Happiness

So, as you might have noticed, this blog has a tendency to favor topics within the realm of the ridiculous, the irritating, the strange, and the completely emotionally haywire. And while it is a lot of fun and/or a lot cathartic to blog this way, sometimes I think it's important to break from that and talk about the good stuff. You may or may not have noticed that for the past year (or more?) I've had some incredible quotes about happiness posted on the right side of my blog. If you haven't read them before, I'd highly recommend it. They are really great, and I put them on there because they do comfort me, and they are reminders to me of the happiness that we can truly have in our lives.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the phrase, "And they lived happily ever after." In fact, I think something to that extent was posted above our front door this past year, so we saw it every time we left the house. Being a total romantic, I love this phrase, and yet I've come to realize that it's often misinterpreted. In fact, I think I was guilty of misinterpreting it for a long time. You see, we watch these movies where the prince finds his princess and they ride off into the sunset, and that's the last we ever hear of them, as if that's all you need to be happy, just to find that one perfect person. So we get ourselves in the mess of searching for our own "happily ever afters." 

Let's switch gears for a minute. I'm going to tell you about one of my favorite scriptures. It's in 2 Nephi 5, and Nephi's talking about how his elder brothers have been making life difficult, so he and everyone willing to follow him have broken off from them. This is basically right when we start having the distinction between the Nephites and Lamanites. They go off by themselves and start their new community, and they're keeping the commandments of the Lord, and they're farming and raising livestock. They're reading the scriptures. They're making weapons to use to protect themselves from the Lamanites. They're learning how to build buildings, and how to work with wood and rocks and metals, and presumably making all kinds of cool things. They're building a temple so that they can worship God. They start to organize the Church by ordaining priests and teachers among the people. And then Nephi puts in this gem——my very favorite verse in this chapter, verse 27: 

"And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness." 

Sound familiar? Except without the slightly deceptive "ever after" part? The way I see it, looking only for our own "happily ever after"s is taking things out of context. As the old lady at the end of Ever After would say, "The point ... is that they lived." 

I think we should take it just a little bit further——the point, really, is that,
They lived happily; they lived after the manner of happiness.

If you've been reading my blog for the past couple of weeks, if you've chatted with me on Facebook, or Skyped with me, or talked to someone who has (and they've been honest with you), you probably know that life has been incredibly difficult for me since I got to London. I have been miserable. I have been desperate to go home. I have swilled who knows how many Pringles of Patheticness. (No, I'm not going to tell you how many.) I have spent days just sitting on a couch trying to pretend I'm not in London. I have procrastinated anything resembling productivity. I have cried Niagra Fallses of tears on a regular basis. In short, it has been anything but a walk in Hyde Park.

But thankfully (blessedly) I turned a corner, and finally realized that I have two choices: 

I can be happy, or I can be miserable. 

That's always the choice though, isn't it? Every day, we are bombarded with choices, and while some of them don't really have any bearing on eternity, just about every other choice can be boiled down to happiness or misery. When we get to the other side, we're going to receive our rewards "according to [our] works, whether they were good or whether they were bad, to reap eternal happiness or eternal misery" (Alma 3:26). We have a choice to be happy or miserable, both now and "ever after." 

So what are we going to do? 

Are we going to be miserable forever? 

Or are we going to live happily, fit our lives and our choices according to the manner of happiness, and endure to the ever after?

Personally, I like the sound of that second option a lot better. Don't you? 

Well, I have both a ton more to say, and nothing left to say, so I think I'll just leave you with a quote from a man whose life was anything but easy. It's one that always inspires me to try more fully to choose to live after the manner of happiness, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:

"Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God."
- Joseph Smith

P.S. Don't miss out on the Bonus Material——things that didn't make the main-post cut, but which I think are still worth sharing.

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Hungry

Okay, I've hit another low point. Not emotionally, but food-ally. 

I have been ravenous like 24/7 for the past week. My host family keeps saying, "Oh yeah eat whatever you like whenever you like! It's not a problem! Make yourself at home!"

No, you don't understand. I am like an out-of-control wood chipper right now.
I CANNOT BE SATISFIED!

(Wow. Attractive, Kayla. Real attractive ...)

But honestly, it's like the worst thing right now because, for all the "make yourself at home"-ing, I can't actually bring myself to seek nourishment in their kitchen. I think it's just part of the still feeling like an intruder, and even though I'm a paying intruder, it still feels weird to just go in and take other people's food. At least, not when they're awake and they can hear me in there. Blame it on society, but I have a weird sensitivity to people knowing how much I eat, whether it's a large or small quantity. I think it might be a girl thing. Also, I don't want to accidentally justify the Fattie American Stereotype by my behavior. 

And I honestly don't think they understand how much I could put away right now. Or they wouldn't be saying these things to me. 

The other thing about being an American in a British home is that I'm used to looking at a huge kitchen with tons of storage space and huge Costco containers of food to fill that storage space. This is not the way in the UK. Everything is small: small flat, small kitchen, small cabinets, small fridge, small containers. The only thing that appears to be bigger is the carrots. (Seriously, they're behemoth carrots that have like the same diameter as my forearm. Not wrist. Forearm. I'm talking like right before my elbow. They're seriously monstrous.) But really, I'm used to either having my own stock of food in my apartment where I'm the only one who eats it and therefore who cares how much I eat because no one else is paying attention, OR I'm at home with my family and we're all trying to hide the fact that the good snacks are open, and then there are at least four other people to blame when it's all gone, and besides my whole family gets just as hungry as I do, so no one actually feels like a fatty. We're all in the same boat, ya know? Anyways, this whole small-food container thing is kind of a problem because if you even take a handful, it's like everyone knows. Supe-totes-embarr. 

Another UK food thing: it's not normal (ahem, American) food. That's not to say that it's gross, or that my host family has been feeding me nasty things. They haven't; it's been lovely food. But there are all these weird things that I never saw back home: strange cheeses with cranberries embedded in them, enormous unsalted oyster crackers, weird salamis and pepperoni-like meats.  And the things that are imported American brands are ... different. Campbell's soup comes in a powdered form and is completely salt-less. Soda comes in weirdly shaped bottles. Lays potato chips are sold under the "Walkers" brand, and they're not chips, they're "crisps," and the flavor I know as Original is here called "Ready Salted." (There seems to be a general lack of saltiness overall that I just can't seem to account for. I mean, this is an island. It's surrounded by salt water. Can't you fit a little into your diet? Sheesh!) At some point, I'm going to have to see if the English McDonald's is up to snuff. I only pray they salt the fries (chips?), because if they In-N-Out me, I'm going to be cheesed. 

I feel like I'm in a real Hunger Games. As in, I'm hungry and my body's playing games with me. Mean games like "I'M GOING TO GROWL AT YOU UNTIL THE REST OF FOREVER" and "LET'S MAKE YOU THINK OF EVERY DELICIOUS FOOD ITEM EVER AND TEASE YOU MERCILESSLY!" and "I WILL NOT STOP UNTIL YOU CRY OF HUNGER AND MAYBE EVEN THEN I STILL WON'T STOP BECAUSE I'M MEAN AND I HATE YOU FOR NOT ESTABLISHING A CONVEYOR BELT BETWEEN YOUR MOUTH AND THE PLACE WHERE THE FOOD COMES FROM!"

All this being said, it's not as if I've just been sitting here languishing all day. I've been trying to combat my hunger, really. I've been ignoring it, more or less, all day long. I've been looking at foodie blogs (also referred to as "food porn") periodically throughout the day and just salivating like a rabid dog. Maybe that's been making it worse though. 

I dunno. 

All I know is that this is ridiculous, and stupid self-conscious me is definitely going to be seeking some midnight snackage just as soon as everyone else is in bed.

Travelling Alone

When you're travelling alone for long periods of time, it's best not to think about the things you miss. At least, not at the beginning when they will be able to haunt you for months. Maybe wait until the last couple of weeks (or days, depending on your fortitude) before you let your brain start thinking of these things. Distract yourself, and for goodness' sake, make sure you have lots of Nutella all the time. You know, for when you crack a little bit. Nutella's like plaster; works just the same, I swear it.

When you're stuck sleeping on a couch, it's best not to think about how much you miss your bed.
When your flat iron just doesn't seem to want to work with your power converter, try not to think about how much you miss American electrical plugs.
When you come home, are locked out, and spend the next four hours walking aimlessly around some of London's nicer boroughs, try not to think about how much nicer it would be to just wait at a friend's house for your roommate to come home.
Or how nice it would be to have a key in the first place.
When you're walking across the street and you can't brain which direction traffic is supposed to be flowing, try not to think about how much you miss the level of certainty with which you jaywalked.
When you're starving, try not to think about how much you miss having a full-sized kitchen where you had all the ingredients to make cookies.
Try not to think about how much you miss not feeling like an intruder in someone else's home.
Try not to think about how much you miss having real friends to do things with.

I need to stop posting things like this. I'm not having a terrible time, I swear. I'm just generally stressed right now and so hungry that I don't hardly know what to do with myself. And can I tell you how many livestock I would kill for a Café Rio sweet pork salad right now? Like twelve. I'm not desperate enough to start killing people, but I would shoot twelve cows right now for one of those bad boys. Plus they can later become my McDoubles. Omnomnomnomnom.

Change: Part II

Read previous post, "Change: Part I."


I didn't get excited about London until approximately the time that my plane from Chicago was passing over Nova Scotia, about to start the Atlantic crossing. I know, because there was a moving map in the seat back video screen that showed our progress. Until that point, I was pathetic. I cried on the way to St. Louis, and after that breach of my carefully crafted Not-Thinking-About-It Blinders, I went into shut-down mode and subscribed to the silence and apathy of the completely defeated. I felt like I was trapped in the downward spiral of doom. But you know all this because you read my previous post.

Let me, instead, tell you what coming to London is like. 

The whole getting-into-the-plane-and-settled was is like living in a movie. You know they speak with British accents, but then when it's happening, it sounds so cloyingly British that you almost don't believe it. She has to be faking, right? And there's really refined classical music playing on the intercom. Should there be a doily on your armrest? Maybe. You're not really sure, and you suddenly feel under-dressed.

You start keeping tabs on the people around you, noting the things they do and the way they act. They'll all have nicknames by the end of the flight: seated next to you are the PDAsians, who seem to be fighting the urge to somehow yoga themselves together in one ball. Then there's North-African Kanye, his mom, and Liver-Spot  Ears (later known as The Guy Who Opened the Window at 3 A.M. U.S. Central Time and Ruined Your Ability to Sleep and Compute Time Measurement). Directly behind you is the Guy Who Periodically Jostles Your Seat. You can't tell if he's really being a jerk, or if he has a kicking child in his lap. A couple of rows in front of you is the goldmine who gets a new nickname almost hourly: Safari Guy, Delicate, Loaded Geek, and Bug-Eyes (so called because of his hyper-utilitarian sleeping mask). Then there's the staff: Angry Kurt Hummel on Estrogen, and Frenchie.

You're in the aisle, which is nice, but also means that any unstable walkers may use your head to catch their balance. They may not notice their mistake. You eat dinner during the movie, and though it's after nine o'clock in the timezone you're coming from, you eat everything, especially the marbled cheesecake. Afterwards, you kind of wish you drank coffee or tea just so you could use the cute cup on the tray.

Anxiety hits for a few moments as your plane flies over Ireland, without any explanation, and suddenly goes away. Your plane hits the ground within the hour, whatever hour that is. You follow the mass exodus through the airport and up to the area marked "UK Border." When it's your turn to face the immigration officer, you hear the word "study" slip out of your mouth, and immediately begin to fear that you're going to get grilled; she asks you what you're studying, you blurt something short about art, literature, and culture. She jokes about you liking poetry and sends you on your way. You feel slightly odd about spending your first moments "officially" in the country being made fun of.

Certain things stand out to you upon your arrival to England. The familiar upside-down red triangle signs with the unfamiliar "Give Way" posted on them. How you rarely see the word "Exit," but instead see the words "Way Out." Elevators called "Lifts," and Restrooms called "Toilets." Instead of going to Baggage Claim, you go to "Baggage Reclaim"—you can't decide which of these terminologies makes more sense. The "Toilets" look like port-a-potty stalls and, coincidentally, also happen to smell like port-a-potty stalls.

The next couple of hours go by in a blur. You have moments of feeling completely in control and other moments where you feel like you're drowning. You feel confused because it's really Wednesday night, but your brain feels like it's still Tuesday. (You blame Liver-Spot Ears for opening that window and exposing you to sunlight in the middle of the night.) Weirder yet, your body feels like it's floating in water, which you find both alarming and oddly appropriate. You discover stress-induced pimples that weren't there when you got on the plane in Chicago; you wonder what it must have been like for the crew to watch those develop over the course of the flight.

You buy things. A curry chicken bake, which is basically Japanese curry wrapped in pastry. Some basic groceries. A cell phone. You discover the transition to the chip-n-pin credit cards, and that there are sometimes fees for paying in cash. This is not going to help those zits. There are so many things that are out of your control, and although your brain is exhausted, your body is even worse off. Your legs were shaking when you got off the plane; now you've traipsed across the London suburbs for a few hours—hardly helpful.

You want to transition to London time as quickly as possible, so you decide you're going to try to stay awake until the earliest legitimate bedtime before collapsing. Your resistance crumbles a small bit and you give in to a short nap. You're dismayed to find that you can't use your favorite TV shows to keep yourself awake: country restrictions, whose idea were those?

You find yourself completely alone in the flat. (You have to suppress the urge to call it an "apartment.") You pull up your metaphorical blinders so you can't see your anxiety and the tsunami of culture shock headed your way. You write a weird blog post in the second-person and wonder what made that happen; it's the kind of strange change in writing style that you're unsure about.

Which, oddly enough, is kind of like your whole life right now: a series of strange little changes, each one bringing its own measure of malaise, slowly compounding in your head. Even the successes seem to be seasoned with this strange uncertainty, but maybe that's just the way travelling is when you've only been in the country for ten or so hours.

Change now isn't something you have to anticipate as much as it is something you have to navigate. Navigating is easier than anticipating, at least for the mind, so despite how unsure you feel about all of this, you feel better about it all now that you're here.

But you should go to bed now. And you really should stop writing blog posts when you're mentally and physically exhausted.

Change: Part I

For your information, this post was written on May 2-3, 2012. Why is it being posted on May 10th? Read, and then I'll explain after the post-proper is finished. :)


***

Change seems to be a popular topic recently. It feels like everyone I talk to is going into a new phase of life—scary, exciting, or both—myself absolutely included. Can I just finally admit that I'm scared out of my mind? That every day I think about some reason or another that I shouldn't be going to London? Or something that would just be better, or easier, if I wasn't going to London?

It's funny, because I've always been proud of the way I can take risks and adapt to change. Downright boastful, in fact. I can't name the number of times I've talked about how much I love leaving old places behind and finding new ones, getting to know new people. This time it's different though. I guess I forget how scary it is. Or maybe it's the fact that this time, I really chose this for myself (instead of having the AF and my parents foist it upon me) and that I'm going to be incredibly alone over there. Whatever it is, I've been questioning this decision for months now, and if I'm being totally honest, my excitement level has been hovering around zero with very few upward spikes for literally weeks now. It's actually probably more like months.

Can I be real right now and tell you that if there was a magic button I could press that would let me erase all of this crazy London idea, I would totally do it?

That's completely insane though, isn't it? Because who wouldn't want to spend the summer in London?

Well, right now, me, because I'm scared. I'm scared because going over there is going to be a huge change, the kind of change I don't want to handle. Going there is going to be a change, coming back is going to be a change, and $#!% is going to get real after I get back. London is like the freaking gateway to all that crap and it just seems like everything would have been easier if I could have just coasted into it. Instead, I decided to start it all with some cliff jumping. Why did I do this to myself? I feel like I've completely lost control of my life: like I'm a sheep getting herded, or like I'm stuck in a crowd that's moving and bottle-necking, and there's no way I can do anything to stop moving with them. Whether I want to go that way or not, I have no choice. It's a terrible, terrible feeling.

All this talk of change and facing change and dealing with change hasn't just been cropping up in the real world, in the lives of real people. It jumped up in my reading of Elizabeth Gaskill's North and South (HIGHLY recommended, though I'm sure most of you will never read it) last night. There's some really insightful passages that I'd like to share with you right now.

In the book, the lead character Margaret moves away from the town she's lived in all her life. After several years, she returns to this place she once called "home" and finds that things have changed, as things are wont to do. It's distressing for her, and so she talks to her godfather about it. What he tells her is this: "It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young, afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive."

Even though I'm far from being a stranger to change, I think there's still a part of me that resists thinking of it as a "matter of course"—when I'm in the kind of state I'm in (emotionally unstable, tired, lonely, scared: take your pick), change and instability can still feel "new and oppressive." It's frustrating, really. But let's keep going because Elizabeth Gaskill goes on to say something profound and spiritual and profoundly spiritual about change when Margaret is finding all this change to be so oppressive:

A sense of change, of individual nothingness, of perplexity and disappointment, over-powered Margaret. Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability, had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognize it. 

"I begin to understand now what heaven must be--and, oh! the grandeur and repose of the words--'The same yesterday, today, and forever.' Everlasting! 'From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.' That sky above me looks as though it could not change, and yet it will. I am so tired--so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually."

I guess it just hasn't occurred to me lately how much life is all about change—we are constantly walking on unstable ground. We have so little control over our lives, and everything could change in a moment. The rug of mortality could be pulled out from under our feet in a second; worse yet, someone else's rug could get pulled and then we'd have to deal with how that changes our lives. Other people, the natural world, our own selves are in a state of constant, rapid change, whether for good or ill. If you're like me (and, to some extent, I'm sure all of you are), change is overwhelming and exhausting. I hate dealing with it when it happens to me, I hate doing it when I have to initiate it (remember this post?). But it's because of how much I don't like change in the majority of situations that I can appreciate how absolutely divine it is to think of life "from everlasting to everlasting"; of people who are "the same yesterday, today, and forever"—because we're trying to become like God, we want to be the same everlastingly. Sure, it'll take progress (that's code for: "positive change") to get to that place... but what a place it'll be, don't you think? I mean, wow. Wow. Can you imagine how peaceful that will be? I can't wait to have that kind of peace—eternal, forever, not-going-anywhere, can't-be-disturbed-by-anything peace. Won't it be nice?

In all reality, thinking about this doesn't make me feel a lick better about the whole going to London thing. I guess it helps me accept change as part of the growth process, and got my mind on a better plane of thought (a.k.a. straight up distracts me) which I really needed. Yes, I'm still freaking out. But I'm going to be fine. This is what life is: it's change, it's learning, and it's something over which I have no control. The things I'm missing out on in Provo, the things that have already happened because I left Provo, the things that are going to happen when I get back to Provo ... well, I can't control them any more than I can herd cats. That's not to say that I won't try, but thinking about herding cats will definitely let me laugh about my complete lack of control.

And laughter's the best of medicines, right? :)

***

Here we are, at the end of the post. As you might have noticed, I was (well, for me right now it's "am") in a kinda rough place. This whole trip still doesn't feel real. Well, it probably feels pretty real by now because by the time any of you will be reading this, I will be in London (Unless I die and this auto-posts anyways. (Oh my gosh. That better not happen. That would not be funny (Knock on wood.))).


(Also, it's really weird to be writing this in the futur antérieur (What do we even call that in English? The future perfect? Idk.) because right now I'm still in that weird place and I'm like, reflecting on what it'll be like to be over the hump I'm currently on the uphill slope of, you know? This is probably getting really confusing for you ... I'll stop)


ANYWAYS, what I'm getting at is that I'm the kind of person that just needs to talk and write and stew over things until I can make sense of them by myself. (You may or may not have realized this about me.) So, post-posting this post is just my way of letting myself handle my situation and my feelings without getting anyone worrying about me or (worse) sending me encouraging texts or comments... (because for whatever reason, I can't stand the thought of that right now). It's nothing personal; this was just something I needed to handle my way. Love you all dearly :) -K

Responding to "The Shovel"

If you're not reading Zach Oates' blog Every Day Is Easter In My Closet, you're missing out on a good laugh. I highly recommend clicking on that link and giving your abs a little tickle. Come on, it won't hurt ya! Now, I don't actually know Zach at all, so maybe it's a little weird to respond to his most recent blog post, but I can't help myself. If any of you are suckers (suckers that I love, of course!), and haven't checked him out yet, I'll give you a short blip from the post so you can get your bearings on what I'm talking about here:

"The Shovel" is the easiest most subliminal breakup tool ... It is simple really, you just dig yourself so deep into disenchantment in her eyes, that the she can't help but call the relationship dead.

Hark, is that my journal speaking? Seriously, though, just a couple of relationships ago, my list of purported pet peeves reached sky-high limits. I don't think the poor guy ever expressed positive emotion towards anything without me shooting it straight out of the air. For example: If he liked dogs, I hated them. If he wanted to spend the rest of his life in the Mountain West, I hated the mountains and wanted to die on a beach. If he liked celebrating holidays, I was the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, President's Day, Halloween, Valentine's, St. Patty's, Arbor Day, and National Butterscotch Pudding Day to boot. If he wanted to go dancing, the very thought of it gave me a headache and I'd rather just watch a movie. If he tried to make things romantic, I became a instant comedian. If he expressed distaste for something, I was its biggest fan.

Really, I honestly don't know how we managed to last as long as we did, because whenever I was around him I turned into the lamest person and the biggest buzz-kill of all time.

During one of his combative moments, Zach realized that "the entire conversation was to get her to not want to date me." (Or, as in my case, the entire relationship was to get him to not want to date me.) While it's comforting to know that I'm not the only person that does this—pulls out The Shovel and digs their own relationship grave, that is—it kind of makes me sad. Why do we do these things to ourselves? 

For some, it might be the very reason Zach suggests: "if SHE got to TELL ME that SHE wanted to stop dating, than I could cower away from my feelings about being unsure and insecure, she could feel empowered for doing the dumping and I...aye, I would be the victim."

For me, I think the problem most often stems from not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. I just don't want to have to be the one to say, "You are not someone I want to have as a permanent fixture in my life for reasons. Let's not see each other anymore." I mean, ouch! Because when someone doesn't want to date you, you know that their reasons aren't going to be flattering. And I'm not good at just avoiding the question of "Why?" I'd so much rather have that other person make their own decision about me and have the satisfaction of cutting things off themselves: I would rather be dumped than have to dump somebody. And maybe some of it is just the things Zach is describing; maybe it is my own insecurities that make me want to head for the door.

The real trouble with The Shovel, though, is that I think this is more hurtful than just taking the initiative and breaking things off when you know they're not right. It's like giving someone a plastic spoon to amputate their leg with:

JUST GET YOUR AXE AND HACK IT FOR THEM, OKAY? 

Wow, that got really graphically violent really fast. But what I'm saying is that it's so much better to just get it over with quickly than to try to give them tiny little hints that you're not exactly perfectly simpatico, ya know? Because that's what the shovel really is: trying to gently clue the other person in on the fact that things aren't going to work out.

Really, it's just a backhanded, mitigated dumping—and how dirty, awful, and mean does that sound?

Thankfully, I've realized the error of my ways. Unfortunately, regularly performing mitigated dumpings isn't the easiest of habits to break.

I'm still trying to figure out a lot of things.
How to let people down easy
How to realize when I'm backing out because I'm scared versus when it's because it's really not right
How to keep from "Shoveling" people and relationships
How to break hearts cleanly and carefully, because pain is inevitable, but I can do my best to help it heal faster

Thankfully, I've got time.