There have been many moments or even days when I think a lot about my parents, or even just my mother or my father. This week I've thought a lot about my father- how he raised me, what specific lessons I learned just from him, favorite memories with him, funny things he's done that still make me laugh even when just thinking about them, etc. It made me think of a speech made by a character in a movie called "Courageous"- which I encourage everyone to go watch- where a police officer along with a few of his fellow colleagues/friends who are all fathers decide to make and sign a Resolution that challenged them to be better fathers in their own ways. This movie always makes me cry because it makes me so so incredibly grateful for my own dad. He's certainly not a perfect man but he sure does try to be a great man every day.
All of the research that I've seen/heard about regarding the influence of a father is only further proof that, like the video says, "a child desperately needs a daddy." I know I certainly need my Daddy; I truly believe my life would be SO much different if my dad were not around. I sometimes allow myself to think about what it would be like to be without something or how my life would be affected if a certain thing or person in my life were different- 'What would I be doing with my life if I wasn't going to BYU-Idaho?' 'What would my life be like if I wasn't a "Mormon"?' 'Would my family be any different if I wasn't a part of it?' 'Would my parents still be married if they weren't members of the Church? Would they have even gotten to 8 kids or would they have stopped sooner?' I don't mean to be dark or depressing or anything, but I promise I never dwell on those questions for too long. This week's discussions on dads has made me think about how I would be different if my dad weren't around. I certainly wouldn't have had the job I did during the winter semester because my dad works there, and I wouldn't know much about the band Chicago if I didn't have a dad who sang the same 2 songs from them. I can still hear him screeching to reach those high notes as he tried to sing, "Hooold me no-OW! I really wanna tell you I'm sorry." ππ More importantly, I don't know if I would be as sensitive to people or their emotions, I would be an even worse spender with my money, I wouldn't know as much about the scriptures or the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and I wouldn't have any Priesthood blessings to think about or receive. It's difficult to conclude or quantify how many things or what specific things would be different about my life if my dear old man wasn't around. But I'm sure glad he is:)
I'll share a few of my favorite things about my dad other than the few things I've already mentioned:
I've noticed throughout my life but especially as a teenager and young adult that my dad absolutely adores my mother. He expresses it in words to everyone, but he shows it in how he looks at her when she smiles, how the first person he wants to see and hug is his wife, and they share a lot of physical affection; every day when he comes home from work they always share a kiss or two to greet each other, and they kiss again right after a blessing on dinner's been offered. Then when the day is done they make sure to pray together, kneeling side by side on someone's side of the bed, and they alternate who says the prayer before they each say their own individual prayers and share a kiss in between prayers. They hold hands all the time no matter where we are, like they just have to be literally connected if they're near each other. Dad's said multiple times that he loves the idea of spending time with Mom for an entire day just doing whatever they want; they began their relationship with a lot of 'hanging out' (I guess that's the best way to put it in modern-ish terms) and had a super solid friendship before even thinking about being serious. Mom & Dad were basically high school sweethearts who first met officially in- you're gonna love this- typewriting class. Mom thought he was so popular and "just the cutest thing" and Dad thought she was so classy and beautiful but also mature enough to make him believe that she was a year above him in school- "and I was not about to ask out a Senior when I was just a Junior! It was unthinkable!" Luckily some mutual friends set up a date for them and it just took off from there. I love that my dad is so willing to express why he loves my mother and he has so much respect for her; he never raises his voice with her and never seems to be angry with her. I've asked them a few times if they've ever had a fight and what it was about (I've asked multiple times because it's still somewhat hard for me to believe to this day), and they say they've never had a fight. They've certainly had disagreements, but any conversation that turned slightly heated was quickly cooled down and deflated so both of them had clear heads. My dad explained it like this: "Anytime anyone gets in a fight- doesn't matter if it's friends or lovers or family- someone's being selfish. Every single fight anyone in the world has ever had started because either one or both parties were selfish. Mom & I agreed a long time ago that our marriage was not going to include or involve any selfishness, that our relationship had no room for that. We promised each other across an altar that Christ was the center of our relationship and would continue to be. We've learned to compromise and agree quickly because neither of us wants to be selfish. I love her too much to let that happen on my end." I so admire the way my father loves my mother because it's proved to be an example for me of what to expect out of a future husband.
One last thing I love about my dad is that he's a very sensitive person; I can honestly say he is the most gentle man I know. He may get aggressive about football-especially BYU- but when it comes to knowing how to make other people around him feel comfortable and understood, he's always seemed an expert to me. To be honest, I've considered much of my relationship with my father pretty formal because for most of my life I've only felt comfortable talking about a few things with him- mostly gospel related. I know he's a very smart man and I can go to him for any academic or business questions, but I've found it hard to relate to him; he grew up on a farm and had a job since he was 10 or maybe 13, and up until recently I've never held a job for longer than 3 months because we were moving around all the time. He loves math and science (he's a CFO so he really likes his numbers), I like English and history (although before he graduated high school he really wanted to be a history teacher). He understands business, I don't. I love spending money, he's cheap. I'm willing to live in the moment and not care about logistics or reasons for everything, and he's one of the biggest pragmatists I've ever known. But despite our differences, I've learned that he really does care about me and wants to understand me as much as I want to understand him. My relationship with my dad has actually improved drastically over the past year because I got to spend a lot more time with him when I worked at the same company he works at for a few months; we commuted to and from the office together and I finally saw what he does and what kind of a person he is when he's outside the house (and outside a church building... or a golf course). Dad has learned how to be a really good listener; he's good at trying to understand things, but he's grown a lot in learning how to ask different kinds of questions to go along with his other means of understanding for clarification. He wasn't afraid to discipline verbally, but he also made sure we still felt like he loved us and wanted the best for us and he was quick to explain his logic and reasoning for things, mostly about how he has high expectations for his kids because he wants the best for us- "I expect your best so you can have the best." More than anything, besides the protecting and providing parts that he does so well (and frankly I think most fathers do well), I love my father because he presides over our family; he presides spiritually to make sure that our home had the Spirit there, that the language we used and the things we watched or listened to were uplifting and brought us all together, he was present in our different extracurricular activities and he wanted to be aware of what each of his children were going through. I don't know if my Daddy will ever read this, but that's ok. I'm just glad I got a chance to tell y'all about him and why I love him:) So here's to Dean- Mean Dean the dancing machine, Mr. Dean, Deanster, Dad. Watashi wa, anata o aishiteimasu OtΕsan.
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Saturday, November 24, 2018
“Say Whatcha Need To Say”
We’ve all said it in various ways and plenty more will say it again: “the world needs better communicators”, “if only people would just learn how to communicate”, “people just SUCK at communicating”, etc. I think there are various reasons for communication challenges- pathological liars, bad childhood, timidity or shyness, (social) anxiety, don’t wanna day anything that nobody else is saying because that gives me unwanted attention, et cetera et cetera et cetera. But more than anything I believe that the problem with communication all boils down to
VULNERABILITY.
Real, totally honest communication means exposing something about ourselves that we’re probably not willing to share with anybody. Vulnerability is hard for everybody, no matter your past history; we’re human beings and we like to be comfortable and have as much control over our image and comfort as possible. But the beauty of vulnerability is that it’s the very thing that builds what we want even more than control or comfort, and that’s intimacy. Shared vulnerability creates intimacy- emotional and spiritual, not just physical. But even though we all crave closeness with romantic partners as well as family and friends, why do we suck so badly at communicating and sharing those vulnerabilities?
This week in class we talked about communication, and the thing I love when talking about communication in an academic setting is not only why we have issues with it so often, but most especially when we talk about specific ways to fix it. I’d like to think that it’s pretty safe to speak for everyone when I saw that we all think we have at least an idea of what good communication looks or sounds like. I myself struggle with thinking that I’m a good listener, but one thing I was reminded of this week was the principle of confirming what someone says, or confirmation. I was actually really touched by this concept because it reminded me of when I first learned about using this practice while I was a full-time missionary. In the Preach My Gospel manual, one of the chapters talks specifically about this practice and specifically using it with your investigators during lessons. It comes out in phrases like, “So what you’re saying is..., is that right?” Or even, “So are you saying that....?” When you say things like that, you’re not only showing the other person that you really are listening to them and trying to understand what they’re really saying, but it also helps you not look like an idiot or a jerk later on in the conversation. I still remember when I read that how I thought, “Oh that’s a nice idea.” But now I think, “Oh my gosh why isn’t everyone doing this?! This could save all of us so much confusion and conflict if we’d just ask confirming questions!!!”
The topic of communication brought back a LOT of memories from my childhood and growing-up years. I guess I shouldn’t think that my family is much different than many other families as far as how bad we are at communication, I don’t think many people in this world are consistently good communicators- let alone whole families. We assume a lot of things in my family, and when something’s bothering us we either keep quiet or explode. And after that all happens we just act like it’s over and done for and we were taught to “just get over it.” I can honestly say I don’t remember more than 2 or 3 times in my life while still living with siblings that either a sister/brother apologized to another sibling or a sibling apologized to me; we’re not good at addressing the problem without yelling at each other and aggressively getting our point across. It very quickly becomes a matter of convincing the other that we’re right and they’re wrong. Yelling is something I’ve become very sensitive about because of how bad a problem it is in my family, and in all honesty it came from Mj mother. Sometimes I honestly wonder if we have some Italian in her line because when she gets even slightly annoyed or even just passionate about something, she raises her voice and says she’s not yelling π³πππ‘ I want to make a concerted effort throughout my life to not be afraid of being the first one to apologize, and also to not raise my voice when it’s not necessary- which according to one of our prophets is only a necessity if the house is on fire. I want to make sure that I practice good communication now so I can be an even better communicator as a wife and mother, and especially so I’ll know how to help clients/others to improve their communication as a future therapist.
VULNERABILITY.
Real, totally honest communication means exposing something about ourselves that we’re probably not willing to share with anybody. Vulnerability is hard for everybody, no matter your past history; we’re human beings and we like to be comfortable and have as much control over our image and comfort as possible. But the beauty of vulnerability is that it’s the very thing that builds what we want even more than control or comfort, and that’s intimacy. Shared vulnerability creates intimacy- emotional and spiritual, not just physical. But even though we all crave closeness with romantic partners as well as family and friends, why do we suck so badly at communicating and sharing those vulnerabilities?
This week in class we talked about communication, and the thing I love when talking about communication in an academic setting is not only why we have issues with it so often, but most especially when we talk about specific ways to fix it. I’d like to think that it’s pretty safe to speak for everyone when I saw that we all think we have at least an idea of what good communication looks or sounds like. I myself struggle with thinking that I’m a good listener, but one thing I was reminded of this week was the principle of confirming what someone says, or confirmation. I was actually really touched by this concept because it reminded me of when I first learned about using this practice while I was a full-time missionary. In the Preach My Gospel manual, one of the chapters talks specifically about this practice and specifically using it with your investigators during lessons. It comes out in phrases like, “So what you’re saying is..., is that right?” Or even, “So are you saying that....?” When you say things like that, you’re not only showing the other person that you really are listening to them and trying to understand what they’re really saying, but it also helps you not look like an idiot or a jerk later on in the conversation. I still remember when I read that how I thought, “Oh that’s a nice idea.” But now I think, “Oh my gosh why isn’t everyone doing this?! This could save all of us so much confusion and conflict if we’d just ask confirming questions!!!”
The topic of communication brought back a LOT of memories from my childhood and growing-up years. I guess I shouldn’t think that my family is much different than many other families as far as how bad we are at communication, I don’t think many people in this world are consistently good communicators- let alone whole families. We assume a lot of things in my family, and when something’s bothering us we either keep quiet or explode. And after that all happens we just act like it’s over and done for and we were taught to “just get over it.” I can honestly say I don’t remember more than 2 or 3 times in my life while still living with siblings that either a sister/brother apologized to another sibling or a sibling apologized to me; we’re not good at addressing the problem without yelling at each other and aggressively getting our point across. It very quickly becomes a matter of convincing the other that we’re right and they’re wrong. Yelling is something I’ve become very sensitive about because of how bad a problem it is in my family, and in all honesty it came from Mj mother. Sometimes I honestly wonder if we have some Italian in her line because when she gets even slightly annoyed or even just passionate about something, she raises her voice and says she’s not yelling π³πππ‘ I want to make a concerted effort throughout my life to not be afraid of being the first one to apologize, and also to not raise my voice when it’s not necessary- which according to one of our prophets is only a necessity if the house is on fire. I want to make sure that I practice good communication now so I can be an even better communicator as a wife and mother, and especially so I’ll know how to help clients/others to improve their communication as a future therapist.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
"Everybody Hurts Sometimes"
I think I may start a new theme of making my blog titles the names of songs that fit the blog's motif. I've always felt a deep connection with music and that sometimes it speaks for us when we can't find the right words. Anyway, hopefully the songs mentioned are at least something you can recognize as the reader, otherwise it'll be another homework assignment for you;)
This week, I had another "big experience" as I say, and normally I don't really talk about a lot of truly personal things on my blog- in part because I don't know who actually reads these besides the TA for the class which assigns these weekly blogs, and also because I've never been that person who's willing to share sad things over the Internet. But somehow I guess today I felt like opening up.
So I was in a relationship with a guy- I'll call him Jacob- for a little over a month until last Wednesday. We jumped into a serious relationship after dating for literally only a week, and we even came to the point halfway through that month when he said "I love you" and later that night I said "I love you, too." To be truly honest, I do feel like we both meant it- at least I know I did. We did love each other, but just as quickly as that love came it left. For a little over a week now I felt like something was off; I thought that maybe it was just the fact that we'd made a conscious effort to lay off of each other (literally) and not be quite so physically passionate. We never did anything crazy, but it was kind of a focus of our relationship for a little while. So I thought that maybe things felt off because there was a lack of physical passion, for good reason. But even though I did notice that I just wasn't feeling right about something, I chose to ignore my gut feelings(or what we members of the Church also refer to as "the Spirit") and keep my rose-colored glasses fastened to my eyes. I figured since we'd worked out other things before then we could work them out again and we were just going through a phase. Then after I had a very uplifting spiritual experience last Wednesday evening after spending a few hours in the Rexburg temple, Jacob took me out to dinner after he'd finished with his extracurricular clubs and philosophy societies. While we ate, Jacob surprised me by unleashing all the thoughts and feelings he'd been holding for some time, and frankly he hurt my feelings in the way he went about doing it. I felt like this was coming out of nowhere, I was beyond flabbergasted. There was some truth to some of what he said, but I just felt so distraught by what he said that I asked him to take me home. I asked him just to drop me off instead of walking me to the door and he got mad at me, so while he was saying some last words before seeing me off I asked-through many tears- if we could go somewhere instead. I hated crying in front of him; I'd already felt so vulnerable in the beginning of our relationship and this was like the third time he'd seen me cry. I was so tired of feeling so guilty around him. We pulled into a church parking lot and I ended up apologizing for some of the things he'd mentioned, and after a moment he said, "I feel impressed that we should take a break." Somehow I surprised myself by responding, without a moment's pause, "I think so, too."
And just like that, we were done. He dropped me off after we finished talking and I stayed up until 2am that night eating a soppy Hallmark romance and eating my dinner leftovers and some ice cream that one of my sweet roommates insisted on buying for me. The day after that I felt fine, but it wasn't until Friday and Saturday (today) that I've finally registered what happened; it took a bit for the breakup to hit me. I knew even though he'd said we need a "break", I knew in that moment I was never getting back together with him. Our breakup is something we both needed so we could individually work on what we each needed to work on, but I also realized once we ended things just what was wrong with the relationship (and frankly, what was wrong with him) and where we both went wrong. So, today I'm sitting in sweats and grieving with Cafe Rio and the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" movie.
Now, here's why I bring that whole shebang up on a public blog: this isn't the first time I've gone through something where I feel heartbroken and need to cope. Technically it's the second, but the point is that this event was actually pretty fitting for the lesson in this week's classes: coping. Specifically we talked about how families cope, but one of the main things I got out of it was that because families are made up of individuals, I need to decide that I'm going to cope in healthy ways myself before learning how to cope with a spouse and/or children in the future. Because this week our class was reading about healthy vs. unhealthy ways to cope, I started paying attention to what I decided to do to cope with my heartbreak. I've done some crying, I'll write in a journal later, but I've feng shui'd and organized my room so I can actually see the bottom of my desk without useless receipts and papers, I've taken a long hot bath with a bath bomb (technically Jacob gave me the bath bomb, but just because it came from him doesn't mean I can't still enjoy it for what it is), treated myself to a sweet pork salad, and talked things over with some of my trusted roommates and one or two close friends. I don't know if I can say all of my coping methods are truly healthy- like how I watched the last bit of this most recent Bachelorette season's episode when Becca is down to Blake and Garrett and chooses Garrett, I cried when Blake was sent home and when Garrett proposed. Like I wept y'all, seriously weeping and sobbing and some gnashing of teeth because I was mad at myself for being such a bawl-bag. But at least I know I'm getting my emotions out in front of a few people I trust and who support me in my decisions, and I'm letting myself spend some time- not much time but some- to reflect on what happened.
I originally was going to make this post a sort of list of all the things I've had to "cope" through- like moving to three different high schools and living in about 10 houses/apartments just within my high school career, serving a full-time mission, being made fun of for my laugh in middle school, being an introvert for way too long and feeling entirely alone, wearing braces, being diagnosed with hypothyroidism when I was 9 years old after having two ovarian cyst surgeries, adult onset acne, a whole scroll of things. But everyone can make a list of things they've had to cope with; the real test is how we all learned to do just that-cope with all those things. We're tested with various unwanted and self-induced circumstances and we only get out of those ruts when we learn how to work and deal with them in a healthy way. We need to remember that life is not out to get us; things just happen. Sometimes those things happen because of our own stupidity, but they happen. It's our job to accept that they happened, and the only way to move now is forward and not backward; it is not productive or wise to dwell on the past and live in regret. I've learned that the hard way. We CAN change, we CAN make changes and we CAN become better than we were yesterday, or even an hour or a minute ago! Change is absolutely possible, I see it in people all the time and I try to see it in myself every day! The goal is to make sure you're always trying; if you do that, no one can say you didn't. If we learn how to choose to be happy despite and even in our circumstances, then nothing that happens to us will have too drastic of an impact on us. I once heard someone say that disappointment is an occasional visitor, but it's never a permanent resident. Normal human emotions should be welcomed, but we can tap into something more than human, even divine, as we learn to let go of human impulse to stay angry or sad until we feel 'satisfied'- as if we even truly know what that would mean.
Also, one other thing I realized is that coping isn't meant to be done alone; we need each other to cope, we need our families and trusted friends to cope. We're not meant just to endure the human experience by trudging through it looking ahead at a blank sidewalk; we can look ahead to see other footprints who've already walked the path we're choosing to walk and see who else is there for the journey.
This week, I had another "big experience" as I say, and normally I don't really talk about a lot of truly personal things on my blog- in part because I don't know who actually reads these besides the TA for the class which assigns these weekly blogs, and also because I've never been that person who's willing to share sad things over the Internet. But somehow I guess today I felt like opening up.
So I was in a relationship with a guy- I'll call him Jacob- for a little over a month until last Wednesday. We jumped into a serious relationship after dating for literally only a week, and we even came to the point halfway through that month when he said "I love you" and later that night I said "I love you, too." To be truly honest, I do feel like we both meant it- at least I know I did. We did love each other, but just as quickly as that love came it left. For a little over a week now I felt like something was off; I thought that maybe it was just the fact that we'd made a conscious effort to lay off of each other (literally) and not be quite so physically passionate. We never did anything crazy, but it was kind of a focus of our relationship for a little while. So I thought that maybe things felt off because there was a lack of physical passion, for good reason. But even though I did notice that I just wasn't feeling right about something, I chose to ignore my gut feelings(or what we members of the Church also refer to as "the Spirit") and keep my rose-colored glasses fastened to my eyes. I figured since we'd worked out other things before then we could work them out again and we were just going through a phase. Then after I had a very uplifting spiritual experience last Wednesday evening after spending a few hours in the Rexburg temple, Jacob took me out to dinner after he'd finished with his extracurricular clubs and philosophy societies. While we ate, Jacob surprised me by unleashing all the thoughts and feelings he'd been holding for some time, and frankly he hurt my feelings in the way he went about doing it. I felt like this was coming out of nowhere, I was beyond flabbergasted. There was some truth to some of what he said, but I just felt so distraught by what he said that I asked him to take me home. I asked him just to drop me off instead of walking me to the door and he got mad at me, so while he was saying some last words before seeing me off I asked-through many tears- if we could go somewhere instead. I hated crying in front of him; I'd already felt so vulnerable in the beginning of our relationship and this was like the third time he'd seen me cry. I was so tired of feeling so guilty around him. We pulled into a church parking lot and I ended up apologizing for some of the things he'd mentioned, and after a moment he said, "I feel impressed that we should take a break." Somehow I surprised myself by responding, without a moment's pause, "I think so, too."
And just like that, we were done. He dropped me off after we finished talking and I stayed up until 2am that night eating a soppy Hallmark romance and eating my dinner leftovers and some ice cream that one of my sweet roommates insisted on buying for me. The day after that I felt fine, but it wasn't until Friday and Saturday (today) that I've finally registered what happened; it took a bit for the breakup to hit me. I knew even though he'd said we need a "break", I knew in that moment I was never getting back together with him. Our breakup is something we both needed so we could individually work on what we each needed to work on, but I also realized once we ended things just what was wrong with the relationship (and frankly, what was wrong with him) and where we both went wrong. So, today I'm sitting in sweats and grieving with Cafe Rio and the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" movie.
Now, here's why I bring that whole shebang up on a public blog: this isn't the first time I've gone through something where I feel heartbroken and need to cope. Technically it's the second, but the point is that this event was actually pretty fitting for the lesson in this week's classes: coping. Specifically we talked about how families cope, but one of the main things I got out of it was that because families are made up of individuals, I need to decide that I'm going to cope in healthy ways myself before learning how to cope with a spouse and/or children in the future. Because this week our class was reading about healthy vs. unhealthy ways to cope, I started paying attention to what I decided to do to cope with my heartbreak. I've done some crying, I'll write in a journal later, but I've feng shui'd and organized my room so I can actually see the bottom of my desk without useless receipts and papers, I've taken a long hot bath with a bath bomb (technically Jacob gave me the bath bomb, but just because it came from him doesn't mean I can't still enjoy it for what it is), treated myself to a sweet pork salad, and talked things over with some of my trusted roommates and one or two close friends. I don't know if I can say all of my coping methods are truly healthy- like how I watched the last bit of this most recent Bachelorette season's episode when Becca is down to Blake and Garrett and chooses Garrett, I cried when Blake was sent home and when Garrett proposed. Like I wept y'all, seriously weeping and sobbing and some gnashing of teeth because I was mad at myself for being such a bawl-bag. But at least I know I'm getting my emotions out in front of a few people I trust and who support me in my decisions, and I'm letting myself spend some time- not much time but some- to reflect on what happened.
I originally was going to make this post a sort of list of all the things I've had to "cope" through- like moving to three different high schools and living in about 10 houses/apartments just within my high school career, serving a full-time mission, being made fun of for my laugh in middle school, being an introvert for way too long and feeling entirely alone, wearing braces, being diagnosed with hypothyroidism when I was 9 years old after having two ovarian cyst surgeries, adult onset acne, a whole scroll of things. But everyone can make a list of things they've had to cope with; the real test is how we all learned to do just that-cope with all those things. We're tested with various unwanted and self-induced circumstances and we only get out of those ruts when we learn how to work and deal with them in a healthy way. We need to remember that life is not out to get us; things just happen. Sometimes those things happen because of our own stupidity, but they happen. It's our job to accept that they happened, and the only way to move now is forward and not backward; it is not productive or wise to dwell on the past and live in regret. I've learned that the hard way. We CAN change, we CAN make changes and we CAN become better than we were yesterday, or even an hour or a minute ago! Change is absolutely possible, I see it in people all the time and I try to see it in myself every day! The goal is to make sure you're always trying; if you do that, no one can say you didn't. If we learn how to choose to be happy despite and even in our circumstances, then nothing that happens to us will have too drastic of an impact on us. I once heard someone say that disappointment is an occasional visitor, but it's never a permanent resident. Normal human emotions should be welcomed, but we can tap into something more than human, even divine, as we learn to let go of human impulse to stay angry or sad until we feel 'satisfied'- as if we even truly know what that would mean.
Also, one other thing I realized is that coping isn't meant to be done alone; we need each other to cope, we need our families and trusted friends to cope. We're not meant just to endure the human experience by trudging through it looking ahead at a blank sidewalk; we can look ahead to see other footprints who've already walked the path we're choosing to walk and see who else is there for the journey.
Saturday, November 10, 2018
"Let's Talk About Sex Baby"
I'm sure you were a little caught off guard by that title, but I thought I might try to make sure the rest of my blog's mood wasn't too serious. We're here to talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be, so let's talk about sex.
Here's the thing: immediately when we even hear or even see the word sex, what comes to our minds? Does the word make you feel uncomfortable, does it seem like a funny thing, does it bring up bad memories or negative past experiences, how does it make you feel to talk about it? For me, sometimes the word sex even now makes me feel...well, not queasy or disgusted, but just nervous that someone will see or hear me involved in that conversation- like 'why is she talking about sex with someone? She must be a dirty person!' Obviously that's not the way it is, I know, but in my mind of social anxiety that's what comes to my mind. I came to understand a while ago that sex is nothing to be ashamed of and that it's something that every person needs to talk about at some point, or at least think about at some point.
As part of a "Leave It to Beaver" kind of home, there seems to be an unspoken understanding that talking about sex is bad; anytime anything related to it is mentioned there's awkward silence and uncomfortable vibes. I never even got the sex talk with my parents; I remember their version of the sex talk was that it's beautiful and sacred, but because it's sacred it needs to be kept within a sacred trust and promise between two people that truly love each other. Even after that I still didn't know what it actually is, like what it takes for a baby to be conceived. I knew that there involved a lot of kissing and that sometimes you'd take off your clothes, but I had no idea what else there was. I eventually found out from a friend at school when I was a freshman in high school, 15 years old. Some dumb boys were making a sex joke in front of us and I just felt so tired of being so ignorant so I went ahead and asked. I definitely remember feeling queasy about that.
As I've grown and matured, and specifically in this case physically matured, I came to understand the implications of and factors involved with sex. I learned, especially from my dad, that a major reason why sex is such a powerful thing is because it's meant to heal and build upon relationships of love; sex is so powerful that even when the relationship is in shambles or about to be so, having sex can make the partners feel like their problems might not be so big and it literally heals relationships. Sex can create feelings of intimacy where there were none before. And because sex is so powerful, I want to make sure I treat my first time as something truly special and to save it for someone who is truly special to me.
In regards to sex during marriage, one thing we talked about this week was the idea of having an affair- why it happens, different kinds of affairs and what they all mean, and how to mend a relationship where an affair broke mutual trust between partners. It honestly made me really really sad to think that affairs really are a reality in this world- even though it's even less common today than it was back in say the 60's or 70's to have an affair (this was during the sexual revolution), it's obviously still around- and even worse that there are multiple ways to have an affair other than having explicit sexual relations with someone other than your spouse. Even a married woman having a serious celebrity crush can be considered an affair! No one is immune! My favorite quote I read from a fantastic article about all these very subjects is "Infidelity has less to do with the state of a marriage and more to do with the individual. It is often a result of a personal transformation that has taken place within an individual’s very nature." Just because your marriage or relationship may be suffering, that is still no excuse to indulge in an affair, or even multiple. Most people (including me before this week) believe that people who engage in affairs are suffering bad marriages and are seeking some kind of validation from another source. But even in great marriages people can decide have affairs.
The biggest thing I learned/was reminded of this week was not only the beauty and sacredness of sex, but more importantly my resolve to stay faithful to my future spouse became even stronger. I promised a long time ago and even today whenever I hear about someone being unfaithful in their relationship, I silently think to myself, "I am never ever ever going to cheat on my husband- not with another man, not with Youtube, not in my thoughts, none of that."
Here's the thing: immediately when we even hear or even see the word sex, what comes to our minds? Does the word make you feel uncomfortable, does it seem like a funny thing, does it bring up bad memories or negative past experiences, how does it make you feel to talk about it? For me, sometimes the word sex even now makes me feel...well, not queasy or disgusted, but just nervous that someone will see or hear me involved in that conversation- like 'why is she talking about sex with someone? She must be a dirty person!' Obviously that's not the way it is, I know, but in my mind of social anxiety that's what comes to my mind. I came to understand a while ago that sex is nothing to be ashamed of and that it's something that every person needs to talk about at some point, or at least think about at some point.
As part of a "Leave It to Beaver" kind of home, there seems to be an unspoken understanding that talking about sex is bad; anytime anything related to it is mentioned there's awkward silence and uncomfortable vibes. I never even got the sex talk with my parents; I remember their version of the sex talk was that it's beautiful and sacred, but because it's sacred it needs to be kept within a sacred trust and promise between two people that truly love each other. Even after that I still didn't know what it actually is, like what it takes for a baby to be conceived. I knew that there involved a lot of kissing and that sometimes you'd take off your clothes, but I had no idea what else there was. I eventually found out from a friend at school when I was a freshman in high school, 15 years old. Some dumb boys were making a sex joke in front of us and I just felt so tired of being so ignorant so I went ahead and asked. I definitely remember feeling queasy about that.
As I've grown and matured, and specifically in this case physically matured, I came to understand the implications of and factors involved with sex. I learned, especially from my dad, that a major reason why sex is such a powerful thing is because it's meant to heal and build upon relationships of love; sex is so powerful that even when the relationship is in shambles or about to be so, having sex can make the partners feel like their problems might not be so big and it literally heals relationships. Sex can create feelings of intimacy where there were none before. And because sex is so powerful, I want to make sure I treat my first time as something truly special and to save it for someone who is truly special to me.
In regards to sex during marriage, one thing we talked about this week was the idea of having an affair- why it happens, different kinds of affairs and what they all mean, and how to mend a relationship where an affair broke mutual trust between partners. It honestly made me really really sad to think that affairs really are a reality in this world- even though it's even less common today than it was back in say the 60's or 70's to have an affair (this was during the sexual revolution), it's obviously still around- and even worse that there are multiple ways to have an affair other than having explicit sexual relations with someone other than your spouse. Even a married woman having a serious celebrity crush can be considered an affair! No one is immune! My favorite quote I read from a fantastic article about all these very subjects is "Infidelity has less to do with the state of a marriage and more to do with the individual. It is often a result of a personal transformation that has taken place within an individual’s very nature." Just because your marriage or relationship may be suffering, that is still no excuse to indulge in an affair, or even multiple. Most people (including me before this week) believe that people who engage in affairs are suffering bad marriages and are seeking some kind of validation from another source. But even in great marriages people can decide have affairs.
The biggest thing I learned/was reminded of this week was not only the beauty and sacredness of sex, but more importantly my resolve to stay faithful to my future spouse became even stronger. I promised a long time ago and even today whenever I hear about someone being unfaithful in their relationship, I silently think to myself, "I am never ever ever going to cheat on my husband- not with another man, not with Youtube, not in my thoughts, none of that."
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
"You Can't Have One Without the Other"
I've always been a sucker for old music, and one of my favorites by good ol' Frank Sinatra is "Love and Marriage". The song seems to present a simple message that, coming from a "Leave it to Beaver" kind of home, makes perfect sense to me (like the song says, "Ask the local gentry, and they'll say it's elementary"). Sinatra sings about how "love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage... Try to separate them, [and] it's an illusion." The main message I've always gotten from this song, along with others like it, is that love should lead to marriage and that marriage should always possess a great deal of love within the relationship.
Well, I'm not married yet (and far from it), but from what I've observed and heard and studied about love, marriage doesn't always feel like a classic Frank Sinatra song; sometimes you really love each other and wonder how you could ever spend another second apart from your adoring spouse, and sometimes it feels like you can't get enough time away from your now annoying spouse. It's no surprise that marriages are like this, I feel the same way about my best friends, roommates and even other family members. The thing about relationships is that none of them are perfect; they're full of ups and downs, good days and bad days, moments when you can't get enough of someone and moments you wish they'd go away or stop bothering you or even read your mind to see what's really going on in your head and heart. There is love within all of our relationships, just different kinds. And marriage is another kind of relationship with yet another kind of love- ideally the ultimate romantic kind of love.
This week in class we talked about preparing for marriage- what goes into planning the wedding, what to expect and what to adjust to, and there are more things to think about than I originally thought! I thought I knew everything there was to adjust to because, as the youngest child in my family and only remaining single kid, I thought I'd basically seen it all. I'll never forget when one of my six sisters told me about how uncomfortable it was to go to the bathroom in front of her husband- "We were ok with peeing in front of each other, but pooping in front of each other took like a whole year." ???????????????????? In my teenage mind I was thinking "Why are you telling me this??!?" But I can see her point; there are a LOT of little things you have to adjust to that you may never have even thoughts were something that would be a topic of conversation or debate! While discussing all of those possible things to get used to with your spouse, I felt more motivated to make sure whoever I'm thinking about marrying is someone who I've dated for all four seasons (as my mother so wisely advised); I want to make sure I'm already aware of at least most of my future husband's habits before I marry him- how much money he's willing to spend on fun things versus practical things like groceries, how much time does he take for homework during the day and what kind of a work ethic does he have, is he clean and tidy with his food and belongings, if for some odd reason I ever see him take a nap does he snore or take up all the sheets, how easy is it for us to communicate and how quickly can we resolve things, does he need a lot of time to cool down before discussing something that's bothering him, does he turn up his car music or TV show a little too loud or soft for my liking, does he set multiple alarms because it takes a while to wake up or can he wake up after just the first one, is he a light or heavy sleeper, how does he feel about people coming over to his house, how much of a people-person or how social is he, etc. I wanna be sure I'm not too surprised at what I see (or hear or smell) after I say "I do".
One thing I've been thinking a lot about this week from our class discussions is weddings, especially my own. I'll admit, I do have a Pinterest board dedicated to "Wedding Ideas?" filled with decor, reception venues, proposal fantasy ideas, honeymoon ideas, engagement rings, the whole hullabaloo. I still remember when I started that board- I was visiting my sister in Alaska when she was about to have her baby, and I was so bored that I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon with other girls my age and start thinking about my future wedding. I've added little bits to it here and there in the past, but now it's one of my bigger boards just because of this week π In class, our teacher brought up an interesting fun fact he heard: the more expensive the engagement ring, the less likely the marriage will last long-term. I'm not completely sure where my opinion stands on that, but I can kinda see where the guy's coming from; if there's a ginormous ring dangling on the bride's finger, then there's probably going to be some suspicion about how materialistic she may be- is she high maintenance or even a gold digger? Maybe that's just me ;)
Whelp, as far as weddings go I may have some fun ideas as to what I'd like, but whenever I think about my own future wedding, I remember the last time one of my siblings got married: my brother Tim was about to be sealed in the Payson, Utah temple with his sweetheart the next day, and my sisters were talking about their weddings and how they felt on their 'wedding eves', and suddenly after comparing and contrasting each other's receptions and all the stress and planning that went into it, they all looked at me and said, "Sarah, don't even plan a wedding, it's so not worth it. Just take the money and RUN! Go off and thank everyone for wishing you well later." I can see some truth in that, but we'll see whether or not I heed their advice ;)
As fun as thinking about a wedding is and planning a reception and wondering how I'll decorate all the mason jars, I was glad to have another good reminder this week of the difference between the marriage and the wedding, and to remember to place the importance on the marriage. The whole celebration is about two people who've decided to love and cherish each other for forever, and as scary as that kind of commitment can be, it is still a reason to celebrate and rejoice in because love is all about commitment and loyalty and faith in each other. I'm excited to build my classic Frank Sinatra kind of relationship with my future sweetheart, cuz I don't wanna have love without marriage or a marriage without love :)
Well, I'm not married yet (and far from it), but from what I've observed and heard and studied about love, marriage doesn't always feel like a classic Frank Sinatra song; sometimes you really love each other and wonder how you could ever spend another second apart from your adoring spouse, and sometimes it feels like you can't get enough time away from your now annoying spouse. It's no surprise that marriages are like this, I feel the same way about my best friends, roommates and even other family members. The thing about relationships is that none of them are perfect; they're full of ups and downs, good days and bad days, moments when you can't get enough of someone and moments you wish they'd go away or stop bothering you or even read your mind to see what's really going on in your head and heart. There is love within all of our relationships, just different kinds. And marriage is another kind of relationship with yet another kind of love- ideally the ultimate romantic kind of love.
This week in class we talked about preparing for marriage- what goes into planning the wedding, what to expect and what to adjust to, and there are more things to think about than I originally thought! I thought I knew everything there was to adjust to because, as the youngest child in my family and only remaining single kid, I thought I'd basically seen it all. I'll never forget when one of my six sisters told me about how uncomfortable it was to go to the bathroom in front of her husband- "We were ok with peeing in front of each other, but pooping in front of each other took like a whole year." ???????????????????? In my teenage mind I was thinking "Why are you telling me this??!?" But I can see her point; there are a LOT of little things you have to adjust to that you may never have even thoughts were something that would be a topic of conversation or debate! While discussing all of those possible things to get used to with your spouse, I felt more motivated to make sure whoever I'm thinking about marrying is someone who I've dated for all four seasons (as my mother so wisely advised); I want to make sure I'm already aware of at least most of my future husband's habits before I marry him- how much money he's willing to spend on fun things versus practical things like groceries, how much time does he take for homework during the day and what kind of a work ethic does he have, is he clean and tidy with his food and belongings, if for some odd reason I ever see him take a nap does he snore or take up all the sheets, how easy is it for us to communicate and how quickly can we resolve things, does he need a lot of time to cool down before discussing something that's bothering him, does he turn up his car music or TV show a little too loud or soft for my liking, does he set multiple alarms because it takes a while to wake up or can he wake up after just the first one, is he a light or heavy sleeper, how does he feel about people coming over to his house, how much of a people-person or how social is he, etc. I wanna be sure I'm not too surprised at what I see (or hear or smell) after I say "I do".
One thing I've been thinking a lot about this week from our class discussions is weddings, especially my own. I'll admit, I do have a Pinterest board dedicated to "Wedding Ideas?" filled with decor, reception venues, proposal fantasy ideas, honeymoon ideas, engagement rings, the whole hullabaloo. I still remember when I started that board- I was visiting my sister in Alaska when she was about to have her baby, and I was so bored that I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon with other girls my age and start thinking about my future wedding. I've added little bits to it here and there in the past, but now it's one of my bigger boards just because of this week π In class, our teacher brought up an interesting fun fact he heard: the more expensive the engagement ring, the less likely the marriage will last long-term. I'm not completely sure where my opinion stands on that, but I can kinda see where the guy's coming from; if there's a ginormous ring dangling on the bride's finger, then there's probably going to be some suspicion about how materialistic she may be- is she high maintenance or even a gold digger? Maybe that's just me ;)
Whelp, as far as weddings go I may have some fun ideas as to what I'd like, but whenever I think about my own future wedding, I remember the last time one of my siblings got married: my brother Tim was about to be sealed in the Payson, Utah temple with his sweetheart the next day, and my sisters were talking about their weddings and how they felt on their 'wedding eves', and suddenly after comparing and contrasting each other's receptions and all the stress and planning that went into it, they all looked at me and said, "Sarah, don't even plan a wedding, it's so not worth it. Just take the money and RUN! Go off and thank everyone for wishing you well later." I can see some truth in that, but we'll see whether or not I heed their advice ;)
As fun as thinking about a wedding is and planning a reception and wondering how I'll decorate all the mason jars, I was glad to have another good reminder this week of the difference between the marriage and the wedding, and to remember to place the importance on the marriage. The whole celebration is about two people who've decided to love and cherish each other for forever, and as scary as that kind of commitment can be, it is still a reason to celebrate and rejoice in because love is all about commitment and loyalty and faith in each other. I'm excited to build my classic Frank Sinatra kind of relationship with my future sweetheart, cuz I don't wanna have love without marriage or a marriage without love :)
Saturday, October 27, 2018
What is Love? Baby don't hurt me...
"Love is a many splendid thing."
"Love lifts us up where we belong where eagles fly on a mountain high"
"Love makes us act like we are fools"
"Love is like oxygen"
"All you need is love"
"Love is patient, love is kind"
"Love is a lie"
"Love is when you can't stay mad at each other for long"
"Love is the golden Rule"
"Love is what makes the world go 'round"
Any of these sound familiar? How many times have we heard others or we ourselves attempted to define what love is? What are some definitions you've heard? Perhaps it's a scripture from the New Testament, perhaps it's a good old saying from a grandparent or parent, perhaps it's a definition that's gone through some evolution as you've evolved yourself with experience, perhaps your definition is cynical at this point. Whatever the case may be, I've discovered- from what (little) I've tried- that defining love with words is impossible.
I cannot think of one definition I've heard in a speech or a song or a conversation that perfectly defines love in its all-encompassing nature. However, I do believe that it is possible to define love through actions. We define how we show love and why we love someone/something by the way we treat that someone/thing.
This week in class we've been talking about the beginning processes to how families are formed: dating and marriage (*insert most quoted scene in movie history of the priest in The Princess Bride beginning the ceremony*). This was a super fun topic of the week, especially for us college students because it's even more personal and relevant to us. Dating alone was an intriguing discussion as classmates opened up about what they consider to be the definition of a "date", or even the term "dating"- should the guy always pay for everything, should the girl plan any of the dates, when people are "dating" does that mean they're exclusively together as boyfriend and girlfriend, etc. The deepest part of the week was when we moved onto engagement and marriage, specifically how to prep for it. Relating all this back to the topic of love, I think one of the most important concepts I learned was that when it comes to your romantic relationships, you CANNOT make proper judgments just going off of feelings.
Now, that alone seems like a controversial topic in and of itself. Doesn't loving someone mean you feel love for them? Aren't your feelings involved quite heavily when you're becoming attracted to someone? What about all those butterflies in the stomach things that seem to go hand in hand with falling in love?
Our teacher, Brother Williams, is seriously one of my favorite professors I've ever had. He's so energetic and really knows how to connect with his students, and I love the fact that his profession is marriage & family therapy- the very career in which I am interested in pursuing. I value his opinions highly because he has decades of experience as a therapist, and he's seen all the patterns of relationships, especially marriages, that can determine whether or not the relationship makes or breaks it. I loved when he said towards the end of class, "Stop trusting your feelings so much! Who in the world told us that we need to use our feelings to gauge our reality?!"I was inspired by his passion and how vehemently he implored us to see the bigger picture when it comes to our romantic relationships, and the see it for others as well. With what little experience I have with romantic relationships, I can testify alongside his words that that is SO true. I wish I was clever enough to come up with something to switch out the phrase "falling in love"; I've come to have a bad taste in my mouth about the idea of "falling" in love with someone. I certainly agree that you can love someone and not be in love with someone, but truly loving someone is no accident. There are countless, purposeful decisions made towards investing in that person because of some kind of attraction. I do believe love is meant to be very natural and it most certainly does involve our feelings, but our minds are very involved in the process of love. We decide how much time we want to spend with them, how much money to spend on them, how many pet names to refer to them as, where to go on dates, what to talk about, etc.
There was a book mentioned in class that I've yet to get into (just started it) called "How Not to Fall In Love With A Jerk", and the author became famous for what he refers to as the RAM- Relationship Attachment Model. I wish there were a way for me to draw it out here, but it's a model to illustrate the proper levels of certain feelings towards a special someone. The list goes (from left to right on the model) Know, Trust, Rely, Commit, Touch. The idea is that everything to the left should be higher than the one to the right; so you should know someone more than you trust them, you should trust them more than you rely on them, you should rely on them more than you commit to them, and you should be committed to them more than you touch them. I LOVE this model because it perfectly depicts what the ideal, most healthy romantic relationship should look like. All too often we mix these things up so it's completely backwards- there's a lot more touch than commitment, there's even less reliance, then even less trust, and even less knowledge about a person. You might trust the person you're macking on is a good kisser, but that's besides the point.
I've definitely been the girl who has all those attributes mixed up and been backwards in how my relationships with guys progressed, and thus they didn't progress. The important thing now is that I know I can work on these things, not in the sense that every new relationship can be a love laboratory where I use someone to better myself, but in a way it is like a laboratory; love is full of experiments that you don't always know are going to work, there's observations and testing done, and conclusions are drawn. Both partners are meant to be the scientists working on experiments together, mutually studying and working together to see if the experiment between each other works.
I hope that when I find my special someone someday, the man whom I'll marry and be an eternal teammate with, I can be smart enough to know how to run those tests and observe carefully. I know now better than before how to guard my heart and be careful with my romantic decisions because they do always have an impact on both parties of the relationship. I want to be aware of both of our realest intentions with each other and believe in wisdom more than compromise. I believe in love and I love love, and it's because I love the idea of being in love so much that I want to prepare myself for it by being a good, smart scientist:)
"Love lifts us up where we belong where eagles fly on a mountain high"
"Love makes us act like we are fools"
"Love is like oxygen"
"All you need is love"
"Love is patient, love is kind"
"Love is a lie"
"Love is when you can't stay mad at each other for long"
"Love is the golden Rule"
"Love is what makes the world go 'round"
Any of these sound familiar? How many times have we heard others or we ourselves attempted to define what love is? What are some definitions you've heard? Perhaps it's a scripture from the New Testament, perhaps it's a good old saying from a grandparent or parent, perhaps it's a definition that's gone through some evolution as you've evolved yourself with experience, perhaps your definition is cynical at this point. Whatever the case may be, I've discovered- from what (little) I've tried- that defining love with words is impossible.
I cannot think of one definition I've heard in a speech or a song or a conversation that perfectly defines love in its all-encompassing nature. However, I do believe that it is possible to define love through actions. We define how we show love and why we love someone/something by the way we treat that someone/thing.
This week in class we've been talking about the beginning processes to how families are formed: dating and marriage (*insert most quoted scene in movie history of the priest in The Princess Bride beginning the ceremony*). This was a super fun topic of the week, especially for us college students because it's even more personal and relevant to us. Dating alone was an intriguing discussion as classmates opened up about what they consider to be the definition of a "date", or even the term "dating"- should the guy always pay for everything, should the girl plan any of the dates, when people are "dating" does that mean they're exclusively together as boyfriend and girlfriend, etc. The deepest part of the week was when we moved onto engagement and marriage, specifically how to prep for it. Relating all this back to the topic of love, I think one of the most important concepts I learned was that when it comes to your romantic relationships, you CANNOT make proper judgments just going off of feelings.
Now, that alone seems like a controversial topic in and of itself. Doesn't loving someone mean you feel love for them? Aren't your feelings involved quite heavily when you're becoming attracted to someone? What about all those butterflies in the stomach things that seem to go hand in hand with falling in love?
Our teacher, Brother Williams, is seriously one of my favorite professors I've ever had. He's so energetic and really knows how to connect with his students, and I love the fact that his profession is marriage & family therapy- the very career in which I am interested in pursuing. I value his opinions highly because he has decades of experience as a therapist, and he's seen all the patterns of relationships, especially marriages, that can determine whether or not the relationship makes or breaks it. I loved when he said towards the end of class, "Stop trusting your feelings so much! Who in the world told us that we need to use our feelings to gauge our reality?!"I was inspired by his passion and how vehemently he implored us to see the bigger picture when it comes to our romantic relationships, and the see it for others as well. With what little experience I have with romantic relationships, I can testify alongside his words that that is SO true. I wish I was clever enough to come up with something to switch out the phrase "falling in love"; I've come to have a bad taste in my mouth about the idea of "falling" in love with someone. I certainly agree that you can love someone and not be in love with someone, but truly loving someone is no accident. There are countless, purposeful decisions made towards investing in that person because of some kind of attraction. I do believe love is meant to be very natural and it most certainly does involve our feelings, but our minds are very involved in the process of love. We decide how much time we want to spend with them, how much money to spend on them, how many pet names to refer to them as, where to go on dates, what to talk about, etc.
There was a book mentioned in class that I've yet to get into (just started it) called "How Not to Fall In Love With A Jerk", and the author became famous for what he refers to as the RAM- Relationship Attachment Model. I wish there were a way for me to draw it out here, but it's a model to illustrate the proper levels of certain feelings towards a special someone. The list goes (from left to right on the model) Know, Trust, Rely, Commit, Touch. The idea is that everything to the left should be higher than the one to the right; so you should know someone more than you trust them, you should trust them more than you rely on them, you should rely on them more than you commit to them, and you should be committed to them more than you touch them. I LOVE this model because it perfectly depicts what the ideal, most healthy romantic relationship should look like. All too often we mix these things up so it's completely backwards- there's a lot more touch than commitment, there's even less reliance, then even less trust, and even less knowledge about a person. You might trust the person you're macking on is a good kisser, but that's besides the point.
I've definitely been the girl who has all those attributes mixed up and been backwards in how my relationships with guys progressed, and thus they didn't progress. The important thing now is that I know I can work on these things, not in the sense that every new relationship can be a love laboratory where I use someone to better myself, but in a way it is like a laboratory; love is full of experiments that you don't always know are going to work, there's observations and testing done, and conclusions are drawn. Both partners are meant to be the scientists working on experiments together, mutually studying and working together to see if the experiment between each other works.
I hope that when I find my special someone someday, the man whom I'll marry and be an eternal teammate with, I can be smart enough to know how to run those tests and observe carefully. I know now better than before how to guard my heart and be careful with my romantic decisions because they do always have an impact on both parties of the relationship. I want to be aware of both of our realest intentions with each other and believe in wisdom more than compromise. I believe in love and I love love, and it's because I love the idea of being in love so much that I want to prepare myself for it by being a good, smart scientist:)
What Your Class Says About You/Your Family
So this post is LONG overdue, but not only do I have to get this done for a grade but this topic was actually really interesting to me. For this topic's week (yes I meant that, not this week's topic) we studied how class can affect family life.
There was yet another movie that kept coming back to my mind, but instead of a cheesy church musical it was F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I love this story because it perfectly depicts a world obsessed with materialism and wealth, and the main character, Jay Gatsby, is the illustration of what can happen when climbing the social ladder becomes one's #1 priority. The sad part-or maybe I should say the ugly truth- about the story is that the story also reveals a truth that not many people know or understand, and that is that if you don't start out with the high class life, you'll never be accepted into the high class life. There's a series of fascinating videos that are all compiled into a documentary made back in the early 2000's, possibly even late 90's, called "People Like Us" that investigates and interviews all kinds of people from different parts of America from all different classes (these links are my personal favorites, most intriguing to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvibi2Cph-E&list=PLC6D871A2A8C3C8EF&index=3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf2dScTlvOQ&list=PLC6D871A2A8C3C8EF&index=7). The story that made the biggest impact on viewers was the story of a woman named Tammy who lives in a small town in Ohio with her 3 children. They live in a trailer with hardly any appliances or furnishings, and Tammy has been working at Burger King for almost two decades. They don't have a car so Tammy walks 10 miles to work and 10 miles back every single day, two hours each way by foot. She revealed that she wanted to be a teacher and she hoped to go to college and get a degree so she could teach at an elementary school, but according to the latest video made four years ago, she's still working at Burger King, still walking for hours a day. The follow-up, 'where are they now' video showed the kids living a similar life to their mother; some got into drugs and lost jobs, got their girlfriends pregnant in high school and now have a child to take care of, and have low-income/minimum wage jobs. It was sad to see this story because watching anyone barely getting by and living a poor lifestyle is hard for anyone to see, and you naturally take pity on them. Watching Tammy made me think about the 18 months I spent in Nevada as a missionary, and to be completely honest with you one of the things I remember the most about my mission was the concept of social class.
In the beginning of my mission I started off in Elko, a quaint little town somewhat close to the border of Utah, and this place seemed to have low to middle class people. I saw mostly the same social demographic in the ward in which I served, but there were plenty of times we'd be out knocking doors in the trailer park part of town, 'the other side of the tracks', meeting people who were hardly ever well-educated, they didn't always have straight teeth, they spent a lot of time just sitting outside, it wasn't hard to differentiate the type of people who were lower class and the people who were higher class- not just because of where they lived, but because of their choices of behavior and the way they generally carry themselves. The longer I was on my mission, I progressively moved up the social ladder, in a sense; I gradually moved from a relatively poor area to areas filled with people of higher and higher class, so by the time I was ending my mission I was knocking on heavy double doors with statues of lions or pillars behind us- I felt like the houses we were visiting were mansions! As a missionary, you meet dozens of different people every day, and you come away with thousands of stories to tell about the fun and crazy people you come across. But one thing I decided to observe specifically was the differences in lifestyles of how people lived; when people come over, how do the kids react, are they respectful and inviting, do they yell for mom or dad to come? When guests come over for dinner do they bother to set the table, does one of the family members invite you to sit down in their living room to make polite small talk before the meal, is the living room cleaned up at all, do the family members take any notice of the general cleanliness of the home? How do they talk to each other and/or to strangers? How do they start and end conversations on the phone? Do they mumble or slur their words? Do they tend to talk about negative things and complain? How do they dress? How often do they smile? Does their aura seem warm and inviting or reserved or even cold? I tried to look at everything and decide what things I liked or did not like, and I also compared what I saw to the home I grew up in.
I never in my life considered my family to be well-off, and I still don't; I think both of my parents are hardworking people who have very high expectations for themselves and their children, but they've never shown any kind of desire for materialism or wealth. Despite having 8 kids, my parents always provided for us and we never went without food or clothes. I still remember while my mom and I were driving around running errands and we were coming home, I was thinking about how my mom was willing to buy me a new dress that day even though we didn't intentionally go into the department store to get me anything. I guess at that age I was starting to think about things associated with money, and I tried to articulate a way of asking my mother why she was willing to do that. I'll never forget how she responded to me, even though I don't remember verbatim what she said, but I remember that she expressed her desire to make sure her children looked nice. She said there was no reason all eight of her kids couldn't wear nice dresses and suits to church and "every once in a while" get a new pair of shoes, or wear clean cut shirts and well-fitted pants to school. She said that she believes appearance is important (still does) and that if we look good, then we'll feel good. I've never forgotten that conversation because it changed the way I looked at my family; I saw my appearance as even more important than before, that not only was it important to me to wear something shiny or made me feel like a princess, but I realized that my appearance actually meant something. My choice of appearance was a symbol of who I was.
This topic has been on my mind a lot because it presents (again) an ugly truth about society. Gatsby may have climbed his way up to the top of the social ladder through selling booze and going to the right schools and getting the right connections, but even after spending a lifetime of climbing, he was never accepted by those who'd already been partying at the top rung. The same is true today; no matter how much you study and primp and prep yourself to become part of a higher social class, it's REALLY REALLY REALLY hard to be accepted at the top by those who have been living there all along.
My personal takeaway from all this is not that I want to try climbing any kind of social ladder to challenge that theory, but that I want to make sure that no matter what class I am or marry into, I want my behaviors to be uplifting to others; I want to build a home and family life that's inviting and accepting of all others, that makes people feel comfortable but not necessarily luxurious.
There was yet another movie that kept coming back to my mind, but instead of a cheesy church musical it was F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I love this story because it perfectly depicts a world obsessed with materialism and wealth, and the main character, Jay Gatsby, is the illustration of what can happen when climbing the social ladder becomes one's #1 priority. The sad part-or maybe I should say the ugly truth- about the story is that the story also reveals a truth that not many people know or understand, and that is that if you don't start out with the high class life, you'll never be accepted into the high class life. There's a series of fascinating videos that are all compiled into a documentary made back in the early 2000's, possibly even late 90's, called "People Like Us" that investigates and interviews all kinds of people from different parts of America from all different classes (these links are my personal favorites, most intriguing to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvibi2Cph-E&list=PLC6D871A2A8C3C8EF&index=3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf2dScTlvOQ&list=PLC6D871A2A8C3C8EF&index=7). The story that made the biggest impact on viewers was the story of a woman named Tammy who lives in a small town in Ohio with her 3 children. They live in a trailer with hardly any appliances or furnishings, and Tammy has been working at Burger King for almost two decades. They don't have a car so Tammy walks 10 miles to work and 10 miles back every single day, two hours each way by foot. She revealed that she wanted to be a teacher and she hoped to go to college and get a degree so she could teach at an elementary school, but according to the latest video made four years ago, she's still working at Burger King, still walking for hours a day. The follow-up, 'where are they now' video showed the kids living a similar life to their mother; some got into drugs and lost jobs, got their girlfriends pregnant in high school and now have a child to take care of, and have low-income/minimum wage jobs. It was sad to see this story because watching anyone barely getting by and living a poor lifestyle is hard for anyone to see, and you naturally take pity on them. Watching Tammy made me think about the 18 months I spent in Nevada as a missionary, and to be completely honest with you one of the things I remember the most about my mission was the concept of social class.
In the beginning of my mission I started off in Elko, a quaint little town somewhat close to the border of Utah, and this place seemed to have low to middle class people. I saw mostly the same social demographic in the ward in which I served, but there were plenty of times we'd be out knocking doors in the trailer park part of town, 'the other side of the tracks', meeting people who were hardly ever well-educated, they didn't always have straight teeth, they spent a lot of time just sitting outside, it wasn't hard to differentiate the type of people who were lower class and the people who were higher class- not just because of where they lived, but because of their choices of behavior and the way they generally carry themselves. The longer I was on my mission, I progressively moved up the social ladder, in a sense; I gradually moved from a relatively poor area to areas filled with people of higher and higher class, so by the time I was ending my mission I was knocking on heavy double doors with statues of lions or pillars behind us- I felt like the houses we were visiting were mansions! As a missionary, you meet dozens of different people every day, and you come away with thousands of stories to tell about the fun and crazy people you come across. But one thing I decided to observe specifically was the differences in lifestyles of how people lived; when people come over, how do the kids react, are they respectful and inviting, do they yell for mom or dad to come? When guests come over for dinner do they bother to set the table, does one of the family members invite you to sit down in their living room to make polite small talk before the meal, is the living room cleaned up at all, do the family members take any notice of the general cleanliness of the home? How do they talk to each other and/or to strangers? How do they start and end conversations on the phone? Do they mumble or slur their words? Do they tend to talk about negative things and complain? How do they dress? How often do they smile? Does their aura seem warm and inviting or reserved or even cold? I tried to look at everything and decide what things I liked or did not like, and I also compared what I saw to the home I grew up in.
I never in my life considered my family to be well-off, and I still don't; I think both of my parents are hardworking people who have very high expectations for themselves and their children, but they've never shown any kind of desire for materialism or wealth. Despite having 8 kids, my parents always provided for us and we never went without food or clothes. I still remember while my mom and I were driving around running errands and we were coming home, I was thinking about how my mom was willing to buy me a new dress that day even though we didn't intentionally go into the department store to get me anything. I guess at that age I was starting to think about things associated with money, and I tried to articulate a way of asking my mother why she was willing to do that. I'll never forget how she responded to me, even though I don't remember verbatim what she said, but I remember that she expressed her desire to make sure her children looked nice. She said there was no reason all eight of her kids couldn't wear nice dresses and suits to church and "every once in a while" get a new pair of shoes, or wear clean cut shirts and well-fitted pants to school. She said that she believes appearance is important (still does) and that if we look good, then we'll feel good. I've never forgotten that conversation because it changed the way I looked at my family; I saw my appearance as even more important than before, that not only was it important to me to wear something shiny or made me feel like a princess, but I realized that my appearance actually meant something. My choice of appearance was a symbol of who I was.
This topic has been on my mind a lot because it presents (again) an ugly truth about society. Gatsby may have climbed his way up to the top of the social ladder through selling booze and going to the right schools and getting the right connections, but even after spending a lifetime of climbing, he was never accepted by those who'd already been partying at the top rung. The same is true today; no matter how much you study and primp and prep yourself to become part of a higher social class, it's REALLY REALLY REALLY hard to be accepted at the top by those who have been living there all along.
My personal takeaway from all this is not that I want to try climbing any kind of social ladder to challenge that theory, but that I want to make sure that no matter what class I am or marry into, I want my behaviors to be uplifting to others; I want to build a home and family life that's inviting and accepting of all others, that makes people feel comfortable but not necessarily luxurious.
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