Momma, a rainbow

"What do you give to the lady who has given all her life and love to you?
What do you give to the reason you are living? I could window-shop the world before I'm through..."

I guess David has it easy. All you want for your birthday/Mother's day is for him to sing that song. Other than that? You buy some trinkets throughout the year, we choose stuff to give to you, and that's that. No surprises. You get what you want and we go through the motions of gift-giving.
It's a very economic and practical system.
But I'm a sappy sentimentalist, and this year at least, I think you deserve something more.
So please pardon my lame attempt to give you a small "something."

Gosh, I thought writing for Aria was hard.

The hardest part is that, for the majority of my life, I haven't really seen you as a person. You have always been, first and foremost, my mother.
You were the mother who firmly sent me over to swim team and synchro in the summer, no matter how much I protested.
You were the mother who fought for my 2012 Swim Letter long after I'd given up hope.
You were the mother who insisted that we had to do 5 jobs a day (at least during the summer) before we got to go out or play.
You were the mother who drove me around to work, school, concerts, friend's houses, and anywhere else I needed to go.
You were the mother who forced me to practice the piano.
You were the mother who organized rec classes (still not totally sure what that even stands for, but we're going with it) and "music-garten" classes (or was it kinder-music?).
You were the mother who didn't hear the phone ring at 4am when I called for a ride home from the Freshman trip to Magic Mountain. (I promise that I'll get over that... someday.)
You were the mother who would stand firm against the school district, always fighting to get what was best for her children.

You have always been (and always will be) my mother. I didn't know you were a person too, until:
You joined a choir. Just because you wanted to and you had the talent.
You got a solo
You talked to me about some of your secret fears and dreads.
Every once in a while... you lost it.
I see pictures of the past, or hear you recount a silly joke you played on a guy's dorm.

Eliza, Aria, Melissa, David and I are the "fruit of your loins, right?"
Well, in the scriptures, it says, "By their fruits ye shall know them."
By this definition, I can say that you are a high-achieving, hardworking, talented, thoughtful, intelligent, and courageous soul.

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." -Abraham Lincoln

I love you.
Happy Birthday.
...and I guess that's it. I'll add photos later.

So I sort-of wrote out a super-condensed version of one of my stories this week...

Mother

Momma bear
On the move
There when you need her
Home is of her making
Early mornings and late nights
Role model.

Weddings and failure

Dear Future Me,

I can see how people hate weddings. It's not the wedding itself or the people involved... It's what planning the wedding does to the people involved. I never knew there were so many things you could disagree about. Envelope sizes and tie colors, the thousand tiny details... no one attending the wedding will ever notice or remember, but these are the things that haunt the wedding planners, creating tension and rifts.

Alayna, be kind. Be thoughtful. Be the first to assume the best in people and never take anything personally. Miscommunication is the common enemy of us all. Be patient. 

Take the time to talk about something else. Remember that the lives of everyone involved are important too, and you don't just stop caring about them because someone is getting married. It's healthy, therapeutic even, to talk about different, normal things. When you fight about stupid little things, it's also important to have quality communication to balance it out... no matter how small and insignificant your words may seem at the time.

It will all be alright.

And when the time comes? Don't be too busy to enjoy the moment you helped create.

-Alayna

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Dear Future Me,

Sometimes you work really hard at something, and it doesn't work out. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. So, honey, you're just going to have to live with it. I know how highly you think of yourself and that the two hardest words for you to piece together are "I" and "failed." But sometimes you have to face it, own up, and move on.

Yes, I failed. But life goes on (in endless song, above earth's lamentation...) and so must I. My favorite movie is Meet the Robinsons, and one of the greatest moments from this incredibly quotable movie is when one of the characters says, "From failure you learn. From success? Not so much." Sure, failure isn't my favorite teacher, but he's an effective one.

You just need to know that... it's ok. It happens to everyone and it's part of being human. It can be fixed. Maybe you can't do it alone, so don't hesitate to rely on the people around you who offer to help.

I failed. I am not perfect. I still have a lot to learn. And I am ok with all of these things.

There now, that wasn't so hard.
Hang in there, girl
Love,
Alayna 

Uncertainty.

Uncertainty is that weird bearded uncle at a family reunion- you  know you should embrace him, but it makes you uncomfortable to do so.

Nothing will come of it.

Nothing will come of it.

I sat next to two handsome guys every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Torrin and Brandon were RM’s from Brazil, friendly, and funny. Torrin is a male cheerleader with a motorcycle. Brandon is slightly younger and snowboards. We joked together and held study sessions for two hours or more every other Thursday. They offered to give me rides home… mentioned movie nights… we agreed we should do something “fun” sometime. My roommates wondered why I never took them up on any of that. I said I was busy or just blew it off saying, “nothing will ever come of it.”

There was a kid named Max who moved into our ward in Winter Semester. He was tall enough to dwarf me, had a loud, deep voice, and was fun to be with. I just kept running into him, and I sometimes wondered if he sought me out some of those times. He sat next to me in Sacrament meeting once, out of the blue. (I got SO many bewildered Snapchats and questioning looks.) He came and sat at our table during the ward banquet… but I was in the middle of a roommate group, we were just watching the slide show, and I wasn't feeling very social, so he got bored and left. I didn’t blame him. I asked him on a date to hike the Y because I was falling behind the dating goal I’d made in Mission Prep. It was a really fun date, and he kept mentioning movies I hadn’t seen and saying, in an off-handed way, “We’ll see it sometime.”  7 days from the end of the semester? I doubted it. My roommates shipped it for a month, then decided I could “do better” which I found humorous, because I wasn’t “doing” anything at all. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering, “what if…?”

A couple of times (exactly two, don’t get too excited), I heard that such-and-such a boy thought I was attractive or had a crush on me. I shrugged my shoulders and nonchalantly said out loud or to myself, “yeah, but nothing will ever come of it.”

And all of this leads me wondering -three days from the end of the semester- if maybe I was wrong. Maybe my persistent insistence that “nothing would ever come of ‘it” actually ensured that nothing did. No, I was never hurt or dumped or … dated at all, really, so I was spared a considerable amount of heartache. But… I also never came home singing euphorically, bursting at the seams because of a perfect date, or a first kiss, or a DTR.

90% of swimming through the social pool… is being willing to jump in.

What it means to sleep

It's funny. Psychologists still can't agree on what the "purpose" of sleep is. Some say it's a deeply rooted evolutionary habit (sleep through the dangers of the night, live to see another day), and nothing more. Others see it as a mental "reset" button, a necessary escape, and a mental break. Still others are simply baffled by the miracle of it all. During sleep you experience periods of paralysis, deep and shallow levels of awareness, and other interesting REM sciency stuff.
It's always been incredibly handy that I can practically fall asleep on a whim. Yes, I sleep deeply and I can fall asleep quickly, but I don't posses any sort of "super natural" power to do so. Sometimes ease into alertness but keep my eyes closed in the imitation of sleep. Sometimes my mind is ready to be awake but I just can't bring myself to ... move. Not yet, anyway. I know that EVERYBODY does this to some extent and from time to time.
Besides,
Sleep is such a great excuse. It's the "period card" of the normal world: a valid excuse to get out of almost any social activity, excuse to be a bum, and assurance to be left alone. People will interrupt you if they see you reading or listening to music, or doing virtually any other activity, but they will always let you sleep.

But what fascinates me most is  what can happen when someone thinks you are asleep.

I heard some closet conversations. Dear Aria, no one falls asleep that quickly. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop...
 
But it was simple and sweet, and I liked hearing it. I knew I'd eventually tune it out and fall asleep, but it was nice to lay there and let it lull me to sleep.

And sometimes you hear things that you were never supposed to hear. Something you never expected or didn't want to. A restless roommate, punching her pillow at 4 in the morning... and then something like a sob. I didn't want to, it wasn't planned and I wasn't prepared... but it happened. And it's strange to think how little I know the girl who sleeps less than 10 feet from me every night. How totally powerless I was to help her. But I can't erase that intimate moment, when I saw her hidden pain.

Absolute and childish peace falls on the faces of those who sleep. And it's beautiful. The deep rhythmic breathing, or the funny contortions people sometimes fall into. I hate to be like Edward Cullen, but there's something therapeutic in watching someone sleep.

When others are asleep, the cares of the world are erased from the lines of your face.

When you dream (Too bad you can't get exercise through your dreams) your mind betrays your obsessions, fears, and hopes.

When you snore. Well.... ;)

What a strange thing sleep is.