Married People Fart: A List of Things You Should Do In Your Marriage To Be Happy

1.) Go into a relationship with no judgments about the other person.

My dad doesn't judge anyone. Like, ever. I mean, yes of course he makes superficial judgments that all humans make, like judging the timing of another car or noticing that somebody is fat or black or blonde-haired or has a cat. But when he notices physical things about people, he's just like, "Oh, they're fat," without any negative connotation attached. "Oh, that person happens to be overweight. Interesting. Oh, that person happens to be black. Interesting." He's not boring, by any means. My dad is one of the most entertaining people I know. But he doesn't attach any levels of value to his observations about the world. I try to do the same thing.

That's how my dad saw my mom.

For most of my mother's life, she thought she was fat and she hated it and she swam and exercised and ate good foods. She went on a mission and in the MTC they taught her how to apply makeup and how to do her hair and how to dress stylishly. My mom is the most put-together woman I've ever seen in my life. Even on days when she stays home and doesn't go anywhere, she still usually showers and does her hair, because she's just like that.

And when my dad met my mom and they worked together on his graduate recital, they had a very business-like relationship, and my dad treated my mom as though her time were valuable, which to him it was. And in order to say thank you, he took her out to dinner a day or two after the recital.

So, a tip for you: treat your SO with respect and kindness and don't act like any natural characteristic of theirs is in anyway indicative of character flaws. Unless that natural characteristic is a love for ax-murder. Then you might want to call the police.

2.) Nike offers you some good advice: Just Do It.

A couple weeks after the dinner-as-payment-for-services-rendered, my dad was like, "Well, I have an evening here, and I could either go to this fireside thingamajig or I could stay home and watch this Star Trek movie on TV. Hmm."

And then the Spirit bonked him over the head with a baseball bat and was like, "Dude. Go to the fireside, and take that girl who was nice enough to play the piano for you. Because seriously, she's great." And some other stuff, that is slightly more personal and which I wouldn't divulge because that would be my dad's job.

So my dad took my mom to the fireside, and three months later they were engaged. Ka-ching.

3.) Never go to bed angry.

I find it unnatural that my parents don't argue. I mean, they disagree about things occasionally, like probably leaving the toilet seat up or down, or about toenail holes in socks, or maybe about how expensive baking stuff for everyone and their dog every holiday is. I dunno.

But like, they've never had a serious fight. And I know that that isn't, like, natural. Most couples fight at least once, because people are human and they fight sometimes. But my parents don't. I'm pretty sure it's because they have both realized that arguing is pointless, and instead they just lovingly express needs to one another and they both put like, 210 percent into their marriage and come out with 500000000 percent. I'm not even exaggerating a little bit. I will be hard pressed to find someone who I can live with and never argue with even a little bit.

But like, even if they disagree, it doesn't even permeate into my life, or into my siblings' lives. And I imagine that every night before they go to bed, if in fact on any night in particular my mother goes to bed at all, and they say, "Okay, sorry about whatever it was we disagreed about, because you're great and I like you and I'm blessed to have you so yeah, I'm not mad anymore I'm just sorry."

And then, because they're my parents, they might not cuddle but my dad will probably fart and my mom will probably end up crying because she's trying not to laugh. Ah, my family. We're the most adorable people I know.

4.) Be encouraging.

I always end up having forever-long talks with my parents where I ask for advice about things both awkward and normal, and I usually end up crying because I just love and appreciate my parents so much. They're both so smart about the gospel and about life and they have really good advice that always leaves me better off than if I hadn't asked for it.

But like, they do the same thing with each other. They communicate, and it's not ever passive-aggressive or even angry. They just tell each other stuff. They talk to each other. I mean, if you're getting married to somebody, you're probably at the point where you can fart in front of each other, right? Then you should be able to talk to each other about anything. Farting in front of someone you think is hot is more embarrassing than anything you could be talking about, ever.

5.) Be patient.

My parents aren't always patient with their children, but they are infinitely patient with one another. If my dad gets annoyed about something, he rants about it for five minutes while my mother listens with an expression of utter calm on her face. If my mom gets annoyed about something, she talks about it in a quietly angry manner and my dad inserts expressions of support and asks appropriate questions to convey that he is listening. They are both really good listeners. That's probably where I get it from.

6.) Do stuff that you both like.

My parents do music together, yes. But sometimes, in my childhood, I would go downstairs for a glass of water after my bedtime and see that my parents were just sitting and playing a board game. Usually Scrabble or something. My dad likes word games like that. And usually- not all the time but usually- he wins. But my mom has fun with it because my dad likes it. And on the other hand, my dad often does the dishes for my mother. So yeah, hot dates are like doing the dishes and playing Scrabble and maybe a concerto before bedtime. Sometimes they do things like go to the temple, but only on their anniversary or their birthdays or Mother's Day or something like that.

I can't think of anything else, but that's how my parents do things. And they've just reached the prime of life, their eternally youthful fifties, and they're still going strong and they love each other a lot and they love me a lot, which is why I assume they'll be okay with me writing this. And talking about them farting. Because everyone farts, we all know it, but it's embarrassing to actually do it in front of people. Now that you know that my parents fart, neither you nor they have to be embarrassed about it. Yippee!

Milky Pink Jell-O Bundt Cake Monsters: Robin Williams, Zelda Dungeons, and (unsurprisingly) Some Thoughts On Depression

Today I'm just scrolling through the Internet and I see that Robin Williams has died.

He was 63, suffering from depression, it looks like a suicide. Them's the facts.

There's this one quote, that I wouldn't necessarily apply to everyone who suffers from depression, because it's not true for everyone. It's not even true for me.

"The loneliest people are the kindest, the saddest people smile the brightest, the most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone suffer the way they do." -Anonymous

Robin Williams was funny. He was the Genie, he was the dude in Flubber whose name I don't remember because my experience in watching Flubber was to see the funny green blobs dancing around on the basketball court. He was Peter Pan. He was John Keating. He was funny and real and he was always smiling or joking or laughing. He was funny in real life and in front of the camera.

And yet he suffered from depression.

A lot of people don't understand depression. A lot of people believe it is just feeling sad all the time. There's plenty of sadness, believe me- but there's more, and also less. It's lethargy. It's nothingness. I don't feel the spirit, but I also don't feel tempted to do anything bad. I just kind of exist. And when you go on for long enough, just existing, it begins to get awfully dull, and you wish, maybe a little bit, that you could stop existing because just existing is painfully boring and because you can feel a sharp edge of hurt under the nothing.

And if you have depression, you know this. You know that it sucks. You know that it is a daily effort to get out of bed, to drag yourself to work or school or to do anything you need to do. You want to be with people, but you also find them mildly irritating, like glasses that won't stay clean or summer allergies. You want to be alone, but the silence can be very loud. You want to sleep, but when you want to sleep your mind buzzes with things you could be doing, things you should have done, things you regret, things you fear. When you want to be awake, your brain is dead and foggy and you just have to sleep.

It is a fight. I take a very small amount of medication each day. I probably need more, because I still have days that feel like endless fog. I also take anxiety medication, which relaxes the strung-up bits out so that I don't worry about them and I can focus on the things I need to do, like eating breakfast and going to class and remembering to shower at least every two days.

It is a fight, and it's not a fun one, like the rumble in The Outsiders. It's not like Super Mario Brothers Brawl or Melee. There's no snazzy dancing, like West Side Story. The only way I can think of to explain it, without offending veterans by comparing it to the trench warfare of World War One, is to tell you to imagine a Zelda game. I always think of Oracle of Seasons when I think of this analogy, as it's the first Zelda game my brother ever owned and I was super into it, I thought it was just the coolest thing ever.

So imagine a Zelda game. Link walks into a dungeon and discovers one Like-Like in the first room. For unexperienced video gamers, a Like-Like looks like a fancy, milky-pink Jell-O mold that has been made by filling two Bundt cake pans with Jello and stacking them on top of one another. When they've set, imagine them becoming very vaguely sentient, sentient enough to recognize that human (or half-elven) flesh is tasty, and that wood is also tasty, because Like-Likes eat your wooden shield. It's very annoying.

Link, or you as you are playing said video game, kills the Like-Like and moves on. No rupees, no hearts.

Next room, there are two Like-Likes. In the next room there are four, and then there are eight, and then there are sixteen, and then there are thirty-two. Soon you are deep into the dungeon, surrounded by Like-Likes. Your health is getting pretty low and your shield was eaten a long, long time ago. You get a heart every now and then, but not nearly often enough. Just enough to keep you from dying. The video game makes that incredibly annoying beeping sound to remind you that you need more health.

You start thinking, "Hey, I should have met a mini-boss before now. And where are all the fun puzzles? Where are my treasure chests? What's the dungeon item going to be? Do I get any keys? And where, for the love of Zelda, is the map?"

There is no mini-boss. There is no boss. There are no puzzles, no treasure chests, no dungeon items, no keys. And especially no map. You are on some eternal grid-like dungeon map pattern, and you have just enough health to stay alive but not nearly enough to keep you healthy or to let you shoot laser beams out of your sword. It's just endless rooms of Like-Likes, who sometimes skitter towards you with malevolent intent but who sometimes just wander sheepishly around with nothing to do or say, just Jell-O-ing around as they have always done. Not really threatening, not that hard to deal with individually. There's just a lot of them.

And then, you know, if you decide that you want to turn around and leave this dungeon, some awful, awful person has taken the save point out of your game and has hacked into the code so that you are trapped in the dungeon of ever-multiplying Jell-O monsters forever.

You have to keep going. If you don't keep going, you'll die. And after room after room of swinging your trusty wooden sword into Jell-O monsters, getting one heart for maybe every fifteen you kill... it gets dreadfully boring. Just the sword button, over and over. One thumb on the D-pad. Move around, kill the Like-Likes. Nothing else. No Roc's feather, no boomerang, no arrows, no magic, no seeds, nothing.

Suddenly dying, in the video game, doesn't look like quite so bad a thing anymore, you know? At least there will be no Jell-O monsters if you die. Your hand will not have carpal tunnel. You can take a break to go to the bathroom, you can eat some food, you can do your laundry. You know, productive stuff.

Robin Williams and I are both Link, in our own ways. He's got a cool sword that probably has "I'm not that kind of lawyer" or "Jafar, Jafar, he's our man; if he can't do it, GREAT!" written on it. My sword is also cool, and it probably has a Pokeball on the hilt. And my shield looks like a dictionary. Yeah.

But we are both stuck in this Zelda-esque dungeon, surrounded by millions of milky pink Jell-O monsters, and we can't get out.

Robin Williams fought, and he lost. I don't mean to make light of his experiences by comparing them to video games. I'm just making a terrible metaphor to try and make sense of it for myself. Because Robin Williams died, and he probably committed suicide because of his depression, and if I haven't made it abundantly clear in this blog, I have had suicidal thoughts. I would really like to not commit suicide, in general. But there are some days where it's just like, "Well, I don't want to die, you know. I just want to stop living, right?" And for a long time I thought I might even do it, you know. It wouldn't have been very hard. It would cost about fifteen dollars for me to kill myself, fifteen dollars being the cost of a bottle of a hundred pills of ibuprofen. It would be a lot harder to obtain a handgun than it would be to down a bottle of ibuprofen, you know? (Maybe not in America.)

I'm sorry. That was morbid. But my point is, I'm still fighting. And Robin Williams was fighting, and there are a lot of people I know who fight, who struggle to keep going because some days it doesn't feel worth it to slay the milky pink Jell-O monsters anymore. It would be easier to let them eat our shields and lay down quietly and die. It would be so easy. In many ways, depression is when dying becomes easier than living. I'm not afraid to die. I lost that fear over this past year. I'm afraid of being alone, and I'm afraid of being unloved, for sure. But I'm not afraid to die, because there are still times when I think I might welcome it.

Robin Williams was 63 when he died. That is sixty-three whole years of life, sixty-three years of work and suffering and pain, and a few bright spots of joy here and there. The saddest people smile the brightest, remember? Robin Williams had a very bright smile. He was so brave, for so long, and I only hope that I can continue to be that brave. I'm 21. I am exactly one-third of his age. If I live until sixty-three without giving in to the Jell-O monsters, then I will pat myself heartily on the back, and maybe buy a shot glass and fill it with root beer or something and take root beer shots. You know, something like that.

Joy

I was originally going to preface this post by saying, "I read a lot," but I feel that it would kind of be an understatement. I read EVERYTHING. As a child, I started by reading every book bought for me and my siblings, including the baby books, and all of the books that I'm sure my parents bought at yard sales because they were older than Noah. After I had finished reading all of our books, I moved on to the shelf of parenting books sitting in my family's music room, and the party planning books, and the Asterix and Obelix comics that my dad had bought in Austria on his mission to improve his German. The comics were in German. I do not and have never spoken German. I read them anyway. I read all of the cookbooks with pictures. I read a bunch of my mother's books. Heck, I've even sat down and read a few dictionaries. I own an Italian-to-English dictionary, a Spanish-to-English dictionary, and a Russian-to-English dictionary. My parents have a bunch of German-to-English dictionaries because they both speak German. I've read a bunch of my dad's books. Except not the math books, because I was intimidated by math as a high-schooler and I haven't done any math more complicated than multiplying something in the last four years.
So yes, I read a lot.

One of the things I love about reading is that there are people, like me, who think of different people who don't even exist, and they take these people and put them together as a million tiny puzzle pieces of people who are real, people whom they know exist. Writers do not create wholly original characters. Case in point: John Green based the experiences of Hazel Grace Lancaster, of The Fault In Our Stars, on his friend, Esther Earl. Hazel is not Esther, and Esther is not Hazel. Nobody is Hazel, except for Hazel. Another example: Christopher Paolini based the character Angela on his own sister, Angela. Christopher Paolini's sister Angela is not an awesomely eccentric witch; nor does she keep company with a werecat, nor does she tell fortunes. But they share the same name, and as Paolini mentioned in the thank-you sections of his books, the two Angelas do have fairly similar personalities.

And yet another example: I finished writing the rough draft of a novel on Tuesday. I started writing this novel in March-ish. It wasn't the half-finished one that I wrote for Brandon Sanderson's class. It's a completely different one. However, I have a great fondness for writing child characters, even for stories I don't intend to be for children. My protagonist in this book is a child mage who has suffered from birth due to the fact that one of her feet is twisted and another is only half there, kind of like a clubfoot. I don't know any crippled children personally; my only reason for writing her disabled is because she is a mage and she is unnaturally intelligent, and in order to reflect that, I needed something that would prevent her from interacting normally with other children and that would cause her to keep company with adults, specifically her father, more often than others. However, I did base this character off people I know. She's got long dark hair like her mother, and more specifically like my sister, the Beauty. She also has a habit of surprising people in a good way, like the Beauty. Her intelligence and much of her personality can be attributed to my younger brother, the Prodigy. And her relative innocence, different ways of thinking, and capabilities despite her disability are all entirely stolen from my middle brother, the Angel. I base a lot of characters on my siblings, because my siblings are the most wonderfully human people I know. And I get a lot of good reactions when I do that, because despite whatever good qualities I want to heap onto my characters, the basis for their personalities come from real, lovely people with beautiful flaws. My protagonist, despite being an extraordinarily patient young girl, also has flaws. She's impatient, she often acts without thinking, and she makes a lot of mistakes. Sometimes she's rude and tactless. And she's important to me, because she is not a flawless character.

People are human. People make mistakes. And the fact that people choose to write about human characters who also make mistakes brings me so much joy. If everyone wrote about perfect characters, life would be boring to read about. But the world is full of flaws, and I rejoice in flaws. They are chances for characters to react or to act, to grow and change, to stumble and then pick themselves up again. They are chances for people to redeem themselves, to learn something new. Everything that happens, whether real or fictional, is an opportunity worth taking.

These last two years, I have found it very difficult to find joy. Sometimes, there would be a strange burst of happiness over some small thing, but largely my life has become long months of dullness interspersed with a few exciting things. I don't mind that, really. Because writing has become a way for me to fill the void. It's not always a happy place, being alone. Sometimes I'm very lonely and very boy-thirsty, as many of my earlier posts attest. Sometimes I'm extraordinarily selfish, whining about my problems as though nobody has any. Sometimes I focus excessively on the terrible gray loneliness that hovers over my every action, just waiting to let fall insecurities and sorrow like little drops of rain. But I have slowly learned, over the course of writing this blog and through trying to understand my life and what has happened to me with depression, anxiety, heartbreak, and stress, that I am allowed to be less than perfect. I hold high standards for myself, because I have always done so. I'm not sure how to do it differently. But it is okay for me to have days where I just say, "Nope," and spend it playing Pokemon and eating cold pizza. That might sound childish, but the liberty of being an adult is that you are allowed to be childish occasionally. I fill my days with getting up at nine, going to class when I have it, and putting on a smile and a chirpy face for the customers at the bookstore, even when I don't feel like it. And the rest of the time is mine, to do with as I please.

For a long time, I felt like my depression, anxiety, heartbreak, and stress were because of something that I did. Stress, certainly, can still be because of the things I do. But deciding whether or not to have depression is out of my control. I cannot choose to wake up and feel that my bones are made of lead and molasses, that my body aches with pain I don't remember feeling, that everything is tired and fuzzy to look at. I cannot choose the way my mind first reacts when I see something that makes me panic. With time, I will be able to control that better, but for now it is not something I have mastered and never truly will. I cannot decide where my heart chooses to make its home, although I can choose to always act dignified, no matter how much it feels like I am splintering. Some things just happen, and they are beyond my control.

I have come to feel free of guilt for things that happen to me, and to take responsibility for things that I cause to happen. If I drink caffeinated soda at midnight, then it's my own fault that I can't sleep for hours. But if I wake up and my mind is convinced that everyone I love actually secretly hates me, then that isn't my fault. It's nobody's fault. It's a chemical inbalance in my brain that causes me to feel irrational fear and anxiety over something that is not true and out of my control even if it were true.

And I have come to recognize that through the power of Heavenly Father's love and Christ's atonement, through the whispers of the Holy Spirit, that no matter what happens, no matter what is my fault and what is not, that I am loved. I have come to see that the work I am able to do is more important than the things I cannot do. I cannot singlehandedly make everyone believe in the gospel. But I can contribute, by teaching those I know and by supporting my brother as he serves the people of Gilbert, Arizona. I can do my part to help people to be safe and comfortable in the world by lending money to third-world entrepreneurs and by donating blood to the Red Cross and by paying my tithing to help the church to help other people. I can listen to the people I love, and I can be there for them. I can take pictures of the blue, blue desert sky over mountains as green and golden as gems and coins and I can share the beauty I see with the world around me. I can take pictures of myself, to document the changes I make, to aid my memory, and to encourage other people that their faces and bodies are nothing to be ashamed of, that they can have confidence in themselves. I can write stories that will help those in need of escape to get away from the loud world for a little while. I can create havens, where people feel loved and where people want to stay with me.

I am not perfect. I am not even that good of a person. But I can do little things that will help other people, and maybe that will count in my favor. I can see joy, and I can spread joy. I can't always feel it, but I can make sure that others get the privilege of joy.

God bless you all, for being people who contribute joy in no small amount into my life. I may not always notice it, but sometimes you say funny things on the internet and sometimes you take beautiful pictures of yourselves and your children and the world and sometimes you post articles that make me laugh or smile and sometimes you just say the kindest, most wonderful things to me. And at times like that, when I see or hear something from you that helps me to feel joy, I want to let everyone have that little sunlight in a gray world that joy so often is to me. Light your candles with my joy and let them guide you in the darkness. I wouldn't want you to be as lost as me. I love you all. Thank you.

Anxiety vs. Beliefs

Whenever I go on a date, I get physically ill. Not because the people in question I have dated are repulsive. It's because there are five million little things nagging at me at once. Do I smell funky? Why am I sweating so much? Is my hair okay? Did I brush my teeth? Oh my gosh, I was so busy worrying I didn't hear his question. Now I have to ask him what he said. I must look like such an awful person.

And so on, and so on. Literally ad nauseam. My mother tells me that one or maybe two of my aunts used to physically throw up before and after dates. I am thankfully not at that point. It could very well happen in the future.

Point being, anxiety is some serious stuff. It's like trying to move through water. You're slowed down considerably and constantly pushing against a force that seems greater than you are.

I've recently made some posts on Facebook related to things I believe. I get angry when I feel that my rights are not respected, and I post about things that piss me off.

I didn't get spoon-fed my opinions. I've come to accept my beliefs on my own. I am a liberal feminist Mormon. I am also a human being who suffers from depression and anxiety.

And whenever I make a post on Facebook, I sit and wait for the backlash. A lot of people I know are neither feminist nor liberal, and everyone's got something to say. And with every comment, I shrink a little further into my seat.

I'm not good at arguing. I am very bad at arguing. I come from a family more prone to forgiveness than to fighting. Even if we disagree, we kind of just let it go, because family is more important than arguing.

Let me be perfectly clear: when I say something on Facebook that everyone seems to feel the need to comment on, I feel threatened. It's not your fault. It's not even my fault. It's the fault of my anxiety, which interprets your comments as saying, "YOU USED TO BE SUCH A SWEET LITTLE NERD GIRL, NOW YOU'VE BECOME A NASTY SOCIALIST PIG, WE ALL HATE YOU."

It also interprets you as saying, "You must be a bad Mormon because you don't agree with me."

To which I answer, "If you're not God or the prophet, I don't have to agree with you."

But that's besides the point. I'm not telling you to do anything you're not comfortable with. I'm not telling you not to comment on anything I post. I'm just explaining the effect your comments have on me.

And yet, I still post things. Because I believe in them. And to me, that's more important than huddling up and waiting for the impact.

A Ten-Minute Introduction to Sexual Orientation and Gender (by a person who is probably not qualified to teach anyone anything)

My name is Sarah, and I am a white, heterosexual, able-bodied female college student. I recognize that I have certain privileges associated with these traits; I have never been the subject of racist, homophobic, or ableist remarks. I have never been sexually or physically abused. I am poor, but I am not living in poverty. I can basically afford to keep myself alive.

I consider myself old enough to write about this. I am nearly twenty-one years old, which is not very old, but it is old enough to understand and appreciate complex issues. I am an English major, and part of what I have studied in college includes gender studies, feminist readings, and queer theory. I am also a member of various online communities where gender and sexual orientation are discussed at great length, and I have listened and asked questions and attempted to be kind and polite to the community. My respect has been received warmly, and I have been able to learn a lot from kind people who answer my questions with patience and understanding.

I do not consider myself an expert on any of these issues. If you wish to more thoroughly study sexuality and gender, talk to someone who is practiced in those fields. Yes, there are people who study sexuality and gender as a part of the human psyche. I am not one of them.

I’m writing this post because there are people who exist on this earth who many Mormons don’t understand. We believe, of course, that gender is sacred and special. I believe that, too. I simply believe that we often exclude ourselves from being kind and polite to others because of our belief that gender is sacred and special. This post is an explanation of different kinds of sexual orientation and gender, and some guidelines to follow when communicating or speaking to or about people of different sexual orientations and genders. It is not an opinion post. It is a post of facts, about people who exist, and who have studied extensively to examine what makes themselves different from others.

That being said, here are some rules to assume when talking to ANY other human being, regardless of sexual orientation or gender.

1. Do not talk about genitals, theirs or yours or in the abstract but relating to theirs or yours. That is rude. It qualifies as sexual harassment. If you’ve ever gotten a weird message on Tinder, then you understand what I mean by that.

2. Do not assume gender. Sometimes you won’t be sure, or you will be tempted to ask. Don’t. It’s rude. It’s like asking someone how much they weigh.

3. Do not talk about their personal appearance or their body. That is rude. It is also like asking someone how much they weigh.

4. Do not tell anyone they are going to hell. That is rude. You do not get to decide who goes to hell, anyway. That is God’s decision. But if you tell people they are going to hell, you might as well reserve your own seat there, because telling people they are going to hell because of gender or sexuality probably merits you a spot. I am not an authority on who goes to hell, which is why I used the word “probably.” Whether or not someone goes to hell is between them and God.

5. Be kind. People of all sexual orientations and genders have horrible experiences and bad days, like the rest of us. I would venture to say that people of non-heterosexual orientation and non-binary gender sometimes have worse days than the rest of us, because they have to deal with homophobic and sexist slurs and sexual harassment more often than everyone else.

6. If at a loss to whether something is appropriate to say or not, imagine saying what you are thinking of to Queen Elizabeth. I would suggest President Obama, but most of the people who need to read this post have little to no respect for him, which is a shame in my opinion. If you would not say what you are thinking of to Queen Elizabeth, do not say it to the person you are speaking to. They might not be offended, but you do not know that for sure, and it is better to be safe than sorry.

Keeping with those guidelines, here are some general categories, identifiers, and words relating to gender and sexual orientation, so that you may better understand and empathize with the humans around you.

Heterosexual. This word refers specifically to persons of the male or female gender who are sexually attracted to persons of the opposite (binary) gender. If you are reading this, you are probably heterosexual. Heterosexuals make up the largest group of people in the area of gender and sexuality. You do not need to worry about people who you may currently think of as “the gays” trying to ruin your lives, your sexual orientation, or your marriage. As a person who has spoken with people who are not heterosexual, ruining your lives is the last thing on most of their minds. Most of them are just trying to get by from day to day, as all humans are. And since heterosexuals far outnumber most people who are not heterosexual, it might behoove you to think more about what your actions do to them than what their actions do to you. It might behoove you to do that anyway, as the only person whose actions you can control is yourself.

Homosexual. This word refers generally to a person who is attracted to a person of the same gender.

Gay. While this word refers specifically to a person of the male gender who is sexually attracted to other people of the male gender, it is also used to generally mean a person who is attracted to people of the same gender, regardless of what that gender is. When referring to a person who identifies as gay, do not say: queer, fag, homo. Those are slurs and inappropriate. People who identify as gay may use these terms in self-identification, as a way of reclaiming the slur for their own purposes. That does not mean it is okay for you or anyone else to use those slurs to refer to them.

Lesbian. This refers specifically to a person of the female gender who is sexually attracted to other people of the female gender. When referring to a person who identifies as lesbian, do not say: queer, fag, homo. Those are slurs and inappropriate. Do not ask “but who’s the girl and who’s the boy in your relationship?” That is inappropriate and rude.

Bisexual. This refers specifically to a person who is sexually attracted to people of either the male or female gender. When referring to a bisexual person, do not say that they are half straight and half gay. That is inappropriate and inaccurate. Do not tell a bisexual person that they are either straight or gay depending on their current partner. That is called erasure, and it is inappropriate and harmful to bisexual people.

Pansexual. This refers specifically to a person who is sexually attracted to all genders. You may say that pansexual and bisexual are the same thing, but there are people who do not identify as either male or female, and to assign a gender to one of those people is inappropriate and wrong. A pansexual person is attracted to the male gender, the female gender, and other genders. Do not tell a pansexual person that they are either straight or gay depending on their current partner. That is inappropriate and harmful.

Asexual. This refers specifically to a person who does not experience sexual attraction. You may believe that such people do not exist, but you would be incorrect. There are varying degrees of asexuality. Do not tell an asexual person that they will like sex once they have met the right person. This is inappropriate and rude.

Cisgender. This refers specifically to people who were assigned a gender at birth and who continue to identify with that gender. You may be confused about this. If you are confused about this, continue to read below.

Transgender. This refers specifically to people who were assigned a gender at birth but who do not identify with that gender. This is where you need to be careful about what you say to them and about them, lest you offend them or anyone else. A transgender person may be taking hormones to help them assimilate with the gender they identify with.Do not say: transsexual, transgendered, tranny, he-she. Those are slurs and inappropriate. A trans man is not a woman. A trans man is a man. A trans woman is not a man. A trans woman is a woman. Their genitals are none of your business, and asking about them is inappropriate. It is rude and inappropriate to ask if a trans man was “born a girl” or if a trans woman was “born a boy.” That implies that they have consciously made a change to switch genders. In reality, children realize their true gender between the ages of three and five, and sometimes it does not match the gender which they were assigned at birth. If you wish to ask someone about their birth assignation, use the phrase “dfab” or “dmab.” This means “designated female at birth” or “designated male at birth.” It is not wrong for doctors to assign a baby a certain gender. It ensures that the baby will receive care appropriate for their genitalia. However, if the baby grows into a person who does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, they may choose to make changes, such as wearing  clothes associated with a different gender, undergoing hormone replacement therapy, and occasionally deciding on surgeries to help them live with their correct gender.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I believe that gender is sacred. I do not believe that God made mistakes by placing people in bodies that do not match their gender. I do not know for what reason transgender people exist, but they do exist. They are not confused. They are not wrong. You owe them respect. Use the pronouns they ask you to use, and do not ignore the choices they have made. I believe that God will explain His reasoning someday, and I believe that everyone will be happy, no matter their gender. In the meantime, it is polite and appropriate to use the correct pronouns and to treat transgender people with the respect they deserve. They are also children of God and their spirits are sacred kindred siblings to your spirits. Do not treat them unkindly.

Non-binary sexuality. There are some people who do not identify with the male gender or the female gender, which are referred to as the binary genders. Non-binary people may ask you to use different pronouns entirely. Please respect their wishes and politely use their pronouns. Address them by their name if you cannot remember their pronouns, and do not be afraid to ask if you need reminding as to their correct pronouns.

A word about pronouns: I have been talking about pronouns an awful lot, and I haven’t yet explained the concept. Pronouns are a part of speech used to refer to a noun without saying the name of the noun over and over again. Subject pronouns are: I, you, he, she, it, we, you (plural), and they. Object pronouns are me, you, him, her, it, us, you (plural), and them. Female associated pronouns are she/her; male associated pronouns are he/him. An acceptable pronoun to use for someone with non-binary pronouns is they/them. According to the English language, this is correct for a third-person singular pronoun. Never, ever refer to a non-binary person as “it.” That is dehumanizing, inappropriate, and rude. If someone has a set of pronouns they would like you to use, then use them. It is rude and inappropriate not to use them. There are a few alternate sets of pronouns, but they are complex to explain and if you meet someone who would like you to use them, ask them to explain it to you, as they will have a better understanding of the idea than I do.

There are other orientations out there. Asexuality has several subcategories. One such is graysexuality, which is when a person only rarely experiences sexual attraction. Another is demisexuality, which is when a person only experiences sexual attraction after an emotional relationship has formed. You may claim that these are not legitimate, but you are incorrect. If a person identifies as a certain sexual orientation or gender, then it is legitimate. Confining your point of view to merely what you have been told all of your lives is limiting. Consider new ideas and possibilities, and your respect and kindness for others will grow. Ask yourself how you can serve others, and even if it is something as simple and kind as using the correct pronouns, then do it.

Returning to the guidelines I mentioned, we will use Queen Elizabeth as an example. Would you ever ask Queen Elizabeth if she has a penis or a vagina? Of course not. That would be highly embarrassing for you and for her, not to mention inappropriate. In that case, you should not ask any person what genitals they have, because guess what? It is embarrassing for you and for them, and incredibly inappropriate.

Would you ever refer to Queen Elizabeth as “he?” Would you ever act as though Queen Elizabeth was actually a man? Of course not. That would be foolish, because you know perfectly well that Queen Elizabeth is a woman. In that case, you should always address a person by the pronouns they request, because they are the gender they identify as. If you are unsure, ask or use “they.”

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I know that most of what we believe is considered unkind to people who are of different sexual orientations. We believe that the most sacred and holy of relationships, one where children can be produced, is a marriage between a man and a woman. I believe that marriage and children are sacred, too. But just because I believe that marriage and children are sacred, just because I someday hope to marry a man and have between four and six children with him, I am not justified in being unkind to any person who does not believe that. We can teach gospel principles to those who are open to hearing it, but we should always be mindful of how other people think and feel. Being Mormon and having a testimony that I belong to the true church of God is not a free pass to be disrespectful of others. Being Mormon and having a testimony that I belong to the true church of God is, however, a very good reason to be kind and respectful to all people.

In Doctrine and Covenants 18:10-15, it says,"Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him. And he hath risen again from the dead, that he might bring all men unto him, on conditions of repentance. And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth! Wherefore, you are called to cry repentance unto this people. And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me."

To me, this means that I cannot afford to alienate even one person by saying that their gender or sexual orientation is wrong or wicked. I cannot afford to be unkind to anyone, because if the worth of souls is great in the sight of God, then He loves those people as much as He loves me, and as such they deserve to be treated with respect. Even if you believe that they are wrong or wicked or sinners, treat them with love and kindness and respect, and beg them to be patient with you as you learn the best ways to serve their needs. And if they feel loved and respected, then maybe they will become open to the gospel and to the love of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.

If you have any criticisms of the accuracy of my statements that are unrelated to gospel principles, questions about my phrasing or wording, or other comments, please feel free to do so. If you have criticisms related to gospel principles that suggest that people of different sexual orientations or genders are wicked, wrong, or sinful; or that I am wicked, wrong, or sinful for recognizing different sexual orientations and genders as legitimate, then you can keep them to yourself. This is not an opinion post. This is a post about people who exist in this world and who suffer a lot because most people don’t know how to show them kindness and respect. Please consider my words as a way of showing respect to those around you, rather than a criticism of Mormon culture. I love you, thank you for reading my blog.

March Is An Awful Month. Here Are Some Things That Make Me Happy.

I hate the month of March. With the exception of the birthdays of two members of my family, March consists of stress, no spring break at BYU, more stress, getting ready for finals, writing a crap-ton of essays, more stress, memories of past years with similar stress, weather wavering between sunny or full of precipitants of some kind, and me turning into a sad, stupid mess because the lack of Vitamin D contributes significantly to my depression.

So because I hate this month SO MUCH, here are a bunch of things I really like to take my mind off the fact that it's March, and it will be for like five more days. (Ew.)

1.) Kittens. Do I need to say anything else?

(All three .gifs found at catgifpage.com)

2.) Marvel Entertainment is coming out with a crap-ton of stuff. The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show is great (when I remember to watch it, that is, and no spoilers please I'm very behind), and there's Iron Man 3, which was just lovely, and Thor 2 which was also pretty sweet, and Cap 2 is coming out in like nine days which I am very very very very VERY excited about, and then Guardians of the Galaxy with SO MANY GREAT ACTORS AND ACTRESSES, and the first set photos from Avengers 2: Age of Ultron were released on like Tuesday (Jeremy Renner and his cute butt yyyyyyyyeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh which I will silently objectify when I'm not busy drowning in my own tears of happiness because Marvel) and X-Men: Days of Future Past is coming out soon and I'M JUST SO EXCITED ABOUT EVERYTHING AAAAAAAHHHHHH

(aw yeah get it, pictures credit of google images, also Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch!!!!!)

3.) The Fault In Our Stars comes out four days before my twenty-first birthday. And if spending the last few days before I am a true, legal adult drowning in my own tears and kicking and screaming with emotions over a YA novel is not in some way indicative of my entire life thus far, then I really don't know what is.

(credit to google images, and yes they played brother and sister in Divergent, *hums Folgers theme song*)

4.) I am not Catholic, but I hear that Pope Francis is a really, really nice man.

(I forget who made the video but credit to youtube or something idek man)

5.) Every Monday, I get a letter from the Beast, who is having a lovely time in Arizona on his mission. He has grown and changed in unbelievable ways, and I feel truly humbled to have the privilege of being his sister. He has baptized six or seven people and is set to baptize more, and he truly believes what he is teaching with all of his heart. I feel the Spirit so strongly every time he writes to me, and it's so wonderful to hear from him each week.

(credit to my parents for this face and to my webcam for actually working for once)

6.) Whenever I'm sad, I remember that J.K. Rowling gave away so much of her money that she was taken off the Forbes list of richest people or whatever. She gave it to charity and stuff, and also she's a really nice person who says really nice things about people with depression and also that quote about how she regrets putting Ron with Hermione was totally taken out of context so it turns out she's not horrible after all.

7.) I didn't play very much Pokemon as a child. I collected some of the cards when they were popular, but it wasn't really a very strong interest with me. Luckily, I have friends and especially certain lovely cousins who really like Pokemon, and I have gradually appreciated how awesome it is as I have gotten older. Not only do you get like, tiny pixellated magical pets who can do awesome things, but there are some great lessons to be learned as well.

(luxray is best non-legendary pokemon i am not arguing on this because i am right and you know it)

(this is a great message and i haven't even seen the movie where he says this)

8.) I have a backscratcher. So even when life is hard and I don't want to do anything, I can scratch my back with minimal effort.

(Sarah-merican Gothic, a crappy photograph made with a crappy webcam, copyright 2014)

9.) I have a really nice family who sends me things like food and clothes and letters and they call me a lot and tell me they love me and keep me from going insane and help me when I'm feeling very sad which is all the time and make sure I'm happy and safe and well.

(photo credit to my camera, taken the day that the Angel and the Prodigy were baptized, I don't remember who took the picture and I also don't know why I edited silly words on it, it's my family and the temple and the edge of a coat rack in our church building that should be enough for anyone to understand)

10.) This month has been really hard for me, and what's ended up happening to me is that no matter how much I want to get up and go to class, I've been sleeping through my alarms because I'm tired ALL the time and sad and I feel like I'm a terrible human being. News for everyone, right? Not like I've made five million blog posts about it or anything... Anyway, what happened is that I stopped going to some of my morning classes because I just could not handle people or schoolwork or anything, and because depression is crippling and awful it just made me incapable of doing anything and it was like my limbs were made of glass and lead and I could not function. So eventually I got around to emailing one of my professors about missed classes and the possibility of making up work because I am sort of kind of sick because depression is a mental illness that renders me far more incapable of doing anything than a cold ever could. (Ha, a cold. I was going to school with fevers when I was in junior high school.)

Anyway, this professor emailed me back and said that she would try to work something out with me, because I had done all of the work I was capable of doing and she didn't really offer extra credit but she'd had me in two other classes before and she knew I could do the work. I was super grateful.

And then one of my two Russian professors emailed me. (They both teach the same class, which is Russian 202, but they alternate teaching days. The younger teacher, who emailed me, teaches on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the older teacher, who I also had for Russian 201, teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Anyway.) I hadn't been to class in five days and he was like, "Are you okay? We're kind of worried about you. Do you need any help from us?"

And I just sat at my computer and sobbed for a good half hour.

Let me explain this. I know why I cried. I am usually very vocal with my needs. If I need food, I get some or ask somebody to help me get some. If I need alone time, I shut myself in my room or ask if I can find somewhere to be alone. If I need to go to the bathroom, I go to the bathroom or I ask to go if I am in a situation where I need permission to go.

But with the obvious exception of whining about all of my depression and anxiety problems on this blog, I kind of don't talk about it in person with people. In fact, I have mostly kind of stopped talking to people at all. I talk with my supervisor at work, who I see just about every day. I kind of talk with my roommates sometimes, when I go out in the living room. But I don't talk to them about the depression or the anxiety, because I am very, very afraid of alienating people. I am so scared that people don't care, that they're sick and tired of hearing about my stupid, silly, selfish problems that they will someday cut me off mid-sentence and say, "You know what, Sarah? Nobody cares. Nobody really cares."

And I know there will be people who will tell me, especially after reading this, "You can talk to me about anything, all the time! Here's my cell phone number, send me a message on Facebook or Tumblr or whatever social media thingy we share! Seriously, talk to me!" But if I took you up on that, if I really took anyone up on that, you would come to understand exactly what a mess I am. You would be getting texts and messages every five minutes, from eight in the morning until midnight at night. You would hear every little thing I worry about or am scared about. Because when I feel safe with someone, as inviting me to talk about problems with you will inevitably make me feel, I go the whole hog and drop my filters. And while I have had problems recognizing social cues in the past, I know when someone doesn't want to listen to me anymore, because I've seen that look and heard that tone and understood that message so many times. And I'm not numb to it. I never could be. It hurts me every time it happens. And the thing is that nobody can ever really help me with this, because you have your own lives and you cannot be at my disposal all the time. And trust me, you don't want to be.

So I am not used to people asking if I need help. My mother and father do, because they are kind and because I depend on them for so much. But I'm trying not to burden them as much. That's part of being an adult: shouldering your own burdens.

And when my Russian professor asked if I needed help, I cried about it, because it felt so lovely, so good, to be asked if I needed anything. It felt like somebody cared.

I answered that email, saying I was going through some stuff with my mental health and that I would like to make up any work I had missed if that was possible.

They said that would be fine.

And I went into my Russian class yesterday and the Tuesday-Thursday teacher was there and I waited to talk to her after class and she listened to me talk (and cry) about my problems, and she said simply, "I understand, it's okay, I had very severe post-partum after both of my daughters were born," and then I cried even more because it's easy for people to say they understand, but when someone has depression and they know what it's like, it's just this connection. They know, and you know. You both know.

And I went to see the Monday-Wednesday-Friday teacher after I was done with work, and he told me, "I understand, it's okay, I went to go pick up my meds today," and then I cried a little bit more because he got it, too. And he's not a native English speaker, and neither is the Tuesday-Thursday teacher, and even though I barely speak better English than I do Russian, and even though we were talking about complicated things that they kind of ignore in Russia, they both knew. They got it. They listened, and they were willing to help me.

And it was wonderful.

And then today, the professor I had emailed first about missing classes taught a lecture on Virginia Woolf, and specifically the nature of her mental illnesses and how she committed suicide. And I was paying attention and very keen and I talked to her afterward about making up work and she told me, "I was very aware that you were in the room, and I hope it wasn't hard for you to listen today, I know this can be very sensitive," and I just wanted to cry at her too (though I didn't, aren't you proud) that no, bless you, this was a wonderful lesson, it makes me feel better to know that I am not the only person in the world who has gone between spending days in bed and writing obsessively for hours, but I didn't say that, I only reassured her that I was fine and that she was fine and everything was fine.

So this was a long last number, but you know, I am very, very grateful for kind professors. My father always said, "Professors aren't going to care about you or anything you do. They're going to say, 'Too bad, can't help you.' You'll have to help yourself in college." My dad has been right about a lot of things more often than he's been wrong, but I'm kind of grateful that he was wrong about this one. In my experience, my college professors have all been very kind and understanding, like so: "You know, you all did really well on the first exam, so I'm going to drop the second one and give you all full credit on it. Here, these are my office hours, but if we have to I will meet with you at midnight to make sure I can help you. Here, have five million extra credit opportunities, go to these lectures and have someone sign a paper saying you were there and I'll raise your grade a whole letter. I know I said three missed absences in the syllabus, but I'm not really counting, and I know that this class isn't the only one you're taking. This test is in three weeks, so here are seventeen review sessions with the TAs, I'm posting all of the powerpoint slides from the entire semester, and here's a list of the test questions for you to study, which I will use on the actual test." All of the above are actual things that have happened to me in college, with only slight exaggerations. (Only ten review sessions, instead of seventeen.)

So I know that it was kind of dreary and sad at the end there, but you know, scroll all the way back up to the top for more kittens, because I'm too lazy to find more gifs. I'm glad March is almost over, and I'm glad that even though I am sad and useless and tired, I can still do hard things and people understand if the things I do don't end up being impressive compared to the everyday lives of those who don't have depression.

This Is What Mental Illness Is

When it comes to courage, I'm the first to admit that I don't have any. There are some things I do that other people may think are courageous, but I promise you, they're really mostly because I'm too lazy to care. Things in this category include: blogging about all of my problems for the whole Internet to see, writing stuff and letting people critique it without becoming a massive pile of negative emotions, eating during class, and singing to myself when I'm walking to school or work. If I were embarrassed by any of these things, I assure you that I would not do them.

However, there are things that I am rather squeamish about, and most of them are behaviors or actions that other people would consider normal. For instance, I have a job where I work in my campus bookstore and I help people find things that they don't know how to find. I am getting to the point where I am pretty good at finding things even if I don't know where they are beforehand. However, if I can't find something, I feel like a tiny crumb of insignificance, failure, and guilt. I turn into this ridiculous mess where I am convinced that every person I have ever met is looking at me and thinking about how appalling my lack of basic competence at life happens to be.

And this is something that happens A LOT.

Here is a sample of my day today, and you will understand what I mean:

7:30- alarm rings. I set it back to 7:50 because I am lazy. I feel a small amount of guilt but am too tired to care and besides, nobody will notice but me.

7:50- alarm rings again. I convince myself that I don't need to set it back again because I'm going to get up in five minutes anyway. I feel guilty right before I go back to sleep.

8:30- I sit bolt upright in bed, staring horrified at the clock. I sit there filled with remorse and guilt. What kind of a responsible twenty-year-old college student can't get up on time for class? I have half an hour until class.

8:35- I shake away the guilt, remind myself that I am an adult, and get out of bed and start getting dressed. I cannot find the clothes I want to wear today. It takes me five minutes to put on my new bracelet because I have tiny, yet amazingly clumsy hands. I berate myself for not being more organized and responsible.

8:45- I am finally dressed, but I am also starving. I think about it for a while, then decide that it is not necessary for me to be on time to class, because I woke up late. I eat a chocolate muffin that my roommate made using my mother's recipe. The endorphins momentarily assuage the guilt I feel at the idea of being late to class.

9:00- I realize that if I don't leave now, I will be very late to class. The momentary pleasure of chocolate has gone. I have another muffin to help me feel better.

9:15- I decide that class is overrated, and am instantly overwhelmed by guilt. I get on the computer to check my email.

9:55- I realize that I am going to be late to Russian class. I realize that the guilt I feel at missing my first class is not enough to spur me to go to my second, and sink deeper into my little cesspool of guilt.

10:30- I argue with myself about calling in sick to work, then realize that I am a lazy piece of crap. I grab my coat and begin walking to work. It is cold and I am miserable because I may be well-rested but I am also irresponsible, lazy, and disgusting.

10:55- I arrive at work. I clock in and start working.

1:56- I clock out of work. I feel like a miserable vomitous mass because I am awkward and shy and I don't know how to talk to people and sometimes I can't hear what they're saying and sometimes they can't hear what I'm saying and sometimes I do stupid things and sometimes I realize that I don't know what I'm doing even though I've been working at this place since May and I should know what I'm doing and sometimes I feel stupid for asking questions and sometimes I feel stupid for not asking questions and I am a nerve-wracked mess of fear, slight nausea, hunger, headache, worry, the desire to cry, and the desire to curl up in a ball and hide.

2:30- I arrive home and think about how awful I feel. Despite the fact that I really do want to cry and eat donuts, I decide that writing a blog post would be a more productive use of my time.

So, you see, I have this problem. It's a pretty big problem. It prevents me from functioning like a mostly normal human being. I second-guess everything I do, I regret everything I've said the moment I've said it. I do stupid things and have to try and fix them, and in the process do even stupider things, and it feels like people are sitting back and watching me fail and not showing me what I'm doing wrong- but I know that they're not going to say anything, no matter how incompetent I am.

My mother told me that she was shy and insecure in high school, and she's told me about other experiences she's had that made her feel awful. And I hear her stories and think, "I have no right to feel as bad as I do about these little mistakes I make." But then this nasty little voice in my head says, "But you make five million of those tiny mistakes every day, and then you feel bad, and you should feel bad for feeling bad because you don't need to feel bad, you're only human."

And then I try to explain to people that everything I do is horrible and they say, "BUT YOU'RE ONLY HUMAN, DON'T CRY, YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL AND SWEET AND A GOOD PERSON AND I LIKE YOOOOOOOUU," and then I feel even worse because I know, deep down, that they are wrong. I am a lazy, miserable, nerve-wracked piece of crap whose existence is divided between my actions and negative commentary upon my own actions.

This is why I don't like to talk to strangers. Heck, this is why I don't like to talk to my friends. I am so afraid of screwing up that I don't even want to try to be normal; it's easier just to hide in my room and think about how paranoid I am that everyone who has ever claimed to be my friend actually hates me and wishes I were dead. Or maybe they don't wish that I were dead, because they are much better human beings than I am. Instead, they wish that they were not acquainted with me and my awkward interactions because they must surely be suffering vicarious embarrassment upon my behalf. I am the only human awful enough to sometimes wish that I were dead- or, at the very least, unconscious.

And this is the state I am in, approximately ninety percent of the time. I do something- or I fail to do something. I immediately regret my choice and begin to berate myself. I begin to believe that I am a horrible person and that I deserve all kinds of horrible punishments. I don't even try to focus on these negative things, but they come crowding in around me, my little demons, whispering about how awful I am or how stupid I am or how ugly I am, telling me that this person hates me and that other person thinks I am an utter idiot and that somebody else wishes I didn't exist.

There are only a few things that can make me feel better without reservation. One of these things is animals, and another is babies. Babies and animals are judgment-free carbon-based life forms, and even if you are a stupid, lazy failure like me, they will adore you. And I can sit there, holding a baby or an animal, and I can touch a warm little body and believe, even for just a little while, that I am worth something. Somebody once held me like that, after all.

And the other thing is writing. Reading is wonderful- it is an escape from the world and its follies, an escape from myself. But books end, and guilt opens the portcullis of my mind once more and comes flooding in like molten lead, destroying everything in its path and burning everything it touches. But writing- I can always keep writing. There is always some new world to find, some new world where the guilt cannot touch me because in that world I am not the guilty one.

I have not recognized these things about myself for a long time. I didn't know that my constant state of self-hatred and worry were symptoms of my depression and anxiety. I didn't know that the more it happened, the worse it got. I didn't know in high school that someday I would strongly consider ending my own life. I didn't know when I was twelve years old that I would grow up into a troubled adult. I didn't know when I was nine and my little brother was three and just diagnosed with autism that I would have mental disorders less severe but ultimately far more painful than his. I didn't know when I was five that I would have to take pills everyday, pills that would regulate my hormones and help me to produce more of the kind that would make me feel less like a piece of garbage and more like a human being.

But I know now. And you know, when I was twelve or thirteen, I would have tried to glamorize this darkness in myself. I would have tried to make it mysterious and romantic. But it's not. It's really not. Depression sucks. It feels like nothingness. Add anxiety to it, where you're constantly worried about how dead inside you feel, and it becomes even worse. These things are not beautiful. They are sneaking away from parties to cry in your room because you don't understand how other people manage to talk. These things are wondering how much ibuprofen it would take to kill you. These things are thinking that stepping in front of that speeding bus would hurt much less than just trying to get through the day- the only downside being that you might not die, and it wouldn't be worth it if you didn't die. These things are wishing you had a legitimate reason to hate the person you've become, but realizing that you don't. It's not logical, it doesn't make sense, it hurts and it aches and it's poison in your brain, your heart, your soul. It's when colors fade and sounds slip into the dullness of another day. It's when you can't cry even when you want to. It's ugly and painful and it's numb.

And yet, every day I get up- at some point. And I go to work, and I come home, and I do my homework even though I don't want to. And I smile for the camera, and pretend to be happy, because believing might make it so.

And I understand that people get down on themselves. I understand that people regret their mistakes. I get it. But unless you are painfully reminded of how horrible you feel every time you try to think a new thought, you might not get it.

Some people say, "Well, buck up! Get over it!" Those people do not understand. Other people might be able to struggle their way back to sanity, because they find meaning in that struggle. But for me, all of my senses are wrapped in cotton and wool, and it's not that I don't want to get over it, it's that I can't. I am incapable of just becoming happy at the drop of a hat. I can choose to hide it. People who say that happiness is a choice have never experienced depression or anxiety. But choosing to act happy is a choice, and I try to do that whenever possible. I don't want to make other people feel as bad as I feel, so I choose to let them believe that I'm happy. And sometimes, I really am. Those are the moments that make me choose to go on.

If We Were A Zelda Game, I Would Be Midna And The Beast Would Be Wolf Link

When the Beast and the Beauty and I were all in our fives, sixes, sevens, and eights, we were taken to the Newtown Community Center thingy. I don't actually remember what it was called. We called it the NAC. And upon our arrival, the Beauty and I were signed up for ballet classes, all three of us were signed up for gymnastics, and the Beast and I were signed up for karate.

I was allowed to quit karate after about a month. I never got further than a white belt and I hated it. I liked ballet a lot more. The Beast persisted and after some time, he earned first his yellow belt and then his orange. It was pretty cool. The Beauty and I continued on in ballet. We had to buy the cutesy little slippers at Payless and sew on the elastics. All of us did gymnastics, and even though I was terrible at it, I did manage to learn how to turn a cartwheel and do a forward roll, which is a front flip done from the safety of the ground. And over at the end of the hall, there was this big room where the parents and younger siblings waited for their children to finish lessons and there was a ball pit and tunnels and it was like a McDonalds playplace, but bigger and awesomer. And usually, when we were all done with our lessons, Mom let us play for a little bit before rounding us up and taking us home.

I remember a lot of things about the Newtown days. We lived on a street that was close to being urban. It wasn't really very urban, but we had a big front yard and a big backyard and a fairly small house. There was a huge yellow goldenrod bush in the back by the neighbor's fence, and I got my first bike there, and we had two very tall trees in the front yard and we had an old computer that we played Rodent and Captain Hyperspace and Jumpstart First Grade on and at first the Beast and the Beauty and I shared this huge upstairs loft room, but then we were moved downstairs and Mom and Dad got the big loft room. The Beast got his own room, and the Beauty and I got a wobbly white bunk bed.

It was here that the institution of plays began; I began them with my obsession with Beanie Babies, and the Beauty soon followed. My mother bought some for the Beast as well, and he joined us. Generally speaking, my characters were the cool ones, the smart ones, the ones with important destinies prophecied by ancient mages in a land far gone. My sister's characters were the humorous ones, the cute ones who fell in love. My brother's characters were the heroes, the brave ones, the warriors. I usually led the story, although I accepted contributions from both of them. We built tents and nests from blankets and giggled across the hall to one another at night.

The Beast chipped his front tooth on the bathroom handle door. The Beast also went on a lot of playdates with kids in his karate class or kids in his class at school. The Beast was the first one of us to read the Harry Potter books. I sometimes think it was myself, but he borrowed Prisoner of Azkaban from the school library when he was about eight. I read five chapters of it one night when he was at karate and wished I knew what was going on because it was very good and I wanted to keep reading. 

The Beast had a wide, toothy smile with that one chipped tooth. He was always laughing about something. In those days it was often the Captain Underpants books. We giggled about them together. We practiced the piano, we went to Primary and sometimes we were in the same class. Sometimes we weren't. We went to a New Year's Eve activity at church one night and played Pick-Up-Sticks in a quiet classroom, and then we went home that night with Dad and went to bed. The next morning, we had a baby brother and we went to see him in the hospital, even though the Beauty had pinkeye. She wasn't allowed to hold the baby that time, but the next time she got to.

When we moved to Red Lion, things changed. The Beast had been on his school basketball team and had annoyed our neighbor Desiree by bouncing his basketball off her garage doors. Now we had our own garage doors, and he threw his baseball at it instead. He wanted to be the pitcher. He watched that movie where Dennis Quaid (maybe) had to try and throw a 90 mph fastball to become a pitcher for the Yankees or something. I forget. I ended up watching it a lot over the next few years.

He learned curse words from his friends. He didn't use them, but he asked Dad about them and Dad told him what they meant and that they were bad words and they were not polite to say and if they were said outside of the academic context in our home, our mouths would be washed out with pepper, soap, or Tabasco sauce, depending on the severity of the word in question.

He didn't always pay attention, and he was full of energy and distraction. Sometimes he was mean to us, but not as often as we thought he was. He had epilepsy for a while. He would space out for thirty seconds or so, not really looking at anything or breathing. He grew out of it eventually.

We took swimming lessons every summer. The Beast and I joined the swim team around the time we were in junior high school together. We both kind of hated it and when we began to skip practice by hiding in the locker rooms, Mom withdrew us.

He moved on to high school. I began my music years, and he was trying to decide what he wanted to do in high school. I did so many activities that I was horribly busy. He told us funny stories about his friends at lunch and the stupid and occasionally disgusting things they did. He took wrestling for a little while.

The rest of his story begins to be his own. These are just the memories I have of our childhood. They are neither good, nor bad. They just are. And even during the times when I hated the fastball movie or I thought he was being mean to me, I still liked him. A lot of the time, I was jealous of him. He was much better at math than I was. He was quiet, but he didn't have any problems with talking when people wanted him to. People never teased him the way I was teased a few times in junior high and high school. He never cried in front of people and felt horribly humiliated about it later- at least, not in my recollection.

There is one specific memory I haven't mentioned yet. It's the one where my whole viewpoint of the Beast changed, and he became not just my brother, but one of my best friends.

I was a freshman in high school- maybe a sophomore. I was walking through the hallways, headed for my English class. I saw the Beast in the hallway, walking with a friend from a Tech Ed class to somewhere else. I waved at him and smiled and said, "Hi, Joe," and kept on walking. It was not a big deal to me.

Several weeks later, when for some reason or another I was annoyed at the Beast, my father sat me down and told me something in confidence. He told me about what happened that day when I waved at my brother in the hallway.

My brother hung out with a lot of people I never really trusted or even liked. I was a little afraid of them, although in high school I was afraid of my own shadow and anyone taller than six feet. But it was one of these friends my brother was walking with. And because the Beast and I do not share a particularly strong family resemblance, this friend assumed I was just some random girl who happened to know his friend Joe. And this friend, being immature and attempting to make the Beast laugh, said, "Do you know that ugly chick?" Or something like that. I wasn't much to look at in high school, frankly, but it was still immature and rude.

The Beast grabbed his friend by the shirt and slammed him into a locker.

I'm not joking. It sounds like the kind of thing that you would see happen in a bad Disney Channel movie. But my brother, honest to goodness, picked up a kid and slammed him into a locker and said, "Don't ever talk about my sister like that again."

I am not advocating violence in the event of discovering that one's friends are unchivalrous. But that incident touched me. As mean and annoying as the Beast sometimes was at that age, he loved me deeply, and he would have done and would still do anything for me and for anyone in our family.

And from that day forward, I stopped thinking of the Beast as only my brother and began to think of him as a friend. And the few times that he was mean or annoying gradually faded down into nothing, and we became friends who talked about books and video games and movies and who sometimes confided in each other and who, in our own separate and distinct ways, grew up. The Beast liked to channel his energy into movement, sure- but he was also a deep thinker, a philosophizer. He believed in the few things he believed in with his whole heart and mind and soul. He had strong roots. He was my definition of passion.

The Beast is serving the people of Gilbert, Arizona right now. He's a few years older than a lot of missionaries, especially recently. Yesterday was his twenty-second birthday. I teased him in the email I sent about that Taylor Swift song, but in all reality, the Joe I know now is not that much different than the Joe who slammed a kid into a locker to defend my honor, if you could call it that. The Joe who slammed a kid into a locker was a brave knight. He didn't always have shining armor, and he didn't care about having a horse. He preferred a more interesting steed, like an elephant or a whale- representations of pure, brutish power. And sometimes he was not sure what he was fighting for. But he was, and still is, a knight. And what do knights stand for? They defend the weak and protect the small. They guard those who are unable to defend themselves. They keep others safe. They are noble and chivalrous. They are brave and they will fight to the death to safeguard what they have sworn to protect.

I may never get married or have children. It's a hard truth for me to accept, but the fact of the matter is that I am not and probably never will be able to understand how other people form relationships, because I am so bad at it. But I am not desolate. I will not be left alone. I will always have my Beast to keep me company.

Happy birthday, Joe. You won't even read this for a year and a half, if ever. But that's okay. You would probably be embarrassed by it anyway. May God bless you and keep you safe as you spread his gospel.