Life Goals

A co worker was talking to me about life the other day. One thing that really irritates me about the culture I live in is the fact that if you’re 25 and not married it means you’re a problem to society. Brigham Young said this, but directed it to the men of the church who were focusing on worldly things instead of marrying and settling down to have a family. Recently the church has started publishing Ensign articles dedicated to those of the church who are single. Many of us don’t remain single by choice. I’m only 23 but I’m starting to feel the fiery bullets whizzing past my head by many members who are already married and settled at my age. It’s not fair that I’m only 23 and am already feeling this pressure to hurry and get married! It’s seriously a depressing thought that I’m not married yet. But then I remind myself that most people outside of the Utah “bubble” aren’t married at my age and are in fact still completing college and taking on the world. This weekend was an extreme low point for me. These past 3 weeks have been hard. People don’t realize the hurt they do to others when they criticize others because they aren’t married. It’s not like I’m not out there trying to meet people! I am trying! But there’s only so much I can do. I’m not going to marry some loser just to satisfy the objective to get married. I’m not that desperate!

Anyway, my co worker and I were discussing how other than marriage I really have no life goals. It’s true. My only goals in life were simply :

• go on a mission
• get an apartment
• go to college
• buy a car
• get married

In all reality, I really just wanted to be independent and to sum it up “an adult”… Well I’m an adult now. Are all my life goals complete off that list? All but the getting married part. What do I do if I don’t get married? Well the co worker asked me that – I had no plan B. I’m not saying I never will but if I end up never having that chance or it is a while before I do, am I stuck sitting day in day out depressed because I didn’t.

So I’ve started thinking about it more lately… At first I wanted to join the Marines, and a part of me still does, but I don’t know how realistic it is… I’m chicken of killing people, and to be a trained killer kind of freaks me out.

So I’m starting to think of a list now of things that I’d like to do eventually in my life… The things that are stared are what I’ve done already. I’ll add more. If you have ideas of things to do, let me know.

ACCOMPLISH

• Fly an air plane
• Drive a race car
• Ride an elephant
• Pet a lion, tiger, and cheetah
• Write a book and have it published
• Have one of my pieces of art or a design placed in a highly viewed museum or printed in a nationally published magazine.
• Become recognized for something I’ve created (book, art, photography).
• Learn to speak French, Spanish, Tongan, German, Italian, Navajo, and Hebrew
• Learn to read Hebrew, French, German, and Spanish
• Read the Bible cover to cover
• * Read the Book of Mormon
• * Read the Doctrine & Covenants
• * Read the Pearl of Great Price
• * Serve a mission for my church
• Learn to milk a cow
• Plant a garden and watch it grow
• Hike a mountain
• Go on an LDS History Tour
• Graduate College with my BFA and a 4.0 GPA
• Obtain my Masters degree in Art.
• Hit Bulls Eye with a riffle and hand gun.
• Marry
• Have children

Sightseeing

• Travel to Egypt
• See the Nile River
• Travel to Spain
• Travel to England
• Climb up Big Ben
• Visit Buckingham Palace
• Visit Kensington Palace
• Visit the London Aquarium
• Visit the Design Museum
• Visit the House of Parliament
  
• See John Lennon’s grave
  
• Travel to Israel
• See the Wailing Wall
• See Mesada
• See the Dome of the Rock
• Visit the Garden
• Travel to Australia
• Travel to Tonga
• Travel to Hawaii
• Travel to Ireland
• Travel to Switzerland
• Travel to Germany
• Visit the Holocaust Memorial
  
• See K Iner Dom
• See St. Michael’s Church
• Visit Residenz
• Visit Schloss Charlottenburg
• Visit Brandenburger Tor
  
• Travel to Tahiland
• See Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep
• Visit Ancient Town
• Visit Lumpini Park
• Visit Ayutthaya
• Visit Queen Sirikit Botanical Gardens
• Visit Patong Beach
• Visit Wat Chalong
• Visit Mae Sa Elephant Training Center
• Visit Wat Chedi Luang
• Visit Golden Triangle
• Visit Mae Rim Monkey School
• Visit the Tribal Museum
  
• Travel to Sweden
• Visit the National Museum of Fine Arts
  
• Travel to Poland
• Travel to France
• Travel to Itally
• Travel to Russia
• Visit Kermlin
• Visit Red Square
• See the Monument of Peter the Great
• Visit St. Issac’s Cathedral
  
• Visit St. Basil’s Cathedral
• Visit Kazan Cathedral
• Visit Peterhof
• Visit Khram Spasa na Krovi
• Visit the Cathedral of Assumption (Uspenskii Sobor)
• Visit Trinity Cathedral
• Visit Marinskii Palace
• See Narva Gate
  
• Travel to Austria
• Travel to Scotland
• Travel to Denmark
• Travel to India
• See the Taj Mahal
• See Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus
• See the Babulnath Temple
• Visit the Mambadevi Temple
• * Travel to California
• * Travel to New York
• * Travel to Maine
• * Travel to New Hampshire
• * Travel to Mass.
• Travel to Florida

California – is it calling me home?

About a year ago I went to San Diego, California for a week and had a great time.  Ever since then I feel like I keep being called back.  My life right now is in Utah… I work here at the corporate headquarters as a graphic designer for my company.  They don’t have anywhere else they do their designing – just in Utah, even if it is a nationally published book.  I’m going to school here.  Really, those are the only things keeping me here.  Yeah, family is here, but family is also in Boston and New York – so I’m not so torn on moving farther away.

I wonder why I keep having this feeling to go back there.  Maybe it’s
because I really loved the place when I visited and nothing more… The beaches, the sights, the entertainment… I don’t know… Maybe it’s nothing…  I just don’t know why I feel like I need to go back there. It’s not like I wouldn’t be able to find a career out there.  I’m a graphic designer! California is the hub for anything artsy like that.  Heck, PIXAR is there, and we all know I’d love to work for them.  I’d probably have a better time finding work there than I have in Utah…  My job now is probably the farthest I’d ever go in Utah.  It’s good, but I’m not sure if it’s that good.  I’d eventually love to open my own design house.  But I don’t even have my BFA and I’d like to do that before I try finding a fantastic career…

Uh… Why do I keep feeling like this?

The Move

On Sunday the 20th I received a blessing from my dad. I had a horrible date that Friday and was just about fed up with the whole dating experience. I was told not to worry, that my experiences were to teach me how to communicate with the opposite sex. I was then shocked when I was told to focus on moving. I hadn’t planned at all to move before! Why would I need to move? So I did as told and started to look for apartments.

Thursday night my ex and my room mate’s ex came over to play games and watch a movie. During the movie my room mate’s ex kept texting me… “jokingly” about how he wanted to kiss me. I told him we needed to talk. After the movie he waited around to talk to me, but my room mate wouldn’t leave. Eventually he left but called and asked to meet me around the corner. My room mate had called him moments before I got his call and demanded yet again for the umteenth time since they broke up 3 months ago to tell her why they’d broken up. He’d told her several times but it was never the answer she wanted to hear. She asked me to talk to him and find out why she and he had broken up.

When I met him we sat in his car and I waited for him to talk. Folding my arms awaiting the “I was joking, I don’t want to lead you on” talk, I was shocked when instead I was told “Everything I wrote you was true.”

I asked how long he’d felt that way and he announced “For a while.” I had no clue as to what to say. I sat there and couldn’t even look at him. Eventually I did and he looked extremely scared and worried as to what I’d say. At that moment we leaned in and kissed. There are no words to describe it. It then started to seem too fast so I pushed him away and asked if we could walk outside. We got out and then made our way to the back of my parked car to talk. “Why did the two of you break up?”

“That’s really complicated” he announced. He started to apologize profusely. I kept telling him to stop but he couldn’t. I asked for some time to think about what had just happened.

When I got home I couldn’t even walk in the door, I knew my room mate would be waiting for me to report on what he’d talked to me about.
I punched the wall then opened the door and made my way to my room. She had left her bedroom door wide open – my room is right next to her’s. She woke quickly and asked what happened. How could I tell her I’d just kissed her ex? So I lied. “He wouldn’t talk. I asked him why you broke up and he said it was complicated and that was it. We just sat there.”

I went into my room and cried. I’d just lied to my friend! That week I was plagued with the idea of her ever finding out. I talked to him on Saturday and asked if we could tell her and he said he didn’t ever want her to know, no matter what. This weighed even heavier to me that him.

Wednesday we spoke again and I’d come to decide that I didn’t want to be in a relationship just yet. It was too fast. He came over and I spoke to him in person. My room mate had left to do laundry at her parent’s house. We decided to go out onto the balcony to talk, it’d be more private. We spoke for a good hour or so.  Apparently he had come up with the same idea as well.  He took my hand in his sadly and we went back inside. We sat down on the couch and started watching a movie together. He kept poking me and I’d playfully poke him back. He grabbed my hand and held it. He then looked to me and I at him and we watched each other. I didn’t move. He leaned in and kissed me. When I started kissing back the front door swung open and an excited voice said “Hello!” glad to be home… It was my room mate. We quickly pulled apart and my room mate ran with her laundry basket to her room. A few seconds later she dashed down the hall and out the door, slamming it behind her.

We sat there stunned. She was angry. I knew she was and I understood why she’d be. I didn’t know what to do. We tried calling here but understandably she wouldn’t answer. He was scared and so decided to leave. I followed him outside and announced to him how this was a horrible situation to put me in which I don’t think he understood. I was her friend, we lived together, she confided in me about their relationship, and now caught me kissing him in our living room. She’d told the world he never gave her a reason as to why they broke up and now it looked like I was the one who ended the relationship or I’d cheated with him. He quickly responded back that it wasn’t true and I told him that it was easy for her to say that now. He told me “I’ve given her the reason. She knows why. But it’s not what she wanted to hear.”

We said goodbye and he left. I quickly went to my room and locked myself in. I called my mom and she told me that I shouldn’t feel bad because they’d broken up and she had no claim on him. Yes, that was true. But I was now worried that I’d become the mistress in the whole affair. The idea of moving was now making sense.

He texted me a few minutes later and reiterated how he didn’t want to be in a relationship. I was annoyed! Why would us being caught change my mind about us being in a relationship!?

Yesterday I was chewed out by a guy in our ward who knew us and was best friends with my room mate’s ex. I was brought lower than the dust. I was told he’d lost all respect for me which upset me because he didn’t know what happened! We yelled and screamed and then finally he started to cool down after I told him what happened. He encouraged me to write a letter explaining what had happened and leaving it on her door. If she wanted to talk, eventually, I was there to talk.

I wrote the letter then put it on her door. She had taken it down this morning and left the house.

I guess where I stand is very different from a lot of people in this culture. As an adult you let go of someone once you break up and understand that they will find someone new. I had NEVER thought of dating him while they were together and didn’t even ponder the thought until he’d told me to think about it last Thursday. I don’t feel badly that he and I were thinking about a relationship or that we’d kissed. It wasn’t like I was his rebound and make-out buddy which seems to happen a lot more than you think. This was actually two best friends discussing possibly evolving a friendship into something more.

Yes, I understand her view point. She feels betrayed, hurt, humiliated because she’d confided in me all this time and then to catch me kissing him. She didn’t know how long this had been going on. He imagination could go wild at that moment! And obviously it had.

But my point is, it was only 5 days! And out of those 5 days, we’d kissed and spoken in person twice.

She wanted to marry him – he didn’t want to marry her. The poor girl smothered him! This happens in the “LDS” culture. A 19 year old girl will think her next step is marriage and quickly flock to any man who gives her the littlest bit of attention. A lot of these couples marry purely so they can have sex. A lot also marry because that’s what their parents have ingrained in their brains since infancy. Marriage comes before sex. Yes? Anyway, she smothered him. She tried TOO hard and eventually had her heart smashed when he announced though he thought she was a wonderful girl, he couldn’t marry her. They weren’t right for each other. He’d prayed, gone to see his bishop, and really thought about it too. To her, it was out of the blue. But because he’d confided in me several times while dating her that he was worried that they weren’t compatible, it didn’t shock me. I even tried to impress the idea of slowing down on her… It didn’t work. Everything they did was a sign of marriage. Look also at the fact that she was 19, he was 25. They dated from January 1 to mid May. I’m 23. I never dated him but talked to him occasionally. The only time I hung out with them was when she invited him over.

So now here I am, stuck in the middle of all this jam and I really don’t want to be. But I’ll be here if I have to. I feel sorry she found out the way she did, but I don’t feel sorry I thought about dating him. I’m sorry if that sounds cruel, but it’s the truth. I’m not in a relationship with him.

Management at my complex have moved me a building over. I’m in a different ward now, which is good. I really don’t mind either way now… Well Heavenly Father… I’m moving.