Part One: In Which I Begin My Non-Heroic Hero's Quest

The Iliad. Featuring obstinacy,
sheer idiocy, a helpless
woman, and a lot of
unnecessary death.

My life is not an epic. It never will be an epic but if you ask me, some epics aren't particularly epic anyway (cough cough Iliad cough) and so I feel no qualms about using aspects of epics to tell my less-than-epic life story.

Most epic poems begin in median res, which basically means in the middle of the story. "Paradise Lost" opens with the fall of Adam and Eve rather than the creation of the world and "The Iliad" begins nine years into a ten year war (and ends before the war ends, which I am still quite bitter about a whole forty-eight hours after finishing the book). Anyway, I intend to begin my not-so-epic in the same way--in the middle.

#1 FDA Approved stress reliever

The last year has been hands down the best growing opportunity of my life. "Growing opportunity" is a euphemism for "IT'S BEEN HARD". And yet, one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that hard doesn't mean bad. Hard means challenging, it means exhausting, it means work. It also means exhilaration, peace, learning, expansion of mind and soul (and body if you're a stress eater like me). Hard means good. 


We will begin in median res, eighteen years into the eighteen-year-four month-three-day saga of my life. On May 17 of this year I turned eighteen. It was quite funny really. I went to sleep the night before a 5'1'', freckle faced, 12-year-old looking child and I woke up the next morning still a 5'1'', freckle faced, 12-year-old looking child. And yet there was something inherently different inside of me that alerted all the Wal-Mart checkers that I was now legally allowed to buy Sharpies. It was magical.

If Brianna was a banana, she would have this super cool
bandanna. Too bad she's not a banana. 

Needless to say, my 18th birthday was less than spectacular. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the day--I very much did. It was cold outside (as it always seems to be, even in the middle of May. You know it snowed on my birthday in the 6th grade?). Me and Mom and Bandanna Brianna Banana--my best friend who would kill me if she knew I'd just put her nickname out there for all the world to see--went to Chick-fil-A for lunch and scored enough free mints to last us until next March. Brianna and I worked on homework which was enjoyable simply because it happened to be my birthday. That evening we watched a slideshow Mom had put together of my life which I absolutely loved. 

There's something about seeing your life flash before your eyes--and NOT because you're about to die--that's just surreal. It makes you reflect on the time you've had and what you've done with it, and also the time you've got left and what you will do with it and who you'll spend it with. You fondly recall all the memories you've made and eagerly anticipate all the memories you will make.

Actual representation of my life these days.

There's something about nostalgia that makes us romanticize even the trying times of life. In all actuality, I didn't enjoy the life I was living for a good portion of the last year. And yet, looking back on it now, it all seems so perfect. And I know twenty years from now I'll remember these days--making spontaneous plans with people I've just met, writing blog posts in the middle of the night even though I have class in six hours and I have to sleep sometime before that, being so achingly lonely some nights and having so much fun other nights that my homework doesn't get done until the very last second. I know one day I'll miss these days, so I have to make the most of them now.

Sorry--back to the task at hand. One day I'll just post a stream of consciousness on here so you all get the full effect of how my thought process works but this post is supposed to have a legitimate purpose here and I got sidetracked. It happens often, and that's how I end up talking to my roommates late into the night rather than going to bed on time.

SORRY. Now back to the task at hand.

My purpose in telling you about my birthday was actually to lead up to what happened the next week--easily one of the best and worst weeks of my life. As a senior, I wasn't required to go to school for the last week so I spent my extra time making some quality memories with some of the people I'd grown to love so much over the past six to twelve years of my life. And then on Thursday I graduated and most of them walked down the aisle and out of my life forever. Now that was a surreal experience. Standing there in a line, wearing a cap and gown that I pretended to hate because most of my classmates thought they were ridiculous but in all reality I was happy to be wearing one. At that point I hadn't quite learned the value of having my own opinion. Still haven't, really.

Speaking of that oh-so-important
piece of paper... I have no idea where
mine is. 

And just like that I was thrust into the world of adulthood. That diploma to me signified years of hard work and dedication and sacrifice. That diploma was the culmination of every decision I'd made since I'd first stepped foot inside Mrs. Elliot's classroom as a five year old Pleasant Green Panther. So many things happened throughout those years. So many memories.

I remember vividly grabbing my velcro name tag off the wall every morning and sticking it at a table with my friends Kenadee

I loved that shirt. It was pink.

and Elise. I remember the day Kenadee told me her favorite color was black and she didn't like pink and I thought that was ridiculous. I remember being assigned a seating chart and coloring with my cerulean crayon and playing on the playground before school in the mornings. I remember being in charge of retrieving our snack from the lunch room and doing show and tell on the rug and kindergarten graduation.

Then we moved to Stansbury and the day we moved in I scraped my arm on the cinder blocks around the playset. And that week I met my friends Rachel and Kate and Nikki--all of whom I consider friends to this day--and in first grade me and a girl named Kesha always were called each other's names and that's why we're friends now.

 I remember showing my second grade teacher my new shoes one day and writing a report on King Penguins. That was the year I had my first experience with this phenomenon called "getting in trouble." How mortified I was to be caught eating a mini Hershey bar in class and how I agonized over getting my friend Morgan's Littlest Pet Shop taken away for playing with it during class! I just knew she was going to kill me until I found it safely in my coat pocket where the teacher had tucked it away.

In third grade we earned an all-day read-a-thon and that was the day Rachel and I discovered the art of asking to use the bathroom even when we didn't need to just to get out of class. Boy what a life-saver that little trick came to be. In fourth grade I received my first dose of crushing disappointment when "all my friends" got put in the class next door. But wonder of wonders, I made new ones and had a truly wonderful year and long division proved not to be too difficult--although I never could beat Sam Garcia at those times-table races. In fifth grade I was exposed to the wonderful world of The Hobbit and to this day I still hear Mr. Smith's voices for each character. I remember running the

My 8 year old self mistakenly thought
this would be my one and only 5K
ever. How silly of me. 

mile for the first time without stopping and how proud I was of myself. Those were the days of playing kick-the-can and freeze tag at recess. By sixth grade we were truly grown up--enough to have our own writing club. We'd meet each Wednesday at Kate's house--supposedly to work on our budding masterpieces although that never really came to fruition. That was the year my family relocated to the distant land of Lake Point, Utah and I learned the art of hermitage. Before then I'd never been solitary but that year I learned how to be by myself. I met my friend Cambree during a game in class and we adored our teacher and created homework assignments for her that for some reason she never found the time to complete. Strange.

Braces and wisdom teeth removal
are a necessary evil of teenagerhood. 

And then the next year we really grew up and moved on to bigger and better things. We discovered boys and lockers and all the wonders of being teenagers. I remember drawing comics with my friend Rylan all throughout math class and trying out my rather ridiculous flirting prowess on those poor twelve-year-old boys. They never knew what hit 'em. I remember feeling depressed and confused a lot of the time and happy at other times as I sought for the things that truly brought me joy. But I didn't know who I was then. I didn't know what I wanted.

I remember starting high school as a freshman, thinking I was so old but in reality I wasn't. Just a child pretending to be an adult. I remember hating when my parents said ninth grade should be part of junior high but now I realize they were right and I shouldn't have been there. I remember skipping school one day to go to Logan with Mom and Ash and finally feeling like I was part of a real orchestra and teaching piano lessons though I hardly knew anything about being a teacher.

I remember joining the cross-country team as a sophomore (Ha! You knew my running obsession would come up, didn't you?) and experiencing pure happiness for the first time in what felt like

I love running!

forever. I remember reconnecting with my friend Mary Beth who I'd met as a seventh grader and learning to run and push myself further than I ever thought I could go. I remember making mistakes that hurt people I cared about and learning that the things I say and do have a real impact on the lives of those around me.

I remember being a junior, finally at a point where I had a sure testimony of my own. I remember what it felt like to have confidence in who I was for the first time in years. I remember participating in seminary and absolutely loving it, being stand partners with my best friend in the whole world, missing friends who had vanished from my life while at the same time loving those who had come into it. I remember getting excited about learning for the first time in my life, staying up late to study and working my tail off in running and in school. I remember the excitement of being able to drive and date, going to school dances and asking boys out. I remember the thrill of passing all my AP tests and starting to truly think about my future for the first time in my life.

Look at that smokin' hot babe.
Oh hey, I'm there too.

I remember my senior year, how difficult it was for any number of reasons, but I also remember the wonder of it. I think of the relationships I formed with people and how incredible my cross country season was and how much I came to love and appreciate my family. I remember the stress of realizing that all the good times had come to an end (or so it seemed) and the growing I had to do to meet the demands required of me.

I remember graduating from high school, the product of all those experiences I'd had, and I took that diploma and thought on all I'd accomplished. And it's a lot.

But there's so much more I can do. So much more I will do. It took me receiving that diploma to realize that the diploma was never the final goal. I don't know if there even is a final goal, at least not a tangible one. After all, you can't measure the smiles you're responsible for, the happiness others feel in your presence. I did a project for my Student Success class this week (affectionately known as Adulting 101) wherein I had to draw a picture of my "dream" for my life. And when I thought about it, all it really comes down to is that I want to make people happy.

And if I can do that, if I can make people smile, then everything I've done and everything I will do won't be for nothing. I'll make the world a little better, a little brighter, a little happier. Wouldn't that be something?