My next thought was National Park work… somewhere that pays room and board. Work until late October, go home, play with new RM (my sister, she’s been out a year now!), and resume the Logan apartment and job hunt.

I was sitting in Institute one morning, zoning out of announcements when one caught my attention. “Want to work in Yellowstone?…” I wrote down the hours of the institute’s employment office I didn’t know existed and resolved to go that week. Miracle #1. I was hoping that the institute may know of more jobs better suited for my standards – no Sunday work, close to church, friends to go with…

Anyway, a few days later found me flipping through a bunch of brochures in the employment office, picking out the occasional national park job, summer camp, internship for a foundation that works with people with disabilities… Wait.

I went home, hopped online, and looked up the foundation. I found that they ran a summer camp and they did things year round too. They were currently accepting applications. I fiddled around with the application, filled it out , and got stuck on references, as usual. I’d gotten the BYU Psychology Professor from the homeward, the mother of an autistic girl that loves me, and … the third? I wanted to use my special needs institute teacher, but, she’s one of those people that has to run and do everything all at once. For a week I kept going to class early trying to catch her (i couldn’t after class – i had a class WAAAAaaaaaayyyyyyy across campus.) Finally, i was determined to get it over with and be late if i had to.

I showed up ever earlier than usual, but she was running late. She scurries in frantically setting up her lesson. I conceded to being late after all. She looked at me, said Hello, and moved on. Suddenly, she said, “Amy, i have something for you! did you know that you can graduate from Institute this semester?” “uh, no” “come over to my office, I have a paper for you.” Okay. Miracle #2.

No, I wasn’t eligible for graduation after all, but that paper came at the exact right moment. Sister Parker was not only willing to be a reference, but she was also familiar with the camp and foundation

Anyway, I filled in the blank spots and sent it in. Just as I was walking away from the post office, I realized I hadn’t even enclosed a resume

The next week was spring break. I was driving about with a friend when I got a phone call. IT WAS THEM!!! we scheduled an interview for later that week. Miracle #3. Had they called the next week, I’d have to borrow a car (Ehh… nerve wracking) or bum a ride (yeah right, during the day during the week, who’s going to be going to SLC then?) But since the interview was DURING spring break, …day trip with mom. Oooohhhh yeeeeaaaahhhh.

Wednesday they called back wanting to postpone the appointment. I consented to later that day instead of the next week. That morning rolled around and I was getting ready to go. A bunch of silly things kept going wrong. Like no eyeliner because I thought i hadn’t packed it (i had, i found when I went home and unpacked) Or my new shirt suddenly being a constricting one size too small. or nearly spilling lunch we’d just picked up all over my resume I actually remembered to bring. Stress.

They showed me around the camp while they were waiting for the interviewer to show up, we interviewed, and the waiting game was on. 1.5 – 2 weeks.

During the waiting game the ward mission leader came over to teach a lesson in my ethiopian nonmember roommate’s general vicinity (she excused herself halfway through) and we talked about miracles. He challenged us to pray for a miracle daily.
The 2 weeks came and went without a peep.

Finally, I decided to ask for a miracle. Just a phone call either way, whether or not I actually got the job.
That night ~ 5 pm I got one. (Miracle #4)
Unfortunately I was working so i didn’t answer it. I called back as requested the next morning and received the news. I HAD gotten the job!

I’ll be in Salt Lake, not too far from home OR Logan, i work Sunday night to Friday afternoon, the job provides room and board (which really means that my entire paycheck goes straight into my pocket), I won’t be living at home, and BEST of all, I’ll be working with people with disabilities of all ages and with disabilities of all types. Helllloooo career exploration.

Only downsides:
A: not terribly awesome pay. but that doesn’t matter, because room and board is included.
B: I have to work over memorial day weekend. My extended family always gets together and has a huge remembrance day : we decorate graves of family members in five different cemeteries in the high Uintah mountains. We get about 8 generations back, to the first generation pioneers. My grandmother and her sister come out and join their siblings in the festivities, and we exchange old stories about the ancestors. And then there’s a huge potluck at one of the uncle’s houses. It is awesome. And I’ll have to miss it. But, Carolyn (my missionary sister) will too, and maybe i’ll get to see grandma and her spitfire sister the day before or something.
C: There is another huge family reunion in New York this summer. I will most likely miss this. Maybe Carolyn and I will have to take a nationwide jaunt to visit family we both haven’t seen for two years. I might have enough skymiles to pull it off, after last summer’s trip to Romania…
D: I have to find another job at the end of August.

The girl who grinned at the sky. (and how she made my day and that she wants the boy next door. therefore we could have been best friends, if I’d ever see her again. pity.)

the dichotomy of digital and real personalities. (everybody’s different in text than in person. Those that fail to realize this needs reality to slap them in the face.)

hyperbole of Kathryn (baby sister and her … eccentricities)

my failure of saying no (car boy. See “the dichotomy”… he’s reality’s number 1 offender)

you know you’re good friends when (see, i’ve already lost this idea. fill in your own)

postage this year (spent a lot. Will spend more tomorrow. i don’t know how much total, but could find out. later.)

cars. (see “you know you’re good”…)

How life is supposed to happen and how it won’t. (see the intro to this post)

what i want (HAH! as if.)

the census (have been waiting ten years to touch one. anticlimactic.)

delicious sounds of sauce (’nuff said.)

memory lane -spinny park – white willow – paul’s house (no comment)

i’m only one person with two arms and 10 toes! (aren’t you?)

Why is a raven like a writing desk? (three words: Edgar Allen Poe.)

Walk to campus via the quad (I’m going to miss school next semester)

synesthesia (apparently people with this condition have screwed up perceptions of the five senses. they can see tastes, etc.)

violets (favorite. smell and taste. yup. they’re edible. try them in your next salad.

poppies (in flander’s fields the poppies grow beneath the crosses row by row…)

ducks (held one the other day after falling down the stairs. Go team.)

bruises and welts (see “ducks”)

the gym window (maybe i’ll get a picture of it tomorrow. tis purdy. and in a strange place for life and art and beautiful things.)

missing out on thunder (April thunderstorm that snowed. A girl was too plugged in to notice. she missed out)

We’ll see if I ever get around to this list. Will keep you posted. Maybe. And now! Back to studying for last midterm of the semester.

sending a surprise package to my sister.

sunning myself on the roof of the roommates car while she borrows my shoes and library card to check out the entire movie collection.

failing at eating the heart of an artichoke because I couldn’t get past the hair.

trying to fend off a cold.

succeeding.

going to three different pharmacies in search of sudafed.

failing.

running into the best friend’s boyfriend buying the best friend food to make up for a fight.

running into said bf’s bf while playing -arco -olo in the last store whose pharmacy was closed.

being glad the sun is finally out and the weather is finally warm.

watching it snow again.

crying because the frigid wind is so strong it blasts the moisture out of the eyes and onto the cheeks.

failing at fending off the cold after all.

kicking the trash out of the dreaded presentation.

cooking Sunday dinner for ten.

sleeping while sitting up on the couch three nights in a row because of the cold I failed at fending off.

meeting a girl who grinned at the sky.

grinning at everyone else because she was grinning at the sky.

teaching boy from upstairs to cook fried rice.

talking about dating with two olderish single men for an hour.

cooking super-hot mexi rice and stuffed peppers.

being accosted on facebook about me not being myself.

hearing that the rice was too spicy.

being accosted via text that i was upset and worrisome.

sneaking food into a movie theater with a dear friend.

feeding super-hot mexi rice to a real man.

realizing the real man knew the grinning girl.

being accosted on facebook for dating advice about a different girl i never really knew.

eating an entire bag of peanut butter m&ms between midnight snack and breakfast.

going on a date with a guy i never really knew but with whom I wouldn’t mind seconds.

kicking all my roommates out of the apartment.

bumming a ride home from a girl i still don’t really know.

sitting in the apartment alone.

wondering if the sister ever got her package.

being glad the sun is back just in time for spring break.

wishing something would happen around here.

retracting that wish.

wondering how the trashcan got that full in my absence from my bed.

Somehow that quote has always stuck with me. Maybe because of its strange failure to say what it tries to say, or maybe because I couldn’t help but recognize the power in the haphazard words.

The quote?

Act as if what you do makes a difference.
~William James

Now, don’t you see what I’m saying? It carries a connotation that what you do WON”T matter. Ever.

For quite some time I’d felt that way – that nothing matters in the end. That everything will work out the way it’s supposed to, regardless of your role in it all.

This week, a good friend posted almost the same quote. Almost. She included a two-word tag line that I’d never seen before. Her inclusion? “It Does.”

Now it says, “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”

I’m not saying that anything I do has made a difference in other people’s lives, maybe it has but sometimes I just don’t want to know. But I know that whenever I try to make a difference in someone’s life, the difference has been made in mine.

Earlier this week i was reminded of this by an unwitting friend. He’d alluded to a painful Monday, I offered some solace. Instead of turning his day around, he turned my entire week. All we did was share a cup of hot cocoa and some words of empathy and encouragement. But afterward I was reminded that there is hope in my life as I expressed hope in his. That things aren’t as bad as they seem now. That I don’t have to be caught up in myself.

This wasn’t the first time either. I went to Romania to hold babies that needed love. I wanted to make their lives better if only in a small way. While doing so I held a one year old girl whose functionality was as advanced as a newborn’s. She couldn’t even control her eyes. As i sang to her, trying to soothe her fussing, she’d only respond to the primary songs of my own childhood. I sang one line: I am a child of God, his promises are sure. Celestial glory shall be mine, if I can but endure. As the phrase ended, her eyes flipped up, gazing into mine. Peacefulness spread through my chest and tears sprang to my own eyes. She knew.

Because of this one little girl and my two weeks of holding her close, I’ve taken classes I’d never have thought about before, I’ve chosen a major I’d never considered, and I have direction in my life.
I’d not have all of this if it weren’t for my trying to make someone’s life better. Someone’s life was bettered. Mine.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

It was stay-at-home because you want to weather. It was a watch-a-movie-alone day. It was a clean-out-the-fridge-with-your-face-because-you-have-to-and-you’re-leaving-tomorrow-anyway day.

I walked through the cemetery to drop off a Christmas present. There were two groups of people there: one, a group of undertakers placing the marble monolith over a fresh grave. The other, a large group of mourners under a blue polystyrene canopy all in black and driving vans. Apparently people die the week of Christmas too.

My friend wasn’t home, so I left the present on the doorknob and walked back, avoiding the mourners and their eerily subdued children. I avoided the cemetery gate against which my once-boy-now-best friend had pushed me to kiss me harder than I wanted. I avoided the memory of the cushion of the chainlink against my back, I avoided his remembered whispers of apology and remorse after I pushed him off.

I walked past the basketball stadium, avoiding the two players coming out. I didn’t ask them if they could give my friend a Christmas present: A date with one of their teammates. I didn’t even stand up straight to my full height as I usually do when tall boys walk near me.

I got home and curled up on the couch with a blanket that smelled of new, hoping to avoid the draft by the window. It didn’t work. Instead I turned on a girl-power figure-skating movie and drank the last of the bubbly in the fridge.

Except it wasn’t bubbly. But I drank it straight from its long necked bottle. And threw out rotten avocados. And old cheese.

I also misread the words “three pair” – i thought it said “knee pad.” As these were in reference to socks, I didn’t think it was too far of a stretch. Wouldn’t you buy knee padded socks? I wouldn’t, but that’s just because no matter how long the socks are, they never reach my knees.

In other news: The definition of Thoguh (not though, THOGUH) derived from the Urban Dictionary.

(Drumroll, please)

….

clears throat

“Hell if I know.”

Thank you, thank you, please, save your applause for those that actually deserve it. No, seriously. SHUT UP.

Anyway, I like how it kinda sounds and looks like SHOGUN, which, everyone knows is a king-like figure thing in eastern cultures. I think.

You lifted your face, your eyes reaching for mine, searching for relief. You asked me silently for something I couldn’t give you. I couldn’t stop the pain.

But I could offer some comfort against it.

I opened my arms and you leaned into me, your wet cheek on my chest, your hot forehead against my neck. My hand stroked your face as the other tried in vain to hold your heaving shoulders together. Your arms dangled loosely, forgotten. I didn’t mind, I didn’t need your comfort. You kept it for yourself. Take mine, you need it. I’m willing to give it all.

Please, take all you need.

I don’t know how long you remained in my arms. Eventually the sobs slowed, then stopped. Your ragged breathing evened and quieted, but still we sat. I lost the time, and forever touched a moment around us.

Your sticky tears dried against my skin, stiff and salty. Your eyes closed, soothed by my quiet humming and gentle rocking. You fell asleep in my arms as if you were my baby, even though you are older than I.

I disregarded your dead weight and the tingle in my curled legs. Your breaths were slow, rhythmic, warm. You were blissfully unaware. I couldn’t bring myself to wake you.

I left your head resting on a throw pillow, your body warmed by a blanket, your mind eased by your dreamless sleep, your heart heavy, your cheek momentarily warmed by a single quiet kiss.

The day after is Black Friday, the day when crazy people camp out in front of stores just to get that one item for a ridiculously good price. Stampedes, claws, thievery, all rampant.

I wasn’t one of the many shoppers, I was one of the poor saps behind the counter dealing with these people all day.

I had gotten four hours of sleep the night before, I woke up at 5.30 AM to get to work by 7, and worked 8 and a half hours. All I did was stand, push numbers, and talk to irate people, sometimes unintentionally feeding their anger.

I got home, went straight to my shower and intended to go straight to bed.

All i wanted was someone to hold my exhausted body in their arms and to give me a foot massage before I even asked.

I do know someone that would do that for me. Unfortunately he couldn’t, because I’ll not see him again for 2 more years.

I realized while sitting in the shower what I’m really grateful for.

I’m grateful that I know what it’s like to have someone that would.

Two years. Two years for what? For serving his Lord and Maker, his personal Savior. Two years in constant dedication to the Lord, my God, Jesus Christ.

I miss him terribly and could ask him to come back any time. I won’t, because I know how important his mission is. Even if I did ask, he wouldn’t come, because he knows how important it is too.

As grateful I am for Scott and our wonderful, wonderful relationship, that gratitude shrivels next to the gratitude I have to my Lord and Maker, my personal Savior, my Lord, my God, Jesus Christ.

I can’t express that here. I never will be able to, even if that’s all I were to talk about every minute of my life.

It was the phantom of my first insomnia.

I was four or five, a young girl still trying to understand the natural world. I was just beginning to understand that objects left unsupported fell. I was fascinated by my shadow in the sunset, that I was taller than my giant father. I also noticed that things looked different in the dark. That colors were still there, but instead of being green, torquoise, and gold they varied in shades of black.

I lay awake in my bed, in the middle of my once blue, now dust colored room. The venetian blinds covering the window were cracked just enough to let the streetlamp’s light in from across the deserted street. The stripes gashed across my wall; vibrant, fresh. I reached out a hand to feel the line of contrast, to touch the bleeding light and the lifeless wall.

I was almost surprised to see that I could never touch the light. I couldn’t place my fingers on it, there was always a shadow beneath them. I couldn’t touch the light, but it could touch me. I lifted my arm higher along the wall, admiring the straight lines cast across my skin and the wall alike. I lay back in bed, my arm still above my head and above the windowsill, the light and shadow still caressing me. I marveled that its touch was nonexistent, but the zebra stripe glove on my skin was as real as the arm shaped shadow interrupting the stripe pattern on the wall behind it.

The stripes would shift position as I did, making the glove as long or as short as I pleased, but however I moved it the stripes never changed shape or angle, the glove always fitting as gloves should.

The next night I was still fascinated by the combination of the streetlight and the blinds across my window. I was for a week, until I realized that I was tired and wanted to go to sleep. By that time it was too late, I was an insomniac. I was too fascinated by the curiosities of a dark bedroom.

I can still remember that night, a week later, as I was playing with my zebra glove. “If only I could just take a nap. A nap would be great. I’m so tired, but I don’t want to sleep, I just want to nap.” It was then that I realized something else: When you napped you slept, and neither would be easy for me ever again.

Fifteen years later it’s still hard for me to sleep, nap or doze. But it’s not often that something as simple as the shadow cast on my wall is the one thing that keeps me up at night. I realized that night, that this was the first time I’d slept under venetian blinds in five years. I was almost glad to have reconnected with my childhood, even though it meant another night of less-than-stellar sleep.

January 2nd to September 7th.

We’d endured 5 months of long distance, 3500 miles of driving, 1400 miles in flight, hours on the phone, parent-imposed curfews, a summer of work – not play, finals week, midterms, two moves, family members departing, pleasant surprises, gifts, emergency lunches, thrift shop trips, walks, piggybacks with sisters, a mission call, sushi, picnics – both sunlit and candlelit, slurpees, a first (and second and third) taco, movies, car cleaning, sunsets, moonrises, a roommate’s wedding reception, libraries, reading under a trampoline, sunsets, moonrises, hikes, adventures, getting lost, getting found, ward hopping, homicidal mothers yelling EY!, indian food, implications, selfishness, forgiveness, selflessness, miscommunications, falls, band aids, private whispers, screams of delight, exhaustion, promises, plans left undone, plans completed, exhilaration, love.

I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and I fear I never will again.

Last weekend as we held each other on my doorstep, it felt different. I loved him, but didn’t need him. Things were ending, whether I wanted them to or not.

Last week as I’d walk across campus I’d see couples holding hands or lying in the sun. I hated them. I hated them for having something I couldn’t. My Scott was gone, but on Saturday I’d show them.
This week when I see a woman leaning her head on her man’s shoulder, her eyes closed; when I see a couple necking passionately in their own owrld in the middle of the bustling hallway, there was no jealousy. There was no hate. My Scott really was gone.

I was expecting to break up with him, not to break up with each other. It was entirely mutual, unlike the inception of our relationship. He was always the first to pick me up, drive me home, put an arm around me, hold my hand, say “I like you,” then “I’ve fallen for you,” then lean in and kiss me. At the beginning he invested far more far quicker than I, therefore I wasn’t expecting him to be done before me. I was expecting to lay it all out, step aside, and let m stubborn, insistent side carry me through the subsequent and expected waves of misery.
No, he knew it had to be over, just as I did the last night we saw each other.

At times I wish I had my tenacity on my side, but it’s lain dormant as of late. Instead there’s something else, something deeper. Something that says “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, much less in the next couple years, but it’ll be all right.” I’m sad, but I’m not morose. I’m not curled in a fetal position surrounded by a halo of chocolate wrappers. It just feels right, and my tenacity isn’t insisting that I be wrong.

Scott has been my best (albeit only) boyfriend, but also one of my best friends. He is my best guy friend, and one of the best men I’ve ever known. Despite his protests, he has been the absolute best I’ve ever had.

Scott, I love you.

Thank you for teaching me how.