God wants to be a part of our lives. Maybe some day I'll be granted a tiny bit of his knowledge, but until then, I guess I had better be content riding a bike with the training wheels still attached. At least I know that they'll keep me from falling.