Death to Ambiguity

Okay, people. #1: I hate not getting comments. It makes me grouchy. Maybe you didn't comment on that last one because you just didn't care about what I had to say. 

I can accept that. It's honest. 

But...geez. You know those times when you're standing in a group of people, and you say something you think is either profound or hilarious, and NO ONE else thinks so? You hear crickets? Was that the last post? 

Virtually, did you hear crickets?

haha, I kid. 

Okay, sort of. 

But mostly: I kid. 

Okay, fine. I thrive on validation. 

I can survive without it...but I'm extra happy when I get it. :)

The end.

Okay, on to today's topic.

I keep secrets. 

dun, dun, dun...

I know. This is coming from the girl who used to just say exactly what she thought. ALWAYS. The girl who eventually learned to bite her tongue. :)

I keep them because sometimes I'm afraid of the feedback. 

Or of the fall-out. 

I keep secrets to protect the things I don't want crushed just quite yet. 

Public success = two enthusiastic thumbs way, waaay up.

Public failure: shrivel. no thanks.

Contemplation on the whys of said introvert behavior when I am very much an extrovert leaves me only to conclude I have a problem with perfection. hahha. That is not to say I am perfect. But I WANT to be perfect. I want the things I do...to be perfect. I appreciate quality, and when I feel like the thing I am trying to do isn't quite at the level of quality/perfection I would like...I want to keep it hidden until it's ready for anybody else to see it. OKAY? Quite frankly, I don't see how most other people in this world are all that different.

* sigh * But okay. I know this is ultimately bad. I haven't always been this way, and I don't always hide. I just do it sometimes. But the thing is...I shouldn't.

Some things just don't allow you to become better at them until you get out there. 

Until you just fall down in front of everyone. Multiple times. You're falling down more than you're up. 

Until you sing loud enough and full enough that you crack (shudder) in front of your entire masterclass. 

Until you really dance full enough that you actually feel how that turn should feel, and you practice enough to be strong enough to carry it through.

Because it's the falling that requires...and therefore ALLOWS you...to get back up again. 

It's the cracking that lets you know that note is going to require a little more breath control or effort, and allows you to try again and fix it the next time. 

It's forgetting your inhibitions that allows you to fully experience the joy accomplishment has to offer. 

But isn't it rude err...extremely enjoyable how the joy of accomplishment is usually only felt after the multiple crushing feelings of embarrassment or failure? That's more like irony. I can't decide what words to use in all this baring of soul. Whatevs.

Sometimes I'll try to express my frustration with waiting for something or failure here. Or on facebook. But I never fully explain what my plans were/are or...whatever. ...Because then I'd have to be vulnerable in yet another way, and sometimes this girl can only take so much vulnerability. So I hide behind ambiguity. :)

Then I get the friends who actually care to know telling me to stop being so shady. :) I don't know why I have so much pride.

HERE: here are the secrets. Okay, some of them. I have to do this slowly, people...

I applied to grad school again this year. Last year they told me no. I decided they were fools. But this past year, I don't know when I would have fit grad school into my life. Of course, now those things (now that I'm being honest: the boy who took up much of my time) are now a thing of the past. While I am grateful to have learned the things I did (better communication, don't let the person who is supposed to love you most put you on the back burner much more than once, etc. I shall not elaborate further.) and experienced the truly good things about him...I am much much happier without him. This was a sad and hard pill to swallow at first, but I just want to thank you, mister, for making me stronger. Does that sound like a Christina Aguilera song?

Haha. Crap. But whatever.

Also, I am much better at running since that fateful break-up night. Just a little sidenote. Currently teetering between "who gives a crap about love" and "I still believe love is real." Running makes it feel more balanced somehow. Don't ask me to explain that.

Point being...it's okay that I didn't get in to grad school last year. Even though the prospect of turning 29 in August and getting that much closer to 30 without...I don't know...having a little more to show for my time (?) sort of freaks me out to the nth degree...and the fact I can't quite seem to get there even with the willing guys who have tried since then, and I just can't DO it yet...I've GOT this, kids.

It's just that I remember when my mom turned 30. Uhm...she was married and had at least 3 kids. I was eight years old. So as a young girl, completely unaware of the prospects of the life ahead of me, that's about where I thought I'd be. It's a little scary to not be at about the same place and not anywhere close to where my mom was, but...then again...

Life is different for everybody, right? Uh-huh. Check, Dee. Good one.

So I'm back on the life-track list that keeps haunting me, but it's never actually time for those things yet. I keep going back to Heavenly Father and saying..."Uhm...now is it time? Time for ____? I tried the other thing I thought maybe felt right, and well...you saw how that turned out, so...because I'm sort of running out of ideas, here's this thing? What do you think? Or...wanna help if I'm missing something big here?" Here. These are the current hauntings:

1. Grad school. Because I love learning, and I always kind of wanted a master's degree. But I need to keep working. So BYU's EMPA program seems perfect. I work there. They will pay my tuition. This keeps my school debt from swallowing me whole, AND...well, it's one more rung on the ladder of my personal ambitions. I just can't get it to work completely. Some years it just didn't feel right. Last year I felt like I should apply, but the second I hit the "SUBMIT" button on my application, I knew I wasn't getting in that year. Great timing, right? So that rejection letter wasn't a surprise at all. But I knew the road hadn't ended yet. Explain that one, please. So I applied again this year. Despite the previous rejection. At least I know I can take it again if they say no, right? :)


2. Tabernacle Choir. That one's hard to say out loud because of my perfectionist problem I already mentioned. 5 years ago I was 100% vocally and musically ready for that kind of audition. Sadly, since those 5 years, I have done very little with music because my whole life changed and that had to get put on the back burner. It just did. But it's still something that's always begging to come back out of the corner I so neatly stacked it in. My sophomore music advisor's words keep coming back to haunt me, "You'll come back, DeeAura. But go out and get the other things you want in the meantime." Rats. I cried because I knew she was right. I need music back in my life in a big way. It's a part of me, and I hate when I realize people I've known for years don't really know that about me...and it's my own fault.

3. These things probably cannot co-exist without much heavenly assistance and life rearranging. So June 30th when I find out about my grad school acceptance or rejection...then Tabernacle Choir auditions start July 1st and go for one month. But then let's say I do grad school: it's on Thursday nights for 3 years. If I somehow miraculously gather up all my musical-ness I left behind a while ago and manage to make it into that beautiful choir: rehearsals are on Thursday nights. I would have to defer grad school for another year, when classes would be on Wednesday nights for 3 years. Then I would be in Salt Lake for four days out of the seven every week, but I'd still work in Provo. Holy no time for a life, right? As I will be like...33 by the time I finish my degree in this scenario, the prospect of having no life in the meantime...well, that takes me back to freaking out in the nth degree.

COULD I JUST BE THE GIRL THAT DOESN'T CARE ABOUT MARRIAGE AND BABIES? Clearly God has other plans for my life, so I'm trying to be a good little girl and go with it, but SHEESH. Enough with the emotional trauma already. Even I'm sick of it. :)

4. I need a raise. Or else a different job. I can't do all of this on my piddly salary I have somehow managed to acquire in my very professional life. I love my job. It is completely fulfilling in most ways. There are way too many hoops to jump through at BYU (sorry, but it's true) and I'm starting to get really grouchy about it. So it's either grad school and then the different job, or...the abysmal alternative of job hunting again.

5. Something has to change. And soon. And all of that: is why.

Better? Great. I still think that all should stay in my journal. But there you have it.

just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.
- anonymous

Uh-huh. Right.