Happy-ish

Today I have been so happy.

The reason this is such a good ish is because weeks can get crazy in college. Trying to get homework done, going to bed too late, waking up too late, having trouble concentrating, wanting to be a better person, visiting people, wishing other people would visit people, wasting too much time, not taking enough time, trying, deciding, praying, walking, listening, practicing, writing, doing, living, breathing--

There's just so much to life, and sometimes, I am sad or worn down. I know that I don't have the worst life ever. Not even close. But for me, for where I am right now, for who I am right now--sometimes it's hard.

Yet here I am, sitting in my friend's apartment, tired, but softly, freshly, oh-so momently content.

Not everyone is happy. Not everyone knows that they can be happy, or how to be happy. So how could I not be happy that I get to be happy?

Who knows what this week will bring. Who knows!

It doesn't matter though. Not yet. Because right now, I am happy.

Songs-ish

Today I decided to go singing at a rehabilitation center with a church group.

Well, actually, I decided on Tuesday night to go singing at a rehabilitation center with a church group.

I was on my knees in prayer thinking about the notes I had taken about the devotional that day. Elder Don R. Clarke spoke to the students about doing what the Savior asked us to do--one of the things being to care for the widows.

Care for the widows? I asked myself. How?

It quickly came to me--the church group that goes singing at the rehabilitation center on Sundays. Surely there are widows there at that rehabilitation center. There are plenty of elderlies there.

So I was on my knees in prayer and there was that feeling--that little niggling feeling that suspends somewhere between my heart and my stomach. It's a feeling that says, "You've already chosen."

So I did.

And it was a blessing. We sang hymns to a few of the seniors (one of them, I believe, was a widow), and the music lifted us up and away in the testimony of Jesus Christ. It was a special experience to be with these fragile people and to play tunes of praise on my vocal cords. A wonderful combination for a wonderful Sabbath.

Change-ish

Yesterday, I had the chance to hang out with three of my freshman year roommates (one of which lives in my same complex now), just the four of us. At one point during the evening, we drove past the dorms where we had lived together.

I was a little surprised but pleased to find no feelings of regret, no desire to return, inside myself as I took in the red-brick, castle-looking buildings. Freshman year was a good time. My roommates were good roommates. It was good to be together again.

But I don't want to go back.

I don't need to. I am older, different, and better now (I hope at least a little better).

It is fascinating to me the way that time flows and shifts; how it turns and pulls and pushes. It carries us from one point to the next, but doesn't exist by itself. It is connected to words, feelings, even smells and sounds. "Freshman year." That was a time. It is gone now. But it was, once.

So driving along and talking, it wasn't like I had time machined back to freshman year. I presented myself to my old roommates as the "now" me, not the "freshman" me (thank goodness).

It was pleasing, then, simply to taste the past again, and know that I can change.

Auntie-ish

I have a little niece--almost eighteen months old--and she is just the cutest.

She makes cheesy grins and has a scant inch of wispy blonde hair, and she dances and gives kisses and tries to sing.

My little niece lives across the country from the rest of my family, and I had to say goodbye to her yesterday. It will be months before I get to see her again.

I held her as much as I could and asked for as many kisses as she could spare. As I stood in the entry way of my home, I held her toward me and looked into her face. She looked back and then put her little hand--thin-fingered and baby-wrinkled--to my cheek. Just held it there, for longer than the typical toddler moment. It was so, so sweet.

Being an aunt is a great job. It has the essence of being not so critical, but still important, and then just plain fun. I get to help when she goes floppy and cries her crocodile tears; I get to pull the bib over her head and hear her satisfied "mm"'s; I get to hold her when she pops her thumb in her mouth and rubs my hair between her fingers. Months and months won't change those things.

It is lovely. The toddler moments are lovely.

Because she is the toddler moments, and she is so lovely.