Just Talking

“What would you have today if you had only what you had thanked God for yesterday?”

These past few days I have been reading over the emails that a friend and I sent back and forth while I was on my mission. It’s heart-warming and inspiring to remember the miracles and mercies I saw almost daily, to see how I struggled and overcame, and to recognize anew the love and prayers of family and dear friends which were, if not my foundation, in the least the walls I leaned on.

But honestly what has struck me most recently about these emails is the things I was excited to do when I came home—everything I looked forward to and everything I missed, everything I thought of and added to the after mission bucket list. There were things as small as listening to some music my friend had recommended, attending the Krishna temple worship service, watching Beauty and the Beast live action, and taking a Latin dance class. And then there were things as momentous as sitting on a wall on campus with a good friend and just talking about life. When every week I attempted to pour out my soul and experiences in one typed email I had only an hour to write, that’s what I looked forward to the most: just talking.

Honestly, looking back, most of the items on that after-mission bucket list have yet to be crossed off. There are times I wish I could go back to the mission just so I could keep dreaming about the life I might be living now. I could dream about the classes I’d take, the people I’d meet, the shows I’d watch, and the time I would have alone to read all the books waiting for me on my goodreads shelf (which, to be honest, I still just dream about).

But then gratitude stops me to take an inventory. Yes, there are things I have yet to do, but back then when I dreamt of this perfect world I’d come back to, even then, did I dream it as good as it is now? Could I have dreamt that I’d finish my first semester back with a 4.0? Could I have dreamt that I would love my chemistry class and make such good friends? Could I have dreamt of the jobs I luckily landed? Could I have dreamt of the wonderful dates I would go on, of how kind, fun, and supportive my roommates would be?

After our morning run yesterday I asked my boyfriend the question, “What would you have today if you had only what you had thanked God for yesterday?” His reply was clever, “Well, I’d start thanking him for all the things he hasn’t given me. For the million dollars that would fall from the sky, for plane tickets to Japan . . .”

I thought about that and about what I would thank him for, and I realized, quite happily, that if I were to thank him for all he hadn’t given me, there really wouldn’t be all that much to thank him for,  except for one thing. I'd thank him for the time I'd spend sitting on a wall on campus or on the grass with a friend, just talking. 

Candidly,

Cookie

Okay, so being honest, there are of course times that I have just talked with a friend, and many wonderful family and friends who do more than their share to oblige me in this insatiable desire, but in my opinion, if I could be so greedy, there could always be more.

Buying the Future

It’s strange what I have deemed fitting to finally break my prolonged silence. 

You’d think it would be when I got asked on my second date after a very impressive and enjoyable first one, when I decided my Spanish teacher was not the devil’s advocate and her class wasn’t intended to rip down all my confidence, when I finally consented to watch the first season of My Hero Acadamia at my roommate’s insistence and have since let it eat away at my nights like a welcome parasite, when I run into my old mission companions on campus, or any number of any such not-so-dull occurrences.

But no, instead it is the moment I agreed to die my hair with a friend. And I think that it will soon become apparent why.

Rachel and I both have schedules far too busy for our own good, but on this particular day we had found a barely-thirty-minute slot to meet for a quick dinner before splitting off to our separate endeavors once more.

We were sharing a piece of strawberry shortcake my roommate had left for me when Rachel commented that it reminded her of our favorite character from the last animae she hooked me on, a rather genuis black-haired detective named L.
"Remember when I did a cosplay of him?"

A little ashamedly I admitted that I just might have been looking at the pictures of it on FB the other night. Not stalkerish or anything, just that last time I talked with her we had gotten to discussing her hair and I mentioned that I had liked it best red, but then I couldn’t really remember what it had looked like black . . . (Within the first year I had known her, Rachel had four different hair colors. That's Rachel). 

Well, anyways, she agrees that she liked it best red too, but then adds that what she really wants is black with cyan tips, so I confide that I’ve always thought darker brown with dark red tips would look cool for myself.

“Do you want to dye our hair together?" She asks.

“Yeah!” I exclaim without a second thought. (I’ve been doing that a lot lately, and I should probably stop, but so far it’s been all good things.) 

The conversation moves on to other topics so that it isn’t till she is about to leave that I ask her, “So when are we dying our hair?”

“Oh, well BYU won't let us do colored tips, so it would have to wait until after graduation.”

At this I’m honestly a little frustrated. I was kinda hoping it would be within the next week or so because otherwise there is no way I’m going to hold through with this.

And then suddenly it clicks.

She had planned me into her future.

Perhaps that’s a dramatic way to view a simple conversation about a crazy idea that may or may not ever even happen, but what did happen in that moment . . .

That alone was worth breaking the piggy bank of silence to invest, with nothing more than promised words and hopeful narratives, in a cheaply bought, yet priceless future.

I Want To Be A Regular

Every Wednesday since the beginning of September has been relatively the same: I've gotten out of Orchestra rehearsal around 9:00, dropped off my French horn at the library, and walked to the temple to do vicarious baptisms for the deceased.
The kind older gentleman at the front desk greets me with a smile, "You're back!" he exclaims. "We've been waiting for you."
Sister Bingham greets me with a hug. "So good to see you," she says. "You're ten minutes early today."
"It's good to see you too," I respond. "Orchestra got out early today."

I love going to the temple; it feels like coming home.

Last month my roommate, Kenley, began coming with me. And just this past Wednesday, her friend Bekah joined us. Most of the volunteer workers at the temple recognize Kenley now.
"It's another regular," they say to Kenley, and her face lights up with a smile.
"I want to be a regular, too," Bekah says.

As I was waiting to go down to the baptismal font, Brother Minert called me by name. "It's Sister Anderson. How I love to see the regulars."
It was then that what Bekah had said really struck me.

I want to be a regular. 

I want to be a regular in heaven. When I get to there, I want the gate-keeper to exclaim, "Oh! It's a regular! So good to see you again."
I want to have come before God in prayer so often, and stood before his face and in his temples so often that He rejoices to see me again. I want to come before him so often that, when I see him again, I will recognize him. There won't be any catching up to do--no, we'll talk as though we had talked just the day before. We'll be familiar friends.
I want him to say, "Brooke. It's good to see you again. Come on in."

I think about how exciting and joyous it is to be recognized at the temple, how wonderful it is to see familiar faces that I know and love, and I want heaven to be that way too.

I want to be a regular to Him. 

Candidly,
Cookie

When Life Gives You Lemonade

We all know what to do when life gives us lemons. Some, like myself, would say to chuck them back and demand chocolate, but the rest of us are probably thinking "make lemonade," which is, of course, easier said than done.
But what about when life gives us lemonade? Obviously, you can't go backwards and make lemons. And you can't chuck it back and demand chocolate either. Now I'm making it sound like it's a bad thing to get lemonade. And it's not. But lately, life has given me a lot of it, so much so that sometimes I'm afraid I can't drink it all. I'm a little sad to say that life has given me a pitcher of lemonade, and after only a glass, I'm left to leave the rest on the table.

This past school year has been little but sweet and refreshing. Last year handed me a few lemons, and I have since squeezed their precious juice into a sugary sweet nectar. I have made some wonderful friends, I've enjoyed my classes, I'm working my two dream jobs, I've been offered a job as a research assistant and editor for one of my favorite professors, I'm volunteering as a senior editor for a linguistics journal in which I'll be published this semester, I have an incredible roommate who lives with (and in many cases feeds) my quirks, giddiness and enthusiasm—toward indexing lately, and toward life in general. And just this past week I was able to start my application to leave this summer on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

When talking to a friend about a mission I confided in her that last year it would have been so easy to leave, because I wouldn't really have been leaving much behind. But now . . .
"Of course I still want to go, but I don't want to leave you," I told this good friend.
And then the thought occurred to me that if she is a true friend and we stay so for some time longer, it doesn't matter when I leave, for I will always be leaving a friend behind. It may seem like a rather sad thought, that I will always be leaving a friend, but it means the reverse is also true: I will always be returning to one, too.

And so when life gives me lemonade I recognize I don't have to drink it all now, because there will always be some waiting for me. Or perhaps I may return to find something even better. Perhaps I will find some sweeter, juicier lemons while I am gone. Or perhaps, if I am fortunate, I will find with my lemons some chocolate too. And then I can return to a steaming mug of hot chocolate, which beats lemonade any day.

So, when life gives you lemonade, sometimes, but not always, its best to leave some, trusting in better things to come.


Candidly,
Cookie

When We Take More Than We Give . . .

 . . . sometimes it is just called giving.

The other night my friend texted me asking if I could help her fix her thesis for a religion paper. I laced up my sea-foam green running shoes, donned my neon-green jacket, tucked my phone into the back pocket of my running shorts, and went out into the steady, cold drizzle. The run was exhilarating, and I was thankful for the excuse to take it. 

It's a short run to her place and her thesis didn't take long to fix, but I was there for almost two hours. Just talking. Much of it was a talk I'd been needing to have. 

As I was leaving, my friend made the comment that she felt like she, in most relationships, takes more than she gives. 

"What do you mean?" I asked her, utterly bewildered at the audacity of such a statement. In my mind, I would forever be in her debt for all that she had given me. 

True, I often read over and corrected her papers, I walk her to classes, and I try to be a listening ear. 

But with each of these, I realized, she had not been taking, but giving. And what she had given me was the the chance to give back. 

The truth is, when we talk about our struggles, we are not taking time from someone, but giving them perspective for their own trials as well as the chance to commiserate with their own. 

When we ask a friend for help, we are not just taking time from their busy schedules; we are giving them the validation that they are needed and that they have something to offer us. 

When we accept a gift or an offering, we are not just taking of what we are given; we are giving to others a way for them to display their love for us.

When we take, we are giving others the opportunity to grow, to serve, to love, and, ultimately, to give. 

And so, in a sense, we can really never take more than we give: when we take we are really just giving to someone else the opportunity to give back--an opportunity which they take whole-heartedly, happily, gratefully, knowing that they can never truly repay the wonderful gift that is given them in return. The gift of perspective, love, and friendship. 

So to answer my friend, you cannot take more than you give. Because that is just called giving. 

Candidly,

Cookie