hard to keep me humble

After a particularly difficult day on the mission, my companion felt the need to remind me that Heavenly Father loves us, to which I replied, “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that He doesn’t play some nasty tricks sometimes.” And that is an accusation against deity that I stand by. You don’t have to know my friends very well to know that teasing and pranks are a sign of love. (Don’t lie, Patrick, I know that with all your threats, what you are really trying to say is ‘I love you’.) Well, I think I must either be a favorite child of God, or else it is a full time job, even for Him, to keep me humble.

I think this is one of the reasons that I hate compliments so much. As soon as I believe a compliment that I am pretty, I am guaranteed to have one of the worst hair days in the history of hair, or worse—a breakout. As soon as I believe a compliment that I sing well, I run into someone like Shayla Sasser that puts me to shame. I swear, if I ever believe a compliment that I look like I’ve lost weight, I’ll gain 5 pounds overnight, so for heaven’s sake, don’t ever tell me that. I guess that I got too prideful about how well I’ve been handling life on 6 hours of sleep a night, because of late I’ve woken up after 5 hours of sleep and haven’t been able to go back to sleep. Yesterday, I accepted another compliment from my mother that got me into trouble. She said that, of all her children, I got sick the least, of all things. Well, foolish me, my pride in my infallible immune system spiked to such a degree as to merit being struck down by higher powers, and I woke up in the middle of the night, throat on fire and head throbbing. It seems God has a hobby of proving me wrong.

OK, OK! I admit it! I am mortal and have no magical defenses against viruses, no control over how tired I am, and apparently no control over how I look, in spite of my best efforts. I guess I’ll have to start believing what the apostle (Boyd K. Packer?) said, “You are nobody. And if you ever start to forget it, God will remind you, and it won’t be pleasant.” Or, as another wise sage once said (in the form of a comment on a YouTube video), “No matter how good you are at something, there will always be some Asian kid who is better than you.” I guess I’ll have to accept that there are some things that are not in my control and that I’ll never be good at…like winning the lottery…? Prove me wrong about that one, I dare you!

the Unmarriageable Phase

So I have a new theory that hit me yesterday out of the blue. I always thought that I would get married before I turned 25. Not so much because I thought that was old-maid age, as I jokingly claim to my friends, but just because that always just seemed to fit. I always imagined that that was about the time when I would be emotionally, scholastically, and financially ready for such a thing, and it turns out I was right. The rest of my life has always turned out just how I wanted it, why not this?. Besides that confusing six month delay before my mission, everything has been exactly according to the schedule I devised in my early teens. But with the dreaded quarter-of-century-old mark creeping ever closer, it looks like my life plan will need a little revising.

What I failed to account for in my first draft of life plans was a little factor that I will call "the Unmarriageable Phase." This is what I mean:

I have distinct memories of sitting in Young Women's lessons, struggling to compose a list of qualities I wanted in a future Eternal Companion. The purpose of this lesson, as best as I could surmise, was to help us overcome the intense instinct to chase bad boys. I cannot say that the lesson was entirely effective, but that is not what is relevant here today. The point is that after adding 'attractive', 'righteous', 'smart', and 'funny' to my list, I was out of ideas. And not for lack of effort, I mean, I was really racking my brain for creative and unique qualities that only the man of my dreams could possess. But I was young and inexperienced and had no idea what I really wanted. Also, I failed to realize that my vague description of my future eternal companion could also be used to describe a dolphin.

Although I am still relatively inexperienced, I am no longer quite as young, and my "list" has acquired a great deal of detail over the years. Those closest to me could tell you about some of them. He has to speak Brazilian Portuguese, love to play pinochle, enjoy John Mayer, love spicy food and hiking, be 6'2", have brown hair, blue eyes, be from Oregon, be a talented singer, have straight, white teeth, be a chiropractor, prefer winter, be well dressed, not too skinny, two years older than me, and have a dimple on his right cheek. OK, so maybe my real list isn't quite that specific, but it's getting there fast.

I am old enough that my list has acquired such a degree of detail describing the Perfect Man that no mere mortal could ever live up to-- I have gone from dolphin to demigod. I have no doubt that the man described above exists only in theory; I can even admit that my expectations are a bit unrealistic and maybe even unfair. But I am not yet old enough to be willing to give up on youthful idealism. Unfortunately, this phenomenon has not been sufficiently studied, and "old" and "young" are such relative terms that it is impossible to predict when I will snap out of it. Until then, I guess I am stuck in the Unmarriageable Phase.