You Mean I'm Not Perfect??

As old as I keep getting, I never really seem to learn anything.

Why do I spout off hurtful vendettas without thinking things through first? I don't know, really. There are two sides to every story (sometimes three or four, if you're CSI: Miami), but I am the tunnel vision kind of girl who only sees my own misfortunes. Quite the victim, aren't I?

Tunnel vision kind of girl. That's the point, really. I'm still quite a little girl. It's true--I don't feel like a grown up at all, most days. I go on and on about how disappointed I am in people--in the state of the world these days. Yet sometimes, when I step back and look at my own life, I realise I'm quite the biggest disappointment of all.

It's all very distressing. I mean, think of it: imagine if you lived your life all day every day, thinking you knew exactly what people are going through and what they should do to fix themselves, and the whole world has major problems, and people just need to get over it. Then imagine that one evening as you're flossing your teeth (which everyone ought to be doing), it is called to your attention that maybe--just maybe--you might have some issues of your own. Maybe you're a big jerk when all is said and done...maybe you're all talk. Maybe you're 21 years old and still acting like a child.

Maybe you're too harsh on the seemingly incompetent clerks at the homogenise-the-world chain stores who wear blue vests with yellow smiley-faced pins; maybe they have lives and hate their jobs and don't really care whether or not you can't find strike-anywhere matches (which are not by the barbecue supplies, just for the record). Maybe people with children aren't the enemy, and they aren't judging you for not wanting any of your own. Maybe old ladies at church don't think they're being crotchety at all, and Becca Flunt* truly did think you stole her graphing calculator. Maybe the sky isn't intentionally pouring down powdery white stuff just to get even with you.

Maybe all the mean comments "anonymous" makes on your blog is exactly right: Maybe "anonymous" is much more clever than yourself.

And think what a shock it is to the system--to go from so right to totally, undeniably wrong.

I don't know quite what to make of it, actually.

{Farce}

Something's going on between China and Tibet--I don't know what, exactly, but the Dalai Lama is involved, so I'm guessing it's big salami [do they have salami in Asia?].

Watching all of this political turbulence on the news (combined with the tumultuous and heart-wrenching music of The Beatles on American Idol) has moved me to the realisation of something very grave indeed:

I don't have a cause.

Oh, sure, I'm going green and all that, but really all I do is recycle, use fluorescent light bulbs and buy new appliances. I don't picket billion-dollar enterprises or attend conferences or raise my own free-range chickens. I don't take my own grocery bags to the market, buy organic anything, or store leftovers in glass containers.

In other words, I'm a farce.

I want to be passionate about something. Not anything annoying like timeshares or geneology (I hate getting accosted by timeshare people and genealogists), but...something. I want to wake up and hop out of bed ready to lobby--go to war, so to speak. I want to work hard and endlessly for a purpose, whether it be saving the seals and eels, liberalizing women of the third world, or protecting our rain forests. I need a cause.

Know what I crave? Upheaval. If I'd been born in the '60s or '70s, I'm sure I would have attended sit-ins, protests, marches and the like--I thrive on that kind of drama. I'd have likely been arrested...more than once. I wouldn't have done drugs, of course, but I would have surely acted high--high on the action.

The only problem is...there are so many problems--so many good causes. Which one is noblest? Which one is likely to be resolved? Onto which bandwagon can I hop?

And, most importantly...what will enrage me enough to keep up the motivation?

We're Expecting...

All right. I've kept my secret long enough, I think. My mother-in-law spilled the beans anyway, in her comment on my previous post; I might as well get out with the news.

A while back, Kyle and I drove three hours south to meet with several different specialists. We'd been doing our research for a few weeks, and finally decided to take the plunge. Our lives, though exciting and joyful already, just seemed to be missing something--we were incomplete.

Since then, everything has changed around here--we've embarked on a journey that I never thought I would take. So new, so exciting...and honestly, I don't know how we didn't do it sooner.

No, I'm not with child.

Any guesses?

Here are a few hints:

Still confused about what has made my life complete?

How about now?

Ahh...laundry has never been so thrilling. When we got them home and installed them (anyone in need of two cardboard boxes the size of a small palace?), it was like the whole world stopped. We plugged in the washer, turned it on, and a quietness washed over our house. Suddenly, nothing else mattered.


Slowly, Kyle reached out and pressed the play button (that's right--our new washer and dryer don't "start," they "play." Because it's such an amazing experience to watch--way better than any sci-fi I've ever seen.). We froze, entranced by its back-lit LED lights and sing-song chirp of turning on.


As it sprang into action, I could tell my life was about to change forever. "Ooh," I squealed with delight, "look what it's doing! There goes the water--oh my gosh, the steam! It really works..."

"It's amazing," Kyle said, awestruck. Then, like a proud new father, he made a show of filling up the soap compartment with our new liquid detergent and waiting as the washer decided what type of cycle we'd be using. That's right--it has a sensor. For sensing that sort of thing.

Seriously, I don't think any baby we could possibly produce would measure up to the twins.

You know what they say...firstborns are forever favoured. [I made that up.]

p.s. The twins are so beautiful that I've been inspired to make laundry day the highlight of my week. Hence the dryer sheets removed from the tacky bright orange Costco package and displayed lovingly in a wire basket. It's such a brilliant idea, I almost didn't share it.

Letter to My Life

I am stingy with the word "love." Real stingy. It took me so long (and so many boyfriends) to come to my own conclusion about the meaning of "love" that I don't just toss the word around like pretzels. I try to cherish it--reserve it for the real deal, if you will.

In honour of St. Valentine's Day (a holiday I struggle with normally), I've decided to conquer my petty misgivings by writing a series of love letters. To institutions, things, and people that I really do love. Today's is about life.

Dear My Life,

I love you. I love the direction you've taken over the past 12 months. I love where you and I have ended up. We're in the right place for us right now.

It's been hard, to be sure. I miss home. I miss family. I miss The Familiar. The Comfort Zone. The carne asadas and QTs. Every time I go back, it gets harder to leave.

Sometimes I complain about you, My Life. I get disgruntled with the sky. I get frustrated with my husband--nobody ever warned me how hard it would be to communicate with the testosterone of it all. Sometimes I get so discouraged about where I am and who I'm with that all I can do is curse you, My Life. It doesn't really make me feel better. Not when I know the good in you outweighs the bad, one hundred to one...

How many women are free to do what they want, when they want? Not many. I love that I'm young and (for the most part) still energetic. I love that my time is my own--not my kid's. I love that I have so much: so much family...so much to be thankful for. I love that I can afford to shop at Costco; it's my very favourite.

But my love for you goes deeper, Life. I love that you've taught me to have compassion over the years. Good heavens, how I worried as a teenager that I'd never be able to feel compassion. It was a hard lesson to teach me, I'm sure; presenting me with a grandfather who grew slowly more feeble--did you have to stoop so low?


He meant so much to me; I miss him every day. Couldn't you have taught me compassion some other way? Probably not.

I love that you've grown with me--it takes more to fulfill you than it did a few years ago, but I've tried to pack you with good experiences.

In our travels about the world, I've learned so much about you, My Life; and so much about other peoples' lives.

I guess this is overly-optimistic (which I generally try to avoid being, because of the guaranteed disappointments), and totally cheesy, but I'm not naive. I know you are going to become more difficult--more complicated. It's a fact of you.


But I'm looking forward to the challenges you will bring, and I hope I can rise to meet them. I can't wait to spend the rest of you with you. Does that make any sense?

My Life is good.

I love Life.

Sincerely,

Me

The Me in Me

In honour (or maybe a better term would be "begrudging acknowledgment") of St. Valentine's Day this week, I am going to write a series of love letters.

But first, a tangent:

Perhaps people may be wondering why I don't seem to care much for St. Valentine's Day. "What has she got to whine about? She's newly married and brimming with bliss. This should be her best St. Valentine's Day ever." Yes. It should. But. I still cringe when I think back to the fifth grade when I had to give everyone a Scooby Doo valentine, even Evelyn who brought her mom to the "Talk About our Bodies" day at school [and "talk about our bodies" they did {I've hated "the awkward" for as long as I can remember}]. Of course there were the insecurities that maybe I wouldn't get valentines from everyone, which would be the ultimate disgrace, since it would mean the other kids would be going out of their way to snub me. And then there was the sting of disappointment when, really, none of those valentines were at all juicy or exciting. No budding romances to be had.

Then in junior high and high school, I suffered through the oh-so-common indignities of not receiving any Cuddle Bugs or Cootie Cuties or whatever it was that, like, the Pom & Cheer club totally sold for, like, only a dollar, right? Y'know? Pom & Cheer girls got out of homeroom to deliver these secret admirer valentines. I remember Jazlee and Lorna and Rachel and the gang would always get gaggles of goodies, whereas I really...didn't. It was fine, though, because I was raised by clever parents who taught me that literacy was a Great and Natural Escape. So I wrote poems--bitter diatribes for me and my fellow "slighted" girls. Bitterness works wonders; it heals all wounds. I really believe that.

If Lindsey would ever get her act together and clean out the shed and find for me "Ode to St. Valentine's Day," I would gladly post it here for all to read. It was a real masterpiece. I think it started out:

Pain, misery, squalor and muck,
All of these qualities prove that boys suck.

Or something. Later on, it seemed that no matter how many dates I accepted or boys I kissed, I always ended up "between relationships" on the 14th of February. Which is no fun at all, for a young adult who otherwise dated often enough. The more thought I gave it, the more it bothered me that the world would have the nerve to announce a holiday in honour of love. Why was it necessary to give flowers on a holiday? Being the exact same thing all the lovers worldwide are doing, I soon came to think of the tradition as cliché, blasé, and a variety of other chic-sounding French words. And two years ago, four months after meeting Kyle, we got into one of the biggest fights of our relationship of St. Valentine's Day, because of my forward-thinking ideas and notions. It was wretched.

This year, though, I am married {weird}. High on love and drowning in all my newlywed bliss, right? It should be the best St. Valentine's Day of my life. But the me in me won't get my hopes up. I'm almost more married to the bitterness than I am to Poor Kyle--let's face it: I've known it longer and more intimately.

So that's it. All the gory details of why I struggle with the holiday that we all know and...love?

In the end, it wasn't a tangent at all, but my entire post.

[Comfort Music]

Blogging five days a week is a real drag.

Aren't you all sick of my blog? I'm sick of my blog.

We got back to Canada today. I could go on and on about how bloomin' cold it is here, or how I miss the green winter lawns of my home state, or I could talk about That Baby some more...but it would be redundant, really. We all know I thrive in Mesa; we all know I enjoy green grass; and we all really know I love That Baby more than I ever thought I would be able to love any human child.

But I won't bore you with it all over again.

I realised something on my long drive up to Canada. During the winter, I've noticed a lot of cooking blogs post recipes for "comfort food." Dishes like beef stroganoff, vegetable stew, and piping hot lasagna are supposed to take us back to "the good ol' days" and make us forget all our cares (like snow tires and frozen windshield wiper fluid).

I have always totally believed in--and supported--the notion of comfort food. And I got to thinking on the drive up to the north country, as I flipped through songs on my iPod while scanning a cooking magazine, "Aha! Comfort music!"

Comfort music. Songs, albums, or playlists that we've known forever, or that got us through a particularly hard time (read: and icy-cold Canadian winter). For example, my dear friend Chelsie sent me a mix of songs two years ago when I was living here in Canada (before I knew I'd really be living here in Canada someday). It was the perfect blend of Relient K, Rent, Wicked, and random Canadian songs; I listened to it over and over and over, and I have no doubt that I might've not survived being so far from home without it.

That's comfort music.

And Billy Joel--pretty much every song he ever wrote is comfort music to me. I was introduced to his musical genius back in seventh grade, and since then, there has never been a time when I haven't embraced his music [unlike various "it" bands, like the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears, who came and went faster than any kid could get through high school].

If you don't have any comfort music, get some. I am convinced that comfort music is an absolute necessity for these winter months--every bit as important as scarves and touques and chicken noodle soup. If you haven't heard Piano Man by Billy Joel--hear it. Borrow it as your own comfort music until you find your own.

And if you already know what comfort music means to you...do tell.

{Learning}

Here's something people might not guess about me: I was wild in my youth.

Not wild wild. I never had any desire to drink or do drugs (though there was a phase during my teenagehood that I considered planting a pack of cigarettes in my bedroom just so my parents would think I was wayward, thus making anything "bad" I did afterwards not seem so bad after all. [I never did follow through with that notion. I guess it wasn't such a great idea. They probably would have shipped me off to Dr. Phil's boot camp]).

No, my wildness was fairly mild. [That's right--I was a mild wild child.] Basically I was just...off the walls. Hyper. Enthusiastic. Passionate. Enigmatic. Psycho.

Adults hated me, essentially.

If I--as an adult--had known me then, I would have hated me. I mean, just look at me:


I was the girl who made even the most stalwart primary teachers beg to be released (there's a true story to back me up on that one). Every time I run into someone who used to be in our ward, I cringe--they always start out saying, "You're Camille? Camille Strate? Man...I remember when..."

I was the Marky Davis of the Maricopa Stake.

As most hyper, enthusiastic, psychotic children do, I got in trouble a lot. Most of the time, "getting into trouble" was no big deal. I'd get sent to my room. I liked my room. It gave me time to think about what I'd done and look at my rock collection. [I named my rocks. (Like I said: psycho.)] But occasionally, I would get in trouble and it would really stick. I knew I'd crossed the line. I knew I was busted. And I hated it.

Like the time I was shimmying up the palm trees at Lincoln Elementary and Ms. Hinshaw, the P.E. teacher, came out and gave me 3-day detention. I guess climbling trees wasn't allowed--unfortunate, since I had such a knack for scaling tall edifices.

And the time I got my good friend's bike stolen. Oh boy, was that bad.

And the time I skipped Mr. Buck's Junior AP U.S. History class to addend a boy's volleyball tournament--which Mr. Buck just happened to attend, also. That was a big-time bust. (Though I distinctly remember getting in less trouble than Sadie Babbott*, who did the same thing and lied about it. At least B and I told the truth...) But it was nevertheless bad.

There have been more recent escapades, too. Right after high school graduation, for example, I went to England with my good friend and got into a nice heated debate with the bobbies. We'd been misbehaving, naturally. I was so ashamed of myself.

I still get in trouble occasionally; only as an adult, I can't simply go to my room. As an adult, "going to my room" would mean I'm just running away from confrontation. I suppose part of being an adult is 1) not getting into trouble anymore, and 2) owning up to it if I do.

I got in trouble recently, and it was bad. I could feel the confrontation brewing just like granny can feel a storm coming on; I could feel it in my bones. And in my blood pressure. My heart beats faster. My hands shake. My eyes dart about the premises, frantically searching for the nearest escape--anywhere but "here" will do. That is me in the face of confrontation.

I am such a little girl. 21 years old, and I might as well be a toddler, for all the "growing up" I've done.

These kinds of realisations are most unpleasant... When I was a little kid, "saying sorry" was such a good solution--the natural solution--to all of my tight spots. It worked every time. My question now is...am I past that? Is there anything that we adults are supposed to do differently--anything more sincere than "sorry?" And if so, why don't they teach a class on that in high school? It would have been substantially more valuable than most of the other blather I sat through...

*Names have been changed for privacy's sake*

It's Who I Am...

I have a confession. It goes like this:

Yesterday I was on my way home from running a few errands by myself. I was driving through a neighborhood only a street away from my own, and I noticed a shiny black car/truck on the right hand side of the street, struggling to get out of a snow drift. (It was one of those new Chevy vehicles that can't decide if it wants to be a car or a truck. Like this:)


There was a middle-aged woman driving, and as I passed by, I watched her switch the vehicle from Drive into Reverse, spinning her wheels more and more into the snow each time. I slowed down and thought, "I should get out and help her."

...and then I kept on driving...

The strange thing was, I didn't really have a reason not to stop. It's not like I thought, "Well, I'm wearing nice shoes today," (which I was) or "She'll probably get it figured out," or "She doesn't really need my help." I didn't think any of those things. I just...didn't stop.

In the time it took me to get to the end of the poor lady's street and turn left onto my own street, I had become exceedingly wracked with guilt--I'm talking, really seriously wracked...

"Random acts of kindness are seldom convenient," I thought, and "She would probably appreciate the help."

"It's Christmas time," and "What would Jesus do?" and the story of that Darn Good Samaritan all flooded into my brain before I could say "Scrooge". I knew very well I was not raised to be the kind of person who keeps on driving. There have been so many times I've seen people parked at the side of the highway and I've said to Kyle, "Should we help them?" He usually replies with something like, "I'm sure they're fine...everyone has cell phones these days. Plus, there's not even anyone by the car! If they needed help, they would be flagging us down."

I've filled my brain so full of similar excuses as to why I shouldn't be a helpful person, that I don't even need those excuses anymore--I just...don't help people.

All this was spinning around in my head like a flurry of snowflakes, and by that time I'd passed my house and made the necessary two turns to get back to the Damsel in Distress. (It had only been maybe 30 seconds since my initial drive-by.) But by the time I got there, two other vehicles had already stopped. There were now four adults pushing from the back, but they'd made no progress. I was so anxious to make up for what I'd done 30 seconds before that I rolled through a stop sign so I could hurry and park my car. I jumped out and plowed through the snowdrift (in my good shoes) to make it to the back of that black vehicle--I really thought that if I could inch my way in among the other four people at that bumper, and offer a good hard push, then I could forget about how I'd not stopped in the first place.

I was a few steps away--maybe three or four--when the good people pushing her truck gave one final heave and loosed her from the clutches of the ice and slush. I stood there, defeated, and as she drove away, she waved out the window, saying, "Thank you all so much! I really appreciate your help!"

But she wasn't talking to me...

I am not saying that it's Kyle's fault I didn't stop--he wasn't even there! He is a good person--a hard worker--and if he really saw a true need, he would do anything he could to help someone in despair. The fault is completely my own, and since yesterday afternoon, I have put a lot of thought into why I didn't stop that first time around. I still don't know the reason, but I can guarantee one thing: I will never again let myself be talked out of offering to help when I see a need for it. Because really, what's the harm in offering to help someone who might not need it? What would they say? "No thanks, I'm fine." Well, I can handle that. I can tolerate making a slight spectacle of myself if there is the potential of good to come of it.

I'm sure it sounds a bit cheesy, or deep, or like I'm "waxing too poetic," but this is what I've decided...and it's going to become part of what makes me me. Laugh if you want, but...

...I don't think I'll ever forget how it felt to stand there and know that woman wasn't talking to me.