Live, Laugh, Love

I have been cleaning my room. My room hasn't been cleaned since we moved into this house but I'm making progress. It has been an exhausting euphoria to organize my past 16 years...or probably 23 years, if I think about it. I save everything. Everything. Eleanor's first bandaid? check. My mom's 35th birthday present she never received? check. Every single note I have passed since 6th grade, locked in a safe in case Mr. Hatch or my mom try to read them? check. Among the credit card offers (circa. 1998) and paper towels I saved because they had recipes printed on them (just in case I ever wanted to cook...oh wait, I found my cookbook too...and it still has just one recipe in it: instant jello pudding), I discovered a gem. I found an obituary I cut out when I was eleven or twelve, just because I loved it. The faded black and white picture of an old woman laughing is captioned with three words: Lived, Laughed, Loved. In the margin was a scribbled note in my childish cursive: 'idea for obituary'. Obviously, I learned from my mother who made little notes on everything...to do lists on napkins or ideas for gifts in the margins of magazines. Random newspaper clippings still pile up on my nightstand with information and ideas relevant to me and my life: Curvy Body Types, sunscreen, and my personal favorite 'My Conversion to Eternal Marriage'. I illustrated my childish wisdom by cutting out the obituary and pausing to think about how I want to live. So now, I can't help but analyze my life progress in these three areas of living, laughing and loving. I obviously have room for improvement but I hope I've earned those words beneath my obituary. And I hope in most of my pictures I’m smiling and laughing. I keep remembering that line from Serendipity: The Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: "Did he have passion?"
Isn’t that everyone’s quest…to find their purpose? Finding what you love to do the most, searching for what gives your life meaning. Being in tune with who you really are and living a life of purpose. I used to think that I needed to find my passion or my calling in life but I don’t think passion is an end point or single extremity; it is ever evolving. It’s not always an isolated fervor, but motivated by countless people and ideas. Most often, the fulfillment of dreams is not achieved through glamorous serendipity but humble perseverance. I feel most alive during the trivial moments: playing stair-ball with Eleanor, late night chats with Annie or laughing with Richard and Romney. So at the end of my life, if my greatest contribution to the world is a completed family tree of Days of Our Lives and a recording of me singing all the wrong lyrics, I’ll still be happy.

Not trying to impose..

My Dear Yale Girls--

I just want to say that I realized just barely tonight that my week of posting has passed (even before I realized it was my turn) and like Katherine, this is also my first post on a blog ever. I found Annie's post to be quite thought provoking and thought about all the little lies that I tell to myself seemingly to accept my flaws a little bit better. And though for the moment I think that I don't care, I really do, just like she said.

In closing I just want to admit that I would have not had any idea of what to post this last week so its probably good that I didn't realize it was my turn.. But next time around.. It will be a good one. :)

The Truth: Exposing our Lies

After spending quite some time with a downright liar, I found myself thinking, "What a gross person! I hate liars." This was followed by, "I am such an honest person," repeated to myself over and over again. However, before long God played a humbling filmreel of my past. The Best of Annie-Lies featured a biting yet enjoyable bit of memories such as the time I announced to my boyfriend's family that "Yes," the words flowed without any cognitive or moral approval, "I have met Matt Damon. He is really down-to-earth." I have never met Matt Damon.

Of course, those types of bogus lies have an endearing childlike, "I-own-a-unicorn" innocence to them. They are the social lies. Each untruth pads our bruised egos and helps us to survive when we feel inadequate. Although still a LIE, these untruths pale in comparison to the moral lies; and those whoppers haunt us. We remember times of "No, I didn't break it," perhaps moments of cheating on a test and--hopefully not--moral lies like infidelity. We crossed the line of right and wrong but cowered at the chance to realize our step.

However, self-lies stand out as the most potent category of dishonesty. We all do it. I do not know how, but we do it. Even though we subconsciously fabricate falsehoods and then regurgitate those same lies to ourselves--the creators--we sit there as credulous victims. I would argue that some of my most spiritually deadly and emotionally paralyzing maladies grow out of self-lies. I find that I silently broadcast white lies in my personal corridors, "You look great." or "I like raw carrots." or "I want to run a marathon some day." All lies. "I don't care" is my most sneeky one. This lie reverberates hundreds of times in my heart and in my mind. I really do care. Months after the fact, I admit to myself that I did care that someone said my dress was ugly or that I did not understand a scripture or that I missed the big moment. I cared. So why do I feed those lines to myself? Why are we so afraid of our true selves? (the one who hates carrots and would rather die than run 26.2 miles) I think it is because we fail to love ourselves fully enough. So instead, it seems easier to love the pretend self. Funny thing though....in the process we lose our own self-trust and self-confidence; therefore we love ourselves less after lying.

Whether pertaining to social, moral, spiritual, emotional, etc. insecurities, the act of poking out our own eyes--by lying--not only blinds our vision of self but distorts our entire view of the world. What we believe about ourselves makes up who we actually are; and that changes how we treat others. Now I grapple with the question: How do we expose ourselves for the liars that we really are? It is the total Sunday School answer: we need to recognize our mistake. Exposing ourselves to ourselves seems a bit like a grainy Judge Judy episode. But after a couple of painful rip-off-the-bandaids it starts to hit you how self-lying is really ludicrious and how liberating it is to flay those "protections."

As I have tried to start exposing myself to myself, I feel freer and more confident. The process feels like that rare time when you glance at your buck-naked imperfections in the mirror and instead of thinking, "Eww. I hate my body," you let a laugh out saying, "I love myself."

"Everyone has a hobby, right? You're mine."

Annie doesn't know this yet but, since it's her turn, I have decided to blog for her today. This is officially my first ever blog post. And it makes me want to cry. That may have something to do with the fact that I have been watching Hallmark Christmas movies for the past week (which, btw, are wonderful; very mk&a-ish). Or it may have to do with the fact that I have finally overcome my fears of inadequacy to recognize that I will never be among the caste of "Erudites" and our vast readership may never have to use a dictionary to understand my wall posts. As the famous Canadian professor Avril Lavignestein once said, and I quote: "Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?". Her eloquent thoughts mirror mine exactly. After decades of hiding behind the moonshadows of Martha Keats Fetzer, Annie Dostoevstevens and E. Forster Rhoundeau, yours truly, Kat WintourMeyerLovelace Stevens is here. And since I'm here, I'd like to suggest some topics to write about: recent time abroad in China, Italy, France, Provo, etc., the holidays, red signs hanging in windows or going out to sizzler. Can't wait!

redux.

Exactly one year ago this month we met in this little corner of the internet, brought together by the beauties of modern technology and some good old-fashioned hot chocolate conversation in front of a winter fire. In the beginning, such joy! News! Laughter! Wisdom! Tears. We were eager to share, so happy to listen. At least, until about March.

Not much has happened since then.

So let's try this again, shall we? There are emails in your inboxes as I type---with some Back to Basics instructions for what is sure to be one of our Best Years Yet. All that's left to do is a little magic from the rest of you. Ready?

On your marks

get set

CHRISTMAS

Deck the Halls? Let us get together this Christmas Season for some YTS festivities. PLEASE!

Trick-or-Treat!

Aren't they the cutest ever?!

Loved Turner's polka-dot pumpkins

My Dad sat in our entry, the door wide open, candy bowl on the floor and a 1920 edition of Sherlock Holmes on his lap, reading and waiting for all the kiddies to arrive. And yes, he really wore that hat the whole time. I love him. And yes that's Richard. Hickens went all-out as usual. I screamed and grabbed Richard when we went up to the door. As Katharine wrote on a note the other day, "Yale 4 Life. And eternity!"