Soledad

Its been an interesting week.

It was my birthday Monday. I decided I was going to have a good day. (You know, its amazing how much just deciding you're going to be happy or deciding that you're going to have a good day can do for your attitude.) I did everything normal, but I did it a little bit happier, I guess. I was pretty busy and had a bunch of work backlogged that I felt I should do, but I decided, since it was such a beautiful day outside, that I would gift myself some time outside.

I went running, like I always do, out on the trails that overlook Utah Valley. It always is something of a spiritual journey ascending to the mountain, overcoming hills, and seeing the panorama of snow-covered mountains, the lake, the sun, and clouds. I have to admit that I got a little mopey by the time I went went to family home evening. My family called me. That was nice of them.  I don't get calls very often.

I was just going to do some homework or workout, but (thankfully) I had some friends get a whole gang of people together spontaneously and we all went out to a restaurant. All in all, it was a pretty good day.

The following day was my Mother's birthday. Yep, the day right after mine. The funny thing is, my little brother's birthday is right after that. Three in a row of birthdays.  I had made sure a couple weeks ago to put in an order to have some flowers delivered to my Mom. Shortly after she got them she sent me an e-mail. You have to understand, I'm not at all close to my parents. They never let any of us in emotionally. I never felt like I really knew what was really important to them because they never opened-up. I guess I'm being too assuming that parents should should share something of their emotions to their children, but I think that I'm going to. I can only hope that in some way that what is so important to me, my special experiences that have taught me, might be important to my children too.  That's why I'll do my best to communicate the reasons why I do the things I do.

I'm the firstborn in the family. The message my Mom wrote me was about her birthday the day after I was born. I never thought of myself as a gift, a God-send. For the first time ever, I really understood how my Mom thought of me - in what context she saw my life. I thought of all the hard times, problems, and depression from my growing-up years. If I had only known how much she loved me then. If she had only told me, shown me, done anything!  I was just a kid then - was it my responsibility to tease out all of the nuances and feelings my parents might have had for me? There were tears in my eyes while I read her message in the library computer lab. I didn't care.

Steven turned 15 the day after. I made sure to call him. Kid's about as tall as I am now. He's shaping-up to be a great guy. I'm really proud of him, and I tell him so.  I hope that by getting close to him that way he won't have to go through all the things I did.

Today was Saturday. I forced myself to do schoolwork on campus for five or six hours. Its not easy spending nice weekends indoors, but its a sacrifice I'm willing to make if it means a better life for my family in the future. (I do a lot of things in that context.)

Tonight I helped put together an awesome robot suit with my friend, Jared, crashed a girls' night karaoke that put a pack of howling wolves to shame. After a slight altercation with my roommate, I decided to call it a night. Besides, I've got a 7am priesthood meeting tomorrow.