Friday, May 4, 2012

My grandma died about three feet from where I'm sleeping this week. This doesn't bother me. She was ready to go; I was seven. My brothers and I traded rooms every few years growing up, and I was in this one from ages twelve to fifteen. It feels mine in spite of the extra couch and my mom's treadmill.

I'm on a saggy air mattress watching the world outside my curtains brighten. I woke up and raided the cupboard for Hostess mini donuts somewhere around three am. There are birds out there, and a little bit ago I heard one of my parents get up.

My job is to enjoy everything. You would think it would be easy, but really we have to work at it. You have to pay attention or everything feels the same. It takes effort to distinguish one day from another.

Now. It didn't seem that way at BYU. Homework and classes were always changing. Life had a flavor of persecution to it. There were all these people everywhere with big plans, and I had big plans too. There was escalation and movement and hope that when I graduated I would never be sad again.

Three years on (as of April 28, I graduated three years ago!), I'm aware that that was not so and it seems my only recourse is the aforementioned enjoyment of everything. I hesitate to say this because sometimes I'm not okay, but I think I'm doing pretty well. Maybe I do swim endlessly around BYU and mormonism and being gay, but that's not a dealbreaker I think.

***

I rented a car yesterday. Feels like a milestone. 

2 comments:

  1. You rented a car? Was that in Japan or here, 'cause I thought you had to be 25 to rent a car. Are you really older than you've led me to believe all these years?

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  2. Totally here. I think that you can normally rent a car as long as you're over 21, but there are buckets of fees until you're 25. But my insurance company has a deal with a few car rental places to waive that. It turned out to be ~$200 for one week, and the fact that that seems like not that much is probably the most obvious proof that I have a grown-up job now.

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