I Am More Than My Gender

I have an important and politically incorrect question to pose.

If we as a society were more accepting of the fact that not all girls like "girly" things, and not all boys like "manly" things, would we have fewer transgender people?

To explain my point, let me tell you about two different little girls.

The first little girl hated the pageants her mother put her in. She did ballet and clogging, but she didn't enjoy it. All she wanted to do was ride motocross with her dad. She loved doing adventurous things outdoors, like rock climbing and racing.

The second little girl never understood the point of dolls or Barbie dream houses. She would much rather play with her brother's toy helicopter or with a science kit. She loved climbing trees and biking through the woods, and she knew for a fact that she wanted to be a marine biologist when she grew up, because animals were so cool.

The difference between these two little girls is that the first one chose to get surgery to turn herself into a man, and the second one is me. And I am still very much a woman.

When I hear stories about those who got gender reassignment surgery, there always seems to be some indication that the person didn't fit into traditional gender stereotypes from a young age. The girls who become boys preferred playing with Hot Wheels to playing house, and the boys who became girls wanted dolls instead of dirt bikes.

My question is, what kind of freakish society do we live in that tells children that if they don't like gender-appropriate activities, they need to get an expensive and invasive surgery to completely change who they are? How is an estrogen injection the answer to "I like pink more than blue"?

If our society were a sci-fi book, this would be a sure sign of a dystopian society. It's time to stop putting ourselves in boxes and recognize that our gender doesn't actually determine who we're going to be.

Traditionalists

I watched a commercial last week that, surprisingly, really resonated with me. It's from Verizon, and it shows a little girl growing up:

I was that little girl who wanted to wade in a river and collect specimens to examine. I loved going out exploring in the woods with my dad and my brother. And yes, I never understood why it was more appropriate for boys to do those things than girls. I was smart, I was curious, and I was adventurous. Why shouldn't I be allowed to run around and get dirty? It was fun!

I don't want to say that the adult authority figures in my life stamped out my curiosity, because they didn't. I still love learning and I recognize the value of a good education. I want to do something important that will make the world a better place. However, I've noticed that I've gotten older that there are people who think my life should take a certain path.

Someone, an older gentleman, once asked me about my plans for the future. I mentioned my educational goals, and some possibilities for what I wanted to do after college. His response was, "When are you getting married? Are you dating anyone?" I said no. I said, "My main goal right now is getting an education. That's why I'm here at college." He replied, "Oh no you're here to find a man who can take care of you!"

I'm not even joking. I hope that he was, but he probably wasn't. I recognize that he came from a different era when women didn't have very many opportunities, but it hurt that someone would reduce me to my gender in such a way. I was a woman, and so I should be devoting my energy to catching myself a husband. I really didn't have any other responsibilities. 

Well I'm sorry, but I'm really smart and I'm good at things and I believe that I can help people. I am also a fan of marriage and motherhood. I do believe that being a mom, and being a good mom, is one of the most important things a woman can do. I do want to get married someday, but I'm not going to sit around waiting for my prince to come, spending all my time learning how to sew skirts and cook for a family of eight. I'm going to make something of my life! I'm going to do things that make me happy! I'm not naturally a domestic goddess, but I'm confident that if I need those skills, I can develop them. 

Feminists

On the other side of the coin, we have a different group of people who are trying to force me to be a man. That's an oversimplification, but it's essentially true. If I'm not a high-powered executive, I'm failing myself and my gender. I need to "lean in" and be more ambitious. Every action I take reflects on the whole of my gender. I am a representative of The Supreme Woman whether I want to be or not. 

This group, which is the loudest, angriest voice in the country, hates gender roles. It looks down on women who choose to be mothers. It examines everything in the entire world through a feminist lens. It boils every issue down into man-vs-woman. Frankly, it's exhausting. 

There's this device that is used to analyze movies called the Bechdel test. A movie only passes the Bechdel test if it contains two women characters who at some point have more than one line of dialogue about something other than men. It could be about shoes, or lipstick, or purses—the content doesn't matter, as long as it's not about men. 

You wanna know how many movies pass that test? Barely any. 

The creators even said themselves that the test shouldn't be used to determine a movie's value; they just hope it will spark discussion about the role of women in movies. 

I think it's a load of crap and wish I'd never heard of it. 

I don't understand the need to make everything about the struggle between men and women. I don't understand why we're constantly trying to pit the genders against each other. The test itself is a shallow and meaningless standard. 

It pisses me off that we look at entertainment this way. Or anything, really. I don't see why a victory over evil is more valuable if a woman was the hero, rather than a man. Isn't the point of life that it doesn't matter who you are, it matters what you make of yourself? 

I recognize that women get paid less than men and that many cultures treat women like slaves. I get that. I personally think rape is the worst crime a person can commit, because it's all about power and ruining another person's life just for their own sick pleasure. I'm sad that there are people who think that women are lesser than men, because those people are wrong. 

Men and women aren't really men and women. They are PEOPLE. We are all PEOPLE. We are all human beings, an intelligent and productive species that is capable of great good and great evil. We all have the same inalienable rights, and the same capacity for success and failure. I feel like the extremist feminist movement (as opposed to the regular feminist movement, which just wants women to be recognized as people—a worthy goal) has gone too far in its attempt to heighten the social status of women. Instead of pointing out the inherent worth of every human being, they attempt to lift women up by pushing man down. 

Take, for instance, #NotAllMen and #YesAllWomen, social media hashtags designed to make men the enemy. Guess what? Nobody is perfect. Women are capable of terrible things as well, and it's time to stop blaming men for all the problems in the world. 

In the last season of British drama Downton Abbey, one of the characters, a recent widower, sleeps with a servant woman who had been coming on to him for months. She pretends to be pregnant and uses that to blackmail him, until the head housekeeper hears about what's going on. She confronts the servant woman, who says, "He seduced me!" The housekeeper replies, "You got a man drunk and crawled into his bed! That doesn't excuse him, but you can hardly say he took advantage of you!" That settled the matter. 

It's time to stop acting like men and women are two separate species. We have our differences, which run deeper than the hormone balance in our body and shouldn't be ignored or belittled, but I don't want to be judged on the basis of my gender. I don't want anyone to say, "You did really well for a girl!" or "You are a great example of your gender." I want them to recognize ME for what I did, not because I am a woman, but because I am a human being, a child of God. 

I love being a woman, even though I don't fit into many of the specific gender roles laid out for me. I don't see that as a failing of myself, I see that as a failing of a society that tries to limit people and prevent them from living up to their potential. 

My heart goes out to all the children who grew up believing something was wrong with them. Nothing is wrong with them at all. They are the person who God intended them to be, and it is society who tells them that they are broken. 

Please, everyone, please stop obsessing over gender. Stop thinking that a girl who likes sports must really be a boy, or a boy who likes fashion must really be a girl. With female executives, we also get male nurses, and that's great. Stop limiting someone's future on the basis of what you think is right for them based on what body parts they have. 

I'd like to leave you with this quote from the seventh Harry Potter book. Voldemort has taken over the wizarding world, and those who oppose him must hide and try to stay alive. Kingsley Shacklebolt, an opposition later, urges his fellow wizards to not only protect themselves, but to protect their non-magic neighbors who have no idea their lives are at risk. When asked to respond to those who said that they should worry about the safety of wizards first, he said:

"I’d say that it’s one short step from ‘wizards first’ to ‘pure-bloods first’, and then to ‘Death Eaters'. We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving."

We are all worth saving. I am a daughter, a friend, a student, an employee, a nerd, and a beloved child of my Heavenly Father. 

Yes, I am a woman, but when it comes to what I want out of life and, more importantly, what I am capable of, I am more than my gender. 

Entitlement

Nobody owes you anything.

Not a very revolutionary concept, am I right? And yet there seems to be this idea in our society that we as a species are entitled to...something. A date with an attractive individual? A high-paying job in the field you love? Happily ever after?

Let's be clear: We have a right to pursue happiness. We have the right to choose our own path. However, we do NOT have the right to expect everyone else to cater to our desires, nor do we have the right to expect that happiness and great opportunities are supposed to fall into our laps. 

I bring this up because of the Elliot Rodgers thing, mainly, and because of some things I've heard recently from people in my own life and some things I've been feeling recently. Rodgers was a mentally disturbed young man who shot up the apartment complex where he lived in California because he was so mad at the world because he couldn't get a girlfriend. 

Rodgers, in his twisted mind, truly believed that he deserved to have a girlfriend, and part of it was the way he was raised. He was a very spoiled child who received everything he ever wanted. He never had to work a day in his life, for anything. He simply had to ask and it was handed to him on a silver platter. Unfortunately, relationships don't work like that. 

You have to put yourself out there. You can't say, "Oh, I like this person," then do nothing about it, then get mad when things don't work out the way you want. It's immature, it's rude, and it devalues the agency of others. 

I repeat, no one owes you anything. Just as you have the right to pursue happiness, so does everyone else. And sometimes their happiness encroaches on your own. And we have to deal with it, because if we're not willing to make the effort, we don't deserve the reward. 

Everything else in life is the same. If you don't put forth the effort to find professional success, you're not going to find it. So you have a college degree. So does everyone. We aren't special because you graduated from college. Congratulations: we did the bare minimum of what society and the economy demanded. We don't get to sit back and say, "Okay world, I did my part, now reward me." And it's really hard, I know! I'm not even 21 yet, and I'm completely burned out. I wake up every single morning and I don't know how I'm going to make it through the day. I hate it sometimes, and I always want to quit. I don't understand why what I've done so far isn't good enough. But I know that I need to keep going. I know that if I work really hard now, it will pay off in the end. I have my personal goals, and the only way I can achieve them is to make myself worth something. 

Because hard work does pay off. It's the only thing that does, really. You don't get a free pass because you jumped through the hoops. You don't get a fairy tale romance because you're cute. 

As a Latter-day Saint, I (and we as a church) believe that every single person has individual worth. We are all children of God. But the entire point of this life is progression. It's working hard and improving yourself. Nobody is born perfect, and nobody dies perfect, but if in the end you can die knowing that you tried your best to be the person you have the potential to be, then you've lived a successful life. 

You don't get anything just for being alive. You can't find true happiness without taking risks and putting yourself out there. You know what, just pick your own metaphor. A shrub getting pruned? A clay pot going through a kiln? Lightning striking sand? The purpose of life is refinement, sometimes painful, scary, devastating, difficult refinement. 

So we need to stop whining about how life isn't fair, how other people don't care about us (this includes me, I'm not just being patronizing.) Because you don't get to sit on your butt and expect everything to magically fall into place. Don't be like Elliot Rodgers. Don't assume that everyone else exists to serve you. 

I therefore challenge us all to stop complaining about how society sucks and complaining how everyone else acts, and instead make it our goal to go out there and take what you want. Prove that you're worthy of the promotion or the trophy or the relationship. It's the only way you will ever deserve them. 

Because nobody, nobody, owes you anything. 

My Spoiler-filled and Extremely Legitimate Review of X-Men: Days of Future Past

*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*

DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE

This is also really long and opinionated. You know what I'm like. You have been warned. 

I love superhero movies. They are really the only movies I see in theaters anymore. They are the perfect story: funny, exciting, and emotional. A clear-cut battle of good versus evil. I usually find myself crying at some point.

X-Men: Days of Future Past was no exception. 

The movie opens with a second Holocaust. The surviving mutants and the humans who helped them had been rounded up and forced into to concentration camps in New York City to be experimented on and slowly killed off. We see trucks driving past piles of bodies. More corpses fall from a tunnel as a young mutant (presumably) searches for something in the rubble and a voiceover explains how the world had ended up this way. The human governments had united and created an army of powerful robots capable of tracking mutants and adapting to their powers. They waged war against the mutants. However, soon killing mutants wasn't enough, and the robots, called Sentinels, started targeting humans who had the genes to produce mutated offspring. In short, nearly everyone on the planet was a target, and nearly the entire planet was wiped out. 

The theme of "mutants are Jews" is very strong in the new trilogy. The X-Men universe has always had political undertones, and the movies are no exception. The original trilogy seemed to be based around the idea of "mutants are gay." Parents of mutant children were often horrified to discover that their children were different, and one couple in an early movie asked if their child had tried not being a mutant. The mutants were ostracized, misunderstood, and had to hide their true nature from those who would abuse and torment them. It's probably best seen in the character of Angel from The Last Stand, who shaves off his own wings so he can hide who he is from his mutant-hating father. He eventually gets fed up with being told to hate himself, and "comes out" with a bang, leaping through a window and unfurling his fabulous wings in a brilliant demonstration of gay, er, mutant pride.

"Tell them how Iiiiiiiii'm defyyyyy-ing graaaa-vity..."

In this new trilogy, the very first scene of X-Men: First Class opened in a Nazi concentration camp. Erik Lensherr, aka Magneto, is both a Jew and a mutant (no wonder he had such a rough time). His mother is killed by Kevin Bacon right in front of him in order to awaken his powers, and then he is experimented on until the end of the war. His horrific childhood leaves him with a deep-seated desire for vengeance against those who torture his mutant "brothers and sisters." 

I think "mutants are Jews" makes more sense than "mutants are gay," especially in the world created by First Class and Days of Future Past (could these movies have longer titles?!) They're the scapegoat of a corrupt government who is looking for any excuse to explain why the world is such a mess. It is perfectly acceptable to experiment on and kill them, because they are seen as different from humans, less than human. In the dystopian future, they are tagged and branded, so that everyone will know they are separate and distinct. Just like every civilization since the dawn of time has hated and terrorized Jews, so too does modern civilization hate and terrorize mutants. 

Of course, there is so much going on in DoFP that it's ridiculously simplistic to narrow it down to one overarching thing, but since I haven't even gotten past the first scene in my review yet, "mutants are Jews" will suit our purposes for now. 

During this allegorical World War III, one group of lone survivors, consisting of characters from the original X-Men trilogy and a few new faces, was holding off against the Sentinels, surviving by working together as a team, utilizing all their unique powers. Warpath sees the Sentinels coming, he and the other mutants fight them off as Kitty Pryde sends Bishop's consciousness back to his younger body to warn the group, and then Blink takes the past-group to a new place using her awesome portal powers. Eventually they join up with Professor X and Magneto, who are back to being a bosom friends after a lifetime of fighting over ideological differences. Professor X tells the mutants that the entire war can be blamed on one act: "the first time Mystique killed." She'd discovered that Tyrion Lannister—I mean, Miles Finch—I mean, Bolivar Trask, a deranged scientist, had been experimenting on mutants, including her old friends. She tracked him down and killed him, leading the humans to believe that mutants were as evil as Trask had thought. They used her amazing DNA to make the Sentinels adaptable, and declared war on the mutants. Professor X needs Kitty to send one them back to 1973 in a mission that will not only save the world, but will also redeem the professor's childhood best friend and possibly stop her from engaging on the self-destructive path that leads her to becoming the second-in-command of the Brotherhood of Mutants and a very scary villain.

She's the blue one on the left. Terrifying, isn't she?

Because this is an X-Men movie, the person who has to go back in time and save the world is everyone's favorite singing superhero, Jean "The Wolverine" Valjean. In the comics, Kitty herself is the one who goes back, and this departure from the original story is, apparently, a crime against feminism and equality and minority rights and LGBT rights et cetera et cetera, according to this amusing review from Slate. Some guy wrote a review as if he were Kitty Pryde, and it's pretty funny, but some of it really irked me. That article is actually part of the reason I decided to write this, since I just got so frustrated. More on that later. For now, let's go back to the story. 

So Logan (Wolverine) goes back to 1973, and boy, is it really 1973. First Class took place in the early 60s, but it didn't really feel like a period piece. There were some dated moments, but for the most part  it felt pretty modern, which was fine for that movie. The first 1973 scene in DoFP, on the other hand, had a lava lamp, a Roberta Flack song, and a key chain with a lucky rabbit's foot. The whole world was slightly sepia-toned (which is something I've never understood. Was the past sepia toned? It always is in movies. And the 90s always looks kind of washed out. I vaguely remember the 90s being washed out, so maybe the 70s were brownish. But this isn't important) and chock full of ridiculous but strangely sexy clothing.

I was obviously born in the wrong era

Wolverine heads over to X Mansion to recruit young Professor X, as old Professor X instructed him to. There he meets his old buddy Beast, in the 70s an adorable nerd, who spends his time babysitting the tormented and drunken Charles Xavier. Charles can't cope with the events of First Class, in which he lost his childhood friend and love, his best friend, and his legs. He is addicted to a heroin-like serum that gives him the use of his legs and dampens his telepathic powers, allowing him to numb the pain. He eventually believes Logan's story about being from the future, and agrees to help, but only because it will allow him to save Raven from herself. 

James McAvoy gives a emotional performance as the young Charles, brilliantly juxtaposing the tortured and broken man with his older, self-assured and confident self, played, as always, by Patrick Stewart. In the original trilogy, Professor X trains Logan, gives him a home, a family. Now, Logan must do the same for Charles. He must, as the professor said, "Lead me. Guide me. (*Walk beside me.)" It was quite incredible to see the future Wolverine, no longer a volatile loner, be the salvation for a man who has always been a pillar of strength. When Charles was throwing a frustration-induced temper tantrum, Logan didn't get mad or run him through with his spikes—he talked to him, calmed him down, inspired him. 

The three heroes—Wolverine, Professor X, and Beast—put on their best "That 70s show" outfits and sauntered on over to Quicksilver's house to convince him to help them break Magneto out of his prison in the Pentagon. Since everyone who's read this has seen the movie, I'm not to go into a lot of details, but can we all agree that Quicksilver's scenes are the best in the entire movie? This kid was confident, snarky, and completely unfazed by the craziness around him. Unlike the other characters who were unsure and scared of their abilities as children, Quicksilver is totally at ease. This might be because he's Magneto's secret love child (probably not, but that was also a hilarious moment) and so he grew up with a mother who was aware of mutants and accepting of them. Despite the trouble her son caused, she loved him, and that shows the underlying theme of the entire X-Men franchise: it doesn't matter whether you're a mutant or a human, every person has the right and capacity to choose their own path. After all, it is our choices that determine who we really are, far more than our abilities.

Oh you know that's right

Quicksilver saves the lives of our heroes, then heads back home to spend some time growing up and stealing Twinkies. The rest of them take off to the Paris Peace Accords, where Raven plans to shoot Trask in the head as he attempts to sell his scary robots to the Vietnamese. They get there, they save Trask, then Magneto flips out and tries to kill Raven. That's the thing with Magneto: he can't ever see past the end goal. He rigidly follows his own moral compass, which is that the ends justify the means. He doesn't care how many people he kills, how many lives he ruins, as long as the mutants are protected. Well, more than protected. He wants them to rule the world, since the humans have apparently done a crappy job of it. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize that his own world would be just as corrupt. 

Anyway, Erik pretty much guarantees that the dystopian future will happen, Raven is still determined to kill Trask, and Charles is a mess. He finally decides to get his powers back, and Logan helps him get over his problems. My personal favorite Wolverine moment (yes, not the scene where he's naked. I know, shocker) is when he, Hank, and Charles are flying to DC to stop Raven once and for all from killing Trask in front of the whole world and the worst Nixon impersonator I've ever seen. He makes Charles promise that, whatever happens, he will rebuild his school and find all of the lost mutants who need guidance, including Logan himself. He tells Charles, "Your best is enough." It's a turning point in both of their lives. Charles, who has spent the last decade being torn apart by self-loathing, is told that he is capable of saving dozens of young lives, that he isn't a lost cause. Logan, who has always kept himself apart from people so he won't feel the pain when they eventually die, is ensuring the creation of his future family.

Then there's Raven. I haven't talked about her motivations yet. She, of all the mutants, is unique. As Trask said, "Her DNA could hold the key to mutation itself." The entire movie she is torn between between what Charles is telling her to do, what Erik is telling her to do, and what she wants to do. Charles knows that what she's doing is morally wrong, and Erik thinks that she's not doing enough for the cause. She just wants to get rid of the monster who killed her friends.

The pivotal moment comes after she saves Nixon and Co. from death-by-Magneto. She incapacitates Erik, then turns to shoot Trask. In that moment, Charles begs her again not to kill the man, not to descend to Magneto's level. In anguish, she acquiesces, and all the humans see the humanity of mutants. Raven leaves the football stadium to, presumably,  figure out her life. She eventually saves Wolverine, showing that not only is she on the path to redemption, but he's been saved some pain. War is averted, Trask is arrested, the world unites to hunt Magneto (rather than uniting to hunt all mutants), and just this once, everybody lives (literally. Everybody who died in the original trilogy was back. Which was fantastic. As my friend said, "They fixed every single mistake of X-Men: The Last Stand." It was a bit like the first three movies never happened, but that's fine with me. Besides, the first three movies happening is what led to that future which is what led to Wolverine going back in time which is what led to the new timeline, so they did matter.)

She's a deadly sharpshooter. But she's still never killed anyone!

It was this scene that really angered the fake Kitty Pryde. Even though the final choice belonged to a woman, because she listened to a man, she was being controlled by him. 

And that really pisses me off. Why on earth is Raven being reduced to her gender? Why is the fact that she's a woman the only thing that matters here? She is more than a woman. She's a person, and her choice to do the right thing saved the world. 

Another thing the review complained about was how white-washed, male, and individual the 1970s scenes were. However, they did grudgingly admit that they improved things in the future. The team was very diverse, and worked very well together. 

I'm not so conservative that I can't recognize that it is cool to have people of different races working so well together, especially when everyone is getting so upset about racial issues. But why complain about the 70s scenes? Why complain about the past when, at least in that respect, thing ARE better in the future? (Furthermore, why is race the thing to talk about when everyone on earth is dead? Sure, different races get along, but literally an entire civilization has been wiped out because of speciesism.) I think the reviewer didn't grasp the point of going back in time. We see what 50 years of growth does to both the characters and the society.

Look, they're all best friends!

I feel like the people who criticize the movie because of some race or gender issue miss the whole point of X-Men. It doesn't matter if you're male, female, black, white, brown, or blue. It doesn't matter if you're a mind-reader or a giant monster or the president. Your choices are your own. Every single person has the same inherent worth. Every single person is capable of choosing good from evil. Why does her being a woman change what she did? So what if she listened to Charles? Him helping her make the choice was part of his redemption. In the end, she was the one who chose not to pull the trigger. And it wasn't Raven, feminist hero. It wasn't Raven, the mutant. It was Raven, the person. The sister. The friend. The hero.

The point of the X-Men is that there isn't an "us" and "them." The mutants aren't all good. The humans aren't all bad. No man is an island. Everyone has to work together, and stop worrying about the things that make us different. 

The reason Magneto is a villain is not because he kills people. It's because he can't look at a person and not see them as either human or mutant. Professor X is a hero because he believes that everyone can coexist, and that it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, you have a chance to live a good life. Looking at a movie and seeing it only as a statistic of race or gender is just as bad as what Magneto does. I understand that there is still discrimination, and still a huge lack of equality in some aspects of life, but narrowing a human being down to their race or gender does not solve anything. We shouldn't watch a TV show and think, "Oh they have a black person as a main character. This show is great because it's progressive!" It's the message that matters. 

X-Men: Days of Future Past was an amazing emotional journey. I'm excited to see what comes next.

Hopefully more of this. Wolverine the Musical, anyone?

Thank You

During winter semester, I spend a third of my time feeling sad, another third feeling anxious, and the last third experiencing moments of clarity and self-awareness, which may just be my coping mechanism to deal with the sadness and anxiety.

Yesterday was one of those days where I felt like I experienced self-awareness. Our startling and miraculous spring-in-February was in full force, with temperatures in the fifties and gorgeous sunshine. It chased my winter blues away a bit, and I felt happy. More than happy. I felt like I'd been living in a daze, and when the sunlight burned the fog away I could actually see my life for what it is.

Which is pathetic.

For the past month in a half, since winter semester started, I've been living in a stagnant world of stress and self-hatred. I've had no motivation to do my work, my schoolwork, or maintain my friendships. Most of the time, the idea of being social made me sick. And yet, I couldn't stop going. I mechanically completed my tasks because I knew that if I stopped I could never get started again. As much as I complained about human contact, I needed it, otherwise I would drift away. I therefore spent many days in my pajamas, either insulting anyone who made an effort to talk to me or crying to my roommates.

I haven't been myself. I've been a shadow of myself. It wasn't until I figuratively woke up today that I realized how bad it's been. I've been like this faded ghost drifting around ward activities, only putting in the minimum effort to participate and never talking to anyone. The people around me have changed and progressed, but I've stayed in the same place.

It's scary. I went to ward prayer last night, all prepared to be social, but I couldn't remember how. I didn't have anything to say to anybody, so I kind of drifted from roommate to roommate as they talked to people until I figured it was safe to leave. Outside the comfort of my living room, I don't know how to associate with people anymore.

Small talk? What's that supposed to sound like?
Discussion about similar interests? Haven't we already been over this topic?
Flirting? HA. Completely out of the question. I'm probably more awkward around boys than I was in high school. Although I don't know for sure because I don't talk to them anymore.

I hope the ability to interact comes back eventually, because I don't want to be completely invisible. I don't need a lot of friends, but I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up with the ones I do have, and it's starting to take it's toll. If I'm not careful, everyone is going to move on and I'll be left sitting here, wondering what's wrong with me.

That being said, I realized something amazing. As I was examining my sad and empty life, I recognized that I am not alone. As horrible and rude and boring and selfish and emotional I've been this semester, there are still people who stand by me, for some reason. There are people who care about me. It blows my mind. Sure, they may have gotten fed up, and I probably have scared quite a few people away, but miracle of miracles, I feel loved.

And that is my real self-awareness moment of the day. I'm loved.

So before I sink back into my hole I wanted to say thank you to everyone who's been there for me the last little bit. Thanks for telling me I'm pretty even when I'm in my pajamas and I haven't worn make-up in days. Thanks for telling me I'm funny even when grumbling sarcastically about something that irritated me or talking in a terrible fake British accent. Thanks for putting up with me when I'm mean and cranky. Thanks for staying up with me the night I had a nervous breakdown. Thanks for telling me I'm important when I felt like I was completely worthless. Thanks for taking me to out to dinner when I really needed a friend to listen. Thanks for watching British movies and Sherlock with me when I didn't feel like leaving the apartment (which was almost always). Thanks for forcing me to go out the other nights when I needed to leave. Thanks for getting hot chocolate with me. Thanks for being my soul sister and always reading my mind. Thanks for being my best friends. Thanks for being nice to me even when I'm acting like a total brat. Thanks for accepting me the way I am, even though writing a blog post about this stuff is pretty weird and I'm hardly the first person to ever feel sad and I'm really just making a big deal out of nothing and I probably just need an attitude adjustment.

I think you all must be angels. Seriously. Heavenly Father put you in my life because he knew I'd really need you.

I love you guys.

My Obituary

The obituary of an introvert who lived happily and died young

Emily Hales

Emily Hales finally succumbed to the weight of all of her responsibilities and collapsed from extreme stress on Tuesday, January 7, 2014, in the middle of The Universe newsroom. She later died in the hospital, surrounded by her loving roommates and coworkers, who gladly took the opportunity to escape their own demanding schedules and wish their friend goodbye.

​Ms. Hales was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 19, 1993. Her early years were characterized by a love for books and animals and a disdain for real human contact. She preferred Beanie Babies to Barbies and could often be found wishing she were somewhere far, far away. As she grew, she became more tolerant of social interaction, but she never lost her passion for the written word.

​She distinguished herself in high school as a member of the debate team and a standard in nearly every Advanced Placement class offered, graduating with a total 42 college credits due to AP exams. She had fond memories of her senior year of high school, which was her final year to feel academically superior to her classmates. She decided to attend Brigham Young University, where she learned that nearly everyone had graduated at the top of their class. Her love of reading and writing proved valuable in her chosen major of journalism, and eventually led to her receiving a job at the university’s newspaper, The Universe. All went well until the beginning of winter semester in her junior year, when she mistakenly believed that she could handle adult responsibilities.

​Outside of school, Ms. Hales was a ravenous consumer of pop culture. She loved movies, music and television shows. Her favorite game was to watch a movie or TV show and gleefully yell out every other show or movie each actor had performed in. Few things gave her more pleasure than to discover an actor from her favorite nerdy movie series in a new show. She spent hours binge-watching shows on Netflix, but she never felt as though she was wasting anything. On the contrary, her only regret, she whispered to her friends, was that she never got to see the season three premiere of Sherlock.

​Ms. Hales was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She served as the Sacrament Meeting chorister of her BYU singles’ ward, which she often described as her dream calling. After graduation, she was planning to go to law school, get a job at a publishing company or go backpacking through Europe. Though her early demise is unfortunate, she expressed relief that she’d never have to make the decision.

​Emily is survived by her family, including her parents, her four younger siblings and her two cats, Harrison and Tora. A memorial service will be held in her home chapel in Burleson, TX, with a luncheon to follow. She requested that guests both bring flowers and make a sizeable donation to a new Kickstarter fund to convince the BBC to produce a new version of Pride and Prejudice with Benedict Cumberbatch as Mr. Darcy. In life and death, Emily always kept her priorities straight.