Carpe Diem

Eleanor Roosevelt said "Do one thing every day that scares you." Now, there aren't a lot of scary things to do around Provo. My life generally follows a very set pattern. Recently, however, I've decided to try to branch out a little more. On Saturday, for instance, I did something that actually did scare me. A lot. I went to the school's Winter Waltz. By myself.

That's right. I didn't have a date. I didn't even have a group of friends. By the time I left, everyone I knew was already there, so I made the long, lonely walk to the Wilk on my own. Okay it's like a five minute walk. But the whole five minutes I was walking, and the ten minutes I spent in the coat check line, I was thinking "What am I doing here? All of my friends are in relationships. This is a couples dance. I didn't even come with a group of people. I must look like a huge loser..." Finally, I got into the dance, and the first people I saw were a couple of single girls from my ward. Stalling for time before I actually had to venture forth onto the dance floor, I got an Italian soda with them. Soon, however, I knew it was time. I hadn't walked all the way across the street to stand there watching. I went and found my friends in the middle of the dance floor.

There were eight of them there (well, technically, Monica was in the restroom when I showed up, and I don't actually know one of the other girls, but you get the idea), i.e., four couples. As I stood in the circle, feeling all the weight of my crushing ninth-wheelness, I knew that I didn't belong there. It's not like they tried to force me away, or made me feel left out. They aren't like that. The truth is, they are all on a maturity level that I just am not at yet. I love them, and I have a great time when I'm with them, but the "Winter Waltz" was definitely supposed to be a couples thing. I didn't want to bum them out by making them feel like that had to take care of me, so I found some more single people from my ward. That was really fun. I think that I'm in the best ward on campus. I mean, Monday night we rented out the theater in the Wilk and watched Tangled. How much more awesome can you get? (I'll tell you. Sending off flying lanterns in the park. Alas, thanks to an ill-timed snowfall, such a splendiferous event could not occur at the time.) I even slow-danced to a song! At a couples dance! All in all, I had a really good time. I'm so glad I went. It was scary, and I definitely felt the pity as people asked me "Who are you here with?" and I cheerfully responded "Nobody!" but I would have hated myself if I hadn't gone. It was something I had to do, and I don't regret it one bit.

What I learned from that experience is that I can't rely on anyone else to make me happy. I'm single. I'm always single. And that's not going to change any time soon. But that's all right, it really is. I love romance, and I love happy endings, and mine might be somewhere down the road, but right now, my life is about me. It's about what I want to do, who I want to be, what I need to become the person that will one day, hopefully, make a difference in the world. And you know what else? I looked pretty dang good that night, and sometimes looking at yourself in the mirror and being pleasantly surprised is the best feeling in the world.

One final thought: Today, in keeping with my goal to branch out, I decided to do some studying in the school's Museum of Art. I spent a couple of hours there, and of course I looked around a bit. (The Islamic exhibit is lovely. If you have a half hour to spare and you live anywhere near Provo, go.) As I was leaving, I ducked into the museum store. I wasn't planning on buying anything, but then I saw this:

The cover says "My Dysfunctions: A journal for chronicling my immeasurably fascinating dysfunctions, neuroses, emotions, inner children, moments of shame and doubt, projection, self-loathing, misanthropy, and completely normal insanity, because the only difference between me and the rest of the population is that I acknowledge how crazy I am and they're all in mind-numbing denial."
I think some publisher somewhere may be stalking me. That's my perspective on life in a nutshell (Haha, "nut"shell, get it?? Nut like crazy person, hahaha...). Anyway, I love this little book. Sometimes, the only person who understands what my life is like is myself, which is why I kept a journal before, but now this little book understands too. I mean, look at what it says at the bottom of every page:

I already feel like it's my best friend...

So yeah, like the title of this blog post says, I'm going to try more to seize the day, but more importantly, I want to seize my future self. Who am I going to be? It's my choice. And you know what? I don't care what anybody thinks of me. I like myself, dysfunctions and all. I know I can be an awful, sucky person, who probably doesn't deserve the fairy tale happy ending, but guess what? I don't care. This is my life, and if that's what I want, then that's what I'm going to get. It is our choices that determine who we really are, far more than our abilities.

Please tell me you got that quote.

I would apologize for how long this is, but like I said, I don't care what you think :) If you don't want to read it, don't. I'll love you anyway, random would-be reader person.

That's it. I'm going to bed. 

Night y'all. 

Emily <3