oceantheorem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oceantheorem) wrote2007-07-11 11:22 pm
oceantheorem) wrote2007-07-11 11:22 pm
LOTS of introspection.
The only problem with having gone to Kayla's wedding and having taken a bazillion pictures is that now I want to get married. This happened to me once in high school or freshman year of college--this marriage bug--and I actually signed up on a wedding planning site with a fake name, a fake groom name, and a date as far back as the site would allow, and then spent a week or so looking at dresses and flowers and cakes. It's tempting now to go do the same thing and start a file somewhere of what I eventually want my wedding to look like, but the very small part of my brain that has some sanity left is, thankfully, still resisting. *sigh*
At least my annoying internal biological clock is demanding marriage and not babies.
Anyway, below are some snippets of what I wrote last week in Utah (since I guess it turns out I already posted everything I wanted to about the cross-country drive). Some paragraphs are verbatim, some are reworked, and some are added completely new to actually give this post a feeling of coherency:
I think the learning curve has begun to level off a bit. The learning curve of life, I mean. And of figuring out who I am. I still see multitudes of change now when I look at myself six months back, but it's less change than it was a year ago, and I've had fewer lessons and learned less about the world. It seems like the break-neck speed has slowed, and the panic of attempting to figure out what exactly is going on five minutes after something happens has calmed down a bit, and now once in a while I actually know what's going on as it's happening. I feel a bit more comfortable in my own skin these days, I guess. Maybe I've just started to find the core of "self" and figure out which parts of my personality are actually me (and I've stopped being ashamed of most of them). And the good news is that I kind of like the person I'm figuring out I am. It's especially good news since I haven't liked myself for a lot of the last eighteen months. Perhaps all that flailing around actually helped me to better figure out who I'm not.
I think the wedding helped a bit, too.
I adore my extended family. Saturday morning, a bunch of us womenfolk chopped veggies and fruits and opened cans and just generally fooded it up for several hours to get everything ready for the reception/party that evening. We started out talking a little in the morning (actually more that night than that morning), which gave me lots to think about as the day wore on. Turns out my aunt and uncle read my livejournal (Hi!), which made me feel guilty at first--for being a heathen--and then INCREDIBLY lucky, because even though I don't hold to any of their standards, they still love me. Even though I've been a little crazy this last year, and have freely written about (most of) it (especially last semester...), they still love me. I thought to myself, what amazing people they must be.
I think that's why I love reunions so much. I have a HUGE extended family, most of whom are Mormon, and all of whom are intelligent, incredible, wonderful and beautiful people. I'm always honored to be related to them, and to be told I look like them and fit with them. They are strong and they are welcoming and they bring out a side of me I really like. Our religious beliefs may be different, but we've never held that against each other, and I love them for it. I'm grateful for their acceptance; I place a lot (I mean a LOT) of faith in the family's collective opinion, and to have them tell me they're proud of me is the highest praise. I don't think it would matter if I won the Nobel Peace Prize if my family wasn't proud of me. Though I may disagree with many of the tenets of the LDS religion, they've got a few things dead on, and I think their value of family is one of the most important and is one of the main reasons they're so successful at converting people. Family really is key. I'd fall apart without mine. (Too much Harry Potter lately--I was actually thinking that in some ways, my need to see my family once every year or so is a lot like Harry's. You know, how he has to spend time with the Dursleys so that his mother's love and sacrifice can protect him from Voldemort, except that mine doesn't keep me from being killed, it just sort of keeps me on track, and I don't hate the time I spend with them.)
(And while we're talking about religion, I feel like I should make it clear that I will NEVER convert. It doesn't have anything to do with God--I still don't know if I believe there is one or not, but if there is I think He and I have an agreement, which consists mainly of me being nice to other people--since I really don't have a problem with God. Mostly I have a problem with organized religion and other people telling me what to do. There are too many little details of Mormonism I disagree with, even if I think the principles behind the tenets are okay. Take caffeine and alcohol, for instance. Sure, I agree that they can be abused, and that you should only use them in moderation and be completely aware of their affects on your system, since they do alter your behavior. [I'm aware that I don't follow that.] But I dunno about decreeing that all your followers are forbidden to touch them. Also, gay marriage. I still can't see how any form of love is wrong, and if two men or two women want to get married, who am I to stop them? Also also, birth control and abortion--please please please let's all encourage family planning through birth control, and while I don't think abortion should be completely and totally legalized and available in every case, I'd vote for that over a full and complete ban on it. But there are things I agree with, and like I said, the emphasis on the importance of family is one of them. And Mormons really are genuinely nice people, and I don't know any other religion for which I can make that sort of blanket statement. I've never met a mean Mormon. And they're great with charity and forgiveness and actually a lot of other traits that most religions pretend to teach but don't. Honestly, when I very nearly converted junior year of high school, I was absolutely terrified that I'd make a terrible Mormon, because I have NO IDEA how they manage to be such GOOD people all the time.
Anyway.)
I wrote on Sunday that I felt much better about myself that day. I am flawed. I'm a constant trainwreck. But I have the capacity to be a good person and to sort myself out, and my family will keep steadily loving me and forgiving me when I fail. How did I get so lucky?
Speaking of being flawed, I've also been thinking a lot about mistakes. Do I make more or fewer mistakes than my cousins? I'm the only one with a college degree, but I'm also the oldest unmarried girl cousin, and the next oldest is only 17 (which is actually saying a lot when you have a hundred cousins). Okay, maybe that has nothing to do with mistakes. At any rate, do I make a lot? Is it just that I have to learn by doing, and I can't learn by being told? Do my relatives, especially the aunt and uncle that have been reading my lj, think less of me because I have to do everything stupid twice before I learn not to? Even if our goals are different, how come all my girl cousins have met theirs, and I've only met half of mine?
Random subject change.
My aunt pointed out that abuse victims often do very well in school because they become perfectionists to "atone" for the abuse. I suppose I have done that. Perhaps I should thank Dan for that, for giving me the anger to convert into energy for a Ph.D. The energy certainly came from somewhere. Was it inside me all along? Or was it given to me as retribution for what I suffered?
Well, at any rate, here I am. And my own two feet got me here, without anyone carrying me, though plenty have held my hand for support. I guess I should be proud of how far I've come and how much I've learned.
Still, why do I feel like I've got such a long way to go?
Random subject change #2.
Apparently little kids don't frighten me when I'm related to them. Or maybe it was just that I felt more comfortable with myself this last week. I dunno. My small cousins are absolutely adorable. And I took about fifty pictures of my sister. She really is cute, you know.
Random subject change #3. Okay, not quite so random. I just wanted to say that I went back and read through a few of my entries from last December, when I was psycho and depressed, and actually found a description of myself freshman year of college that I really like.
"I miss that girl, the quiet one that was so madly in love with the boy down the hall. She went to class in her pajamas and did integrals in her head when she was drunk. She believed in magic and was completely dependent on her circle of friends to support her. She wanted to be a marine biologist and go to grad school at Scripps. She didn’t know where Scripps was. She had a thing for guys who knew how to play guitar but she only knew one who did. She felt like an adult and a 6-year-old in the same body, with way too many responsibilities and a completely naïve view of the world."
Original post here.
I'm trying to get some of these traits back, though I'm okay now with being a geneticist, and I'm trying to not be so naïve and to also not take on too many responsibilities. I guess I do feel more balanced now. But where did all the magic and mystery go? Why does it seem like I only felt like that when I was with Jamie?
This post has probably gone on way too long, and I should get to bed, since I started this entry more than an hour ago...
The last thing I wanted to say was that I FINALLY got my Ravelry invitation tonight (I put my name on the list a million years ago), so maybe in the next few days I'll upload all my knitting pictures and stuff and flesh out a profile there. Megan, find me and friend me! I'm dnatheory, of course. And now let the knitting obsession resurface....
At least my annoying internal biological clock is demanding marriage and not babies.
Anyway, below are some snippets of what I wrote last week in Utah (since I guess it turns out I already posted everything I wanted to about the cross-country drive). Some paragraphs are verbatim, some are reworked, and some are added completely new to actually give this post a feeling of coherency:
I think the learning curve has begun to level off a bit. The learning curve of life, I mean. And of figuring out who I am. I still see multitudes of change now when I look at myself six months back, but it's less change than it was a year ago, and I've had fewer lessons and learned less about the world. It seems like the break-neck speed has slowed, and the panic of attempting to figure out what exactly is going on five minutes after something happens has calmed down a bit, and now once in a while I actually know what's going on as it's happening. I feel a bit more comfortable in my own skin these days, I guess. Maybe I've just started to find the core of "self" and figure out which parts of my personality are actually me (and I've stopped being ashamed of most of them). And the good news is that I kind of like the person I'm figuring out I am. It's especially good news since I haven't liked myself for a lot of the last eighteen months. Perhaps all that flailing around actually helped me to better figure out who I'm not.
I think the wedding helped a bit, too.
I adore my extended family. Saturday morning, a bunch of us womenfolk chopped veggies and fruits and opened cans and just generally fooded it up for several hours to get everything ready for the reception/party that evening. We started out talking a little in the morning (actually more that night than that morning), which gave me lots to think about as the day wore on. Turns out my aunt and uncle read my livejournal (Hi!), which made me feel guilty at first--for being a heathen--and then INCREDIBLY lucky, because even though I don't hold to any of their standards, they still love me. Even though I've been a little crazy this last year, and have freely written about (most of) it (especially last semester...), they still love me. I thought to myself, what amazing people they must be.
I think that's why I love reunions so much. I have a HUGE extended family, most of whom are Mormon, and all of whom are intelligent, incredible, wonderful and beautiful people. I'm always honored to be related to them, and to be told I look like them and fit with them. They are strong and they are welcoming and they bring out a side of me I really like. Our religious beliefs may be different, but we've never held that against each other, and I love them for it. I'm grateful for their acceptance; I place a lot (I mean a LOT) of faith in the family's collective opinion, and to have them tell me they're proud of me is the highest praise. I don't think it would matter if I won the Nobel Peace Prize if my family wasn't proud of me. Though I may disagree with many of the tenets of the LDS religion, they've got a few things dead on, and I think their value of family is one of the most important and is one of the main reasons they're so successful at converting people. Family really is key. I'd fall apart without mine. (Too much Harry Potter lately--I was actually thinking that in some ways, my need to see my family once every year or so is a lot like Harry's. You know, how he has to spend time with the Dursleys so that his mother's love and sacrifice can protect him from Voldemort, except that mine doesn't keep me from being killed, it just sort of keeps me on track, and I don't hate the time I spend with them.)
(And while we're talking about religion, I feel like I should make it clear that I will NEVER convert. It doesn't have anything to do with God--I still don't know if I believe there is one or not, but if there is I think He and I have an agreement, which consists mainly of me being nice to other people--since I really don't have a problem with God. Mostly I have a problem with organized religion and other people telling me what to do. There are too many little details of Mormonism I disagree with, even if I think the principles behind the tenets are okay. Take caffeine and alcohol, for instance. Sure, I agree that they can be abused, and that you should only use them in moderation and be completely aware of their affects on your system, since they do alter your behavior. [I'm aware that I don't follow that.] But I dunno about decreeing that all your followers are forbidden to touch them. Also, gay marriage. I still can't see how any form of love is wrong, and if two men or two women want to get married, who am I to stop them? Also also, birth control and abortion--please please please let's all encourage family planning through birth control, and while I don't think abortion should be completely and totally legalized and available in every case, I'd vote for that over a full and complete ban on it. But there are things I agree with, and like I said, the emphasis on the importance of family is one of them. And Mormons really are genuinely nice people, and I don't know any other religion for which I can make that sort of blanket statement. I've never met a mean Mormon. And they're great with charity and forgiveness and actually a lot of other traits that most religions pretend to teach but don't. Honestly, when I very nearly converted junior year of high school, I was absolutely terrified that I'd make a terrible Mormon, because I have NO IDEA how they manage to be such GOOD people all the time.
Anyway.)
I wrote on Sunday that I felt much better about myself that day. I am flawed. I'm a constant trainwreck. But I have the capacity to be a good person and to sort myself out, and my family will keep steadily loving me and forgiving me when I fail. How did I get so lucky?
Speaking of being flawed, I've also been thinking a lot about mistakes. Do I make more or fewer mistakes than my cousins? I'm the only one with a college degree, but I'm also the oldest unmarried girl cousin, and the next oldest is only 17 (which is actually saying a lot when you have a hundred cousins). Okay, maybe that has nothing to do with mistakes. At any rate, do I make a lot? Is it just that I have to learn by doing, and I can't learn by being told? Do my relatives, especially the aunt and uncle that have been reading my lj, think less of me because I have to do everything stupid twice before I learn not to? Even if our goals are different, how come all my girl cousins have met theirs, and I've only met half of mine?
Random subject change.
My aunt pointed out that abuse victims often do very well in school because they become perfectionists to "atone" for the abuse. I suppose I have done that. Perhaps I should thank Dan for that, for giving me the anger to convert into energy for a Ph.D. The energy certainly came from somewhere. Was it inside me all along? Or was it given to me as retribution for what I suffered?
Well, at any rate, here I am. And my own two feet got me here, without anyone carrying me, though plenty have held my hand for support. I guess I should be proud of how far I've come and how much I've learned.
Still, why do I feel like I've got such a long way to go?
Random subject change #2.
Apparently little kids don't frighten me when I'm related to them. Or maybe it was just that I felt more comfortable with myself this last week. I dunno. My small cousins are absolutely adorable. And I took about fifty pictures of my sister. She really is cute, you know.
Random subject change #3. Okay, not quite so random. I just wanted to say that I went back and read through a few of my entries from last December, when I was psycho and depressed, and actually found a description of myself freshman year of college that I really like.
"I miss that girl, the quiet one that was so madly in love with the boy down the hall. She went to class in her pajamas and did integrals in her head when she was drunk. She believed in magic and was completely dependent on her circle of friends to support her. She wanted to be a marine biologist and go to grad school at Scripps. She didn’t know where Scripps was. She had a thing for guys who knew how to play guitar but she only knew one who did. She felt like an adult and a 6-year-old in the same body, with way too many responsibilities and a completely naïve view of the world."
Original post here.
I'm trying to get some of these traits back, though I'm okay now with being a geneticist, and I'm trying to not be so naïve and to also not take on too many responsibilities. I guess I do feel more balanced now. But where did all the magic and mystery go? Why does it seem like I only felt like that when I was with Jamie?
This post has probably gone on way too long, and I should get to bed, since I started this entry more than an hour ago...
The last thing I wanted to say was that I FINALLY got my Ravelry invitation tonight (I put my name on the list a million years ago), so maybe in the next few days I'll upload all my knitting pictures and stuff and flesh out a profile there. Megan, find me and friend me! I'm dnatheory, of course. And now let the knitting obsession resurface....
one of my best friends ever was mormon...
either way, i love mormons. the religion? not so much. but the people (the ones i know personally, anyway)? yes.
Re: one of my best friends ever was mormon...
Clarifications
Second clarification: My dear one (I would gladly claim you as my own), don't you know that somewhere in the DNA makeup up the female species of this family is a component that insists that we prove everything ourselves which includes making all those mistakes by ourselves? I have now launched two daughters that have proven this. mmmmm.... and you are oh-so-related (thankfully so). (-:
Re: Clarifications
And on the second point... *sigh* Why can't we just learn from other peoples' mistakes? Why do I have to mess everything up twice before I learn to do it correctly? Grrrrr.
Re: Clarifications
Love to you.
Re: Clarifications
That actually ties in with one of my beliefs about God: if there is a God, and He's benevolent and cares about us, then He couldn't possibly ask us for anything more than that we try to be the best people we can be, and that we try to be nice to each other, and leave the world a better place than we found it. That's basically all that any religion boils down to--be a good person. And being a good person should yield what you said--peace and joy and the wisdom to acknowledge and enjoy it.
Re: Clarifications