Future Steps
The next "step up" in life I mused over today reads as follows:
Climbing mountains, building bridges, letting go, learning to forgive, loving deeply, developing and expanding skills, learning new skills, falling repeatedly, standing up repeatedly, finding my voice
One of my favorite quotations fits in nicely here. I found it on a bookmark (which I bought and still have) at a College Bookstore sale on my first day at the University of Utah. I bought it because it summed up the previous five years of my life so perfectly. It read, "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall - Confucious."
I had literally failed multiple classes at Salt Lake Community College, during difficult times of financial or emotional stress. I would then proceed to return later semesters, sign up for the classes again, and keep plowing through as best I could. I re-took Statistics and earned a B the second time, one of my best mathematics grades of all time. But how could I have known I was capable of that at the end of the semester I failed at it?
I worked many part-time jobs, and bumbled through relationship troubles, family drama, and religious turmoil. Yet somehow, four years following my high school graduation, I found myself on the peaceful, serenely quiet U of U campus, enrolled in Intro to Linguistics and enjoying the beautiful month of May. It was the ultimate symbolic moment of my life up to that point.
I had failed and fallen so many times over those past four years, and yet here I was! Graduated with a two-year Associate Degree and enrolled in a University program I was passionate about, ready to learn, ready to take on the world.
But mostly, I had learned enough up to that point to know that I would fall again. That this peace wouldn't last, and that I would possibly have to re-take classes here too. I knew it wouldn't be smooth, easy sailing.
But I had proven to myself that no matter how hard I fell, or how convincingly I told myself I was a failure, there was a stubborn streak in me that would continue to pick myself back up. I knew I would cry and move on. That life would continue to be hard, but would also periodically provide me moments of pristine joy and hope, just like this breezy, spectacular summer day. I earned my first (and only) 4.0 that summer semester - taking one single Intro to Linguistics course and focusing entirely on my studies for those three months.
2007 was also when I became a youth mentor for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and began my path of volunteerism by becoming involved in student groups (starting a few of my own) and truly starting to find my voice.
The next step up I see is:
Speaking up and coming out against injustice and apathy; crying; healing; laughing; running; finding release and relaxation alongside healthy doses of striving toward happiness
These are now aspirations, goals, and hopes in my life today . . . they aren't steps I've necessarily "taken," or places at which I think I have "arrived." I have begun to speak up and come out against injustice, but I will be continually learning how to do that effectively for the rest of my life! Just like for the rest of my life I will be crying, healing, laughing, running, releasing, relaxing, and striving. But the steps as I see them continue:
Recognizing happiness as peace rather than striving; solidifying learned work ethic, skills, and relationships into security and stability
This is, I believe, the real leaf I feel has been turned by being offered and accepting this full-time position this week. Suddenly, my life work is solidifying into something financially secure. But, sort of like I knew that day in May at the University of Utah that I would probably fall again and have to pick myself back up . . . I feel that 10 years from now, I will likely look back at my 28-year-old musings and laugh: "Ha! I thought that full-time benefited position was a solidifying of my work ethic and skills into security and stability?? Actually the job and family I have now are the true measure of all that. I didn't know what I was talking about at all!"
But, I hope I can take this next step:
Striving to bring that security and stability to others; teaching; learning; growing
Those are the verbs I never want to stop doing. And these:
Climbing; falling; belaying; trusting
What is the verb for being supported by someone who is belaying you? Being supported, I guess . . . because through all of these "steps" I've been mulling over today, you may notice I say something about "others" and "relationships" quite often. And that seems to be the key thread through everything I'm learning as I'm growing up. It all seems to lead here:
Seeking arrival at "success" only to learn that success is relative and fleeting; embracing change; creating simplicity, happiness, and peace.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Creating Peace Part Deux
Actually it's not a ladder! It's stairs.
I am going to save this scrap paper, because it's so funny to look at it hours later with fresh eyes and see what I was actually drawing. In my mind, I was using the rungs of a ladder to describe what I was feeling about the steps upward/forward I feel I've taken over the years. But of course I don't have any idea how to draw a ladder, so I was really just writing and drawing lines around each section I wrote. Slanted edges, then straight edges, then slanted, then straight, up and up until what I actually drew was a staircase. Love.
The next step I drew reads:
Overcoming anger, bitterness, and life obstacles; learning from mistakes; mentoring/teaching youth and peers; solidifying life skills and relationships; beginning to thrive rather than survive; living simply with compassion, hope, and gratitude for possibilities
As you may imagine, it took me a great number of years from 17 to arrive anywhere close to that step. Continuing on with my tale of my growing up years . . . around the age of 18:
I was accumulating student debt within only a month of leaving for college (and here I was back at the base of the staircase - accumulating debt and financial instability). Despite my long summer work weeks, dedicated savings, and even with a half-tuition scholarship to the little state college I chose, I could not pay for my basic living expenses without loans.
I even relied on heavily discounted rent, thanks to my kind-hearted grandparents' willingness to welcome a know-it-all-yet-actually-knows-nothing teenager into their home. But it was still very difficult to find a small-town college job. After a couple months of daily hunting, I finally landed pizza-delivery work at the now-no-longer Hub City Pizza in Mt. Pleasant, Utah.
If that Volvo hadn't been made predominantly of very tough steel (or if my parents had tried to send me down in any other car but that tank) I wouldn't be alive today. It had over 100,000 miles on it and I gave it at least another 100,000 over the next 9 months. I crossed paths (dangerously) that winter with a great deal of roadkill, trenches, fences, curbs, even temple flower beds . . . but luckily never hit people or other moving vehicles. I had to sit on a pillow to even see over the wheel, and could have most certainly died on many occasions.
But driving around delivering pizzas to townspeople in Sanpete, Juab, Emery and Millard counties was the only work I could find. And 9 months was the longest poor Kenmore (the refrigerator on wheels) could survive my terrifying lack of driving skill. I withdrew from my second semester at college with only 12 completed credits, packed up the Volvo that would cost more to repair and pass state inspection than it was any longer worth, and moved back up north. I knew that with access to public transportation, I could save up enough to continue my studies at Salt Lake Community College.
I moved with my best friend to her grandparents' basement in West Jordan, again for quite discounted rent, and set out to submit job applications to every store-front within one mile in every direction of this place.
I walked an hour round trip to the nearest library once a week to spend only one allotted hour checking and responding to e-mails, my only contact with family or distant friends since I had no phone. Thinking back, I must have talked to myself constantly. I can't imagine not having a phone.
I also spent nearly half a day walking to and from my LDS ward house every Sunday, because I belonged to a religion that split people into ward boundaries and assigned them to church houses that were not necessarily the closest LDS building to them. There was an LDS ward house literally across my street, but the one I was assigned to attend was at least two miles away.
I stubbornly refused a charity ride to and from the building, instead choosing to wake at 6 a.m. to leave at 7:30 a.m. to arrive prior to the 9 a.m. services. Following the three hours of meetings, I would stay behind quietly reading for at least an hour before taking the walk back, determined to avoid any churchgoers who might offer me a ride. I enjoyed those Sundays immensely, though. Looking back on that tells me just how much I've always loved walking, the outdoors, and connecting with my own spirituality.
Within a month I had found two part-time jobs, only 10-15 hours each, at a couple of nearby sandwich shops. I worked and lived in West Jordan for about six months, before moving to a tiny apartment in Salt Lake City where I was able to ride a bike and take one bus to and from Salt Lake Community College. I worked there as a Writing Tutor until 2007, when I transferred to the University of Utah to study for my Bachelor Degrees in French and Applied Linguistics.
I graduated with my second Bachelor Degree in May 2012 - nine years after my graduation from Murray High in 2003. If you had told me when I was 18 that I would have been a college student for that long, I would have cringed. I had expected to begin "contributing to society," by having a full-time job or becoming a stay-at-home mom, much sooner than the age of 28! And yet, as my life progressed in the real world, my dreams of "growing up" did become the reality of my early 20s. I learned from mistakes, mentored youth, and taught writing to my peers. And, I did begin to thrive.
It wasn't one certain step I took necessarily, but looking back on that time I can see that I was progressing during those years, even during the times I had to live paycheck to paycheck, depend on others for my welfare, just try to survive day to day, accumulate debt, and feel constant emotional and financial insecurity. Was I at the bottom of the staircase though, where I had started life? Of course not . . . I was slowly progressing toward bettering myself and my life.
I am going to save this scrap paper, because it's so funny to look at it hours later with fresh eyes and see what I was actually drawing. In my mind, I was using the rungs of a ladder to describe what I was feeling about the steps upward/forward I feel I've taken over the years. But of course I don't have any idea how to draw a ladder, so I was really just writing and drawing lines around each section I wrote. Slanted edges, then straight edges, then slanted, then straight, up and up until what I actually drew was a staircase. Love.
The next step I drew reads:
Overcoming anger, bitterness, and life obstacles; learning from mistakes; mentoring/teaching youth and peers; solidifying life skills and relationships; beginning to thrive rather than survive; living simply with compassion, hope, and gratitude for possibilities
As you may imagine, it took me a great number of years from 17 to arrive anywhere close to that step. Continuing on with my tale of my growing up years . . . around the age of 18:
I was accumulating student debt within only a month of leaving for college (and here I was back at the base of the staircase - accumulating debt and financial instability). Despite my long summer work weeks, dedicated savings, and even with a half-tuition scholarship to the little state college I chose, I could not pay for my basic living expenses without loans.
I even relied on heavily discounted rent, thanks to my kind-hearted grandparents' willingness to welcome a know-it-all-yet-actually-knows-nothing teenager into their home. But it was still very difficult to find a small-town college job. After a couple months of daily hunting, I finally landed pizza-delivery work at the now-no-longer Hub City Pizza in Mt. Pleasant, Utah.
If that Volvo hadn't been made predominantly of very tough steel (or if my parents had tried to send me down in any other car but that tank) I wouldn't be alive today. It had over 100,000 miles on it and I gave it at least another 100,000 over the next 9 months. I crossed paths (dangerously) that winter with a great deal of roadkill, trenches, fences, curbs, even temple flower beds . . . but luckily never hit people or other moving vehicles. I had to sit on a pillow to even see over the wheel, and could have most certainly died on many occasions.
But driving around delivering pizzas to townspeople in Sanpete, Juab, Emery and Millard counties was the only work I could find. And 9 months was the longest poor Kenmore (the refrigerator on wheels) could survive my terrifying lack of driving skill. I withdrew from my second semester at college with only 12 completed credits, packed up the Volvo that would cost more to repair and pass state inspection than it was any longer worth, and moved back up north. I knew that with access to public transportation, I could save up enough to continue my studies at Salt Lake Community College.
I moved with my best friend to her grandparents' basement in West Jordan, again for quite discounted rent, and set out to submit job applications to every store-front within one mile in every direction of this place.
I walked an hour round trip to the nearest library once a week to spend only one allotted hour checking and responding to e-mails, my only contact with family or distant friends since I had no phone. Thinking back, I must have talked to myself constantly. I can't imagine not having a phone.
I also spent nearly half a day walking to and from my LDS ward house every Sunday, because I belonged to a religion that split people into ward boundaries and assigned them to church houses that were not necessarily the closest LDS building to them. There was an LDS ward house literally across my street, but the one I was assigned to attend was at least two miles away.
I stubbornly refused a charity ride to and from the building, instead choosing to wake at 6 a.m. to leave at 7:30 a.m. to arrive prior to the 9 a.m. services. Following the three hours of meetings, I would stay behind quietly reading for at least an hour before taking the walk back, determined to avoid any churchgoers who might offer me a ride. I enjoyed those Sundays immensely, though. Looking back on that tells me just how much I've always loved walking, the outdoors, and connecting with my own spirituality.
Within a month I had found two part-time jobs, only 10-15 hours each, at a couple of nearby sandwich shops. I worked and lived in West Jordan for about six months, before moving to a tiny apartment in Salt Lake City where I was able to ride a bike and take one bus to and from Salt Lake Community College. I worked there as a Writing Tutor until 2007, when I transferred to the University of Utah to study for my Bachelor Degrees in French and Applied Linguistics.
I graduated with my second Bachelor Degree in May 2012 - nine years after my graduation from Murray High in 2003. If you had told me when I was 18 that I would have been a college student for that long, I would have cringed. I had expected to begin "contributing to society," by having a full-time job or becoming a stay-at-home mom, much sooner than the age of 28! And yet, as my life progressed in the real world, my dreams of "growing up" did become the reality of my early 20s. I learned from mistakes, mentored youth, and taught writing to my peers. And, I did begin to thrive.
It wasn't one certain step I took necessarily, but looking back on that time I can see that I was progressing during those years, even during the times I had to live paycheck to paycheck, depend on others for my welfare, just try to survive day to day, accumulate debt, and feel constant emotional and financial insecurity. Was I at the bottom of the staircase though, where I had started life? Of course not . . . I was slowly progressing toward bettering myself and my life.
Creating Peace
Pre-ladder and Rung 1
"Survival is not good enough when thriving is an option." - Emily
Today I was writing a list of groceries to pick up as I perused the pages of our Vegetarian Cooking Bible, when apparently my mind could no longer focus on the recipes and ingredients. After "sunflower oil" and "walnut oil," I turned over my scrap piece of paper and began to draw and write.
While I thought I had been thinking about food & cooking for the coming week, I was actually thinking of how completely changed my life suddenly is. Beginning tomorrow, I suddenly have a full-time salaried position - to be benefited come May, following a probationary 90-day period.
While drawing this ladder I feel I've just clambered another rung up, I jotted down some thoughts about what various times of my life have been like, that I decided I would like to share.
I would say that I was born into a lower-middle-class American family. While I was growing up, I was never able to have a dog, one of my fondest dreams, but I knew that someday I would save up enough money to live in a place of my own that would allow that dream to become a reality.
Now today I understand that there are millions of children - all over the world, yes, but even in America - whose fondest dreams are that one day, they won't be living in a war-ravaged town, in squalor in a refugee camp, or on the streets not knowing where their next meal will come from. Thanks to the incredible goodness and kindness of my family, friends, and even strangers, I have never worried where I would sleep one given night.
I have, however, experienced the following, which today I drew as the "base" on my paper. This is what life felt like before the ladder even appeared on my horizon:
Living paycheck to paycheck; depending on welfare from others; surviving; enduring cold, hunger, and unreliable transportation; accumulating debt; instability (financial and emotional)
I believe I began "climbing the ladder" by attending school. Because I had parents who not only knew the value of a k-12 education, but actually exuded a joy for life and learning that they passed on to their kids, and because I live in a country that makes a basic level of education affordable even for low-income families, I had the opportunity to learn to love to read and write.
I have kept a journal since I could write - and my mother & father kept one for me before I could read or write. Also, I have been a storyteller and make-believer since before I can remember. So, I was able to at least see that there was a ladder worth climbing from a pretty young age. I still grew up poor, but I grew up trying. This is my perception of how I tried to grab onto those first few rungs :
Studying; working at anything and everything to pay to survive; developing talents, skills, optimism, work ethic, resume, credentials, and relationships; helping others to give back for help received; bettering myself and my situations
Because of beginning at that base-line of poverty (though thankfully not in the sense of never having shelter or food) where there was no "extra" money for anything like extracurricular sports, private music lessons, or math tutoring, I wouldn't say I really grabbed a firm hold of the proverbial first rung of the ladder until I was about 17.
That summer, I started an office internship (through a Boys and Girls Club program my Mom heard about) at the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce, which enabled me to quit my part-time bagging job at the Smith's in Draper. I used to leave that place feeling physically ill at the dumpsters-full of waste of absolutely edible food and perfectly usable goods (perhaps in damaged packaging?) thrown away daily. I had a difficult time respecting authority, or understanding why I should follow certain rules like staying at a check-stand to bag (or not to bag during a lull) for specified periods of time, when I could be fetching milk from the back of the store for elderly customers, or otherwise providing actual customer service.
Once I realized, from my 3 months at the Chamber, that I had the writing ability and confidence to interview businesspeople in the community for bulletin newsletter articles, and the patience to spend hours filing or making please-can-we-update-your-contact-information calls, I think I started to believe I could do something more meaningful for pay than retail work. I also began to be convinced that I would go to college.
I didn't care that my parents couldn't afford to send me to any college. I didn't care how long it might take me to complete a Bachelor Degree, or that I would have to work multiple low-paying part-time jobs just to afford the rent & food costs of living on my own (all while trying to find the time and energy to study to pass my classes). I was 18, finishing high school, applying for scholarships, and determined to live on my own and continue my studies.
I worked 39-hour weeks at the Sandy Office Max for three months following graduation, then packed up the Volvo station wagon my parents bought me for one or two hundred bucks, moved in with my grandparents two and a half hours away, and set about signing up for classes and turning in applications to every storefront/business I could find in the little towns of Spring City, Mt. Pleasant, Moroni, Fairview, Ephraim, and Manti.
In my efforts to study, work at anything and everything, develop skills, and start giving back I truly tried to better myself and my life during this time. But Holy Hannah was I young! Far younger than I realized.
"Survival is not good enough when thriving is an option." - Emily
Today I was writing a list of groceries to pick up as I perused the pages of our Vegetarian Cooking Bible, when apparently my mind could no longer focus on the recipes and ingredients. After "sunflower oil" and "walnut oil," I turned over my scrap piece of paper and began to draw and write.
While I thought I had been thinking about food & cooking for the coming week, I was actually thinking of how completely changed my life suddenly is. Beginning tomorrow, I suddenly have a full-time salaried position - to be benefited come May, following a probationary 90-day period.
While drawing this ladder I feel I've just clambered another rung up, I jotted down some thoughts about what various times of my life have been like, that I decided I would like to share.
I would say that I was born into a lower-middle-class American family. While I was growing up, I was never able to have a dog, one of my fondest dreams, but I knew that someday I would save up enough money to live in a place of my own that would allow that dream to become a reality.
Now today I understand that there are millions of children - all over the world, yes, but even in America - whose fondest dreams are that one day, they won't be living in a war-ravaged town, in squalor in a refugee camp, or on the streets not knowing where their next meal will come from. Thanks to the incredible goodness and kindness of my family, friends, and even strangers, I have never worried where I would sleep one given night.
I have, however, experienced the following, which today I drew as the "base" on my paper. This is what life felt like before the ladder even appeared on my horizon:
Living paycheck to paycheck; depending on welfare from others; surviving; enduring cold, hunger, and unreliable transportation; accumulating debt; instability (financial and emotional)
I believe I began "climbing the ladder" by attending school. Because I had parents who not only knew the value of a k-12 education, but actually exuded a joy for life and learning that they passed on to their kids, and because I live in a country that makes a basic level of education affordable even for low-income families, I had the opportunity to learn to love to read and write.
I have kept a journal since I could write - and my mother & father kept one for me before I could read or write. Also, I have been a storyteller and make-believer since before I can remember. So, I was able to at least see that there was a ladder worth climbing from a pretty young age. I still grew up poor, but I grew up trying. This is my perception of how I tried to grab onto those first few rungs :
Studying; working at anything and everything to pay to survive; developing talents, skills, optimism, work ethic, resume, credentials, and relationships; helping others to give back for help received; bettering myself and my situations
Because of beginning at that base-line of poverty (though thankfully not in the sense of never having shelter or food) where there was no "extra" money for anything like extracurricular sports, private music lessons, or math tutoring, I wouldn't say I really grabbed a firm hold of the proverbial first rung of the ladder until I was about 17.
That summer, I started an office internship (through a Boys and Girls Club program my Mom heard about) at the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce, which enabled me to quit my part-time bagging job at the Smith's in Draper. I used to leave that place feeling physically ill at the dumpsters-full of waste of absolutely edible food and perfectly usable goods (perhaps in damaged packaging?) thrown away daily. I had a difficult time respecting authority, or understanding why I should follow certain rules like staying at a check-stand to bag (or not to bag during a lull) for specified periods of time, when I could be fetching milk from the back of the store for elderly customers, or otherwise providing actual customer service.
Once I realized, from my 3 months at the Chamber, that I had the writing ability and confidence to interview businesspeople in the community for bulletin newsletter articles, and the patience to spend hours filing or making please-can-we-update-your-contact-information calls, I think I started to believe I could do something more meaningful for pay than retail work. I also began to be convinced that I would go to college.
I didn't care that my parents couldn't afford to send me to any college. I didn't care how long it might take me to complete a Bachelor Degree, or that I would have to work multiple low-paying part-time jobs just to afford the rent & food costs of living on my own (all while trying to find the time and energy to study to pass my classes). I was 18, finishing high school, applying for scholarships, and determined to live on my own and continue my studies.
I worked 39-hour weeks at the Sandy Office Max for three months following graduation, then packed up the Volvo station wagon my parents bought me for one or two hundred bucks, moved in with my grandparents two and a half hours away, and set about signing up for classes and turning in applications to every storefront/business I could find in the little towns of Spring City, Mt. Pleasant, Moroni, Fairview, Ephraim, and Manti.
In my efforts to study, work at anything and everything, develop skills, and start giving back I truly tried to better myself and my life during this time. But Holy Hannah was I young! Far younger than I realized.
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