About this time last year, all of the girls in my apartment, including myself, adopted an apartment theme song: Ingrid Michaelson's "Maybe". It has been a year now since those fall days when we used to walk into the apartment in bunches, singing the song and snapping our fingers, blasting it on ipod docks, or laptops. It doesn't feel like a whole year since we used to belt that song so loud our throats hurt, as if doing so could somehow negate or balance out the emotional stresses and struggles of young, single-adulthood packaged with its particular set of worries.
When things didn't go as we planned, when boyfriends broke our hearts, when boys who weren't our boyfriends broke our hearts, when friends passed away, or plans fell through, when days were too hot or too cold, too rainy or too sunny, when assignments kept us up until all hours, when snow came before anybody was ready, we sang,
"Maybe, in the future..."
A few weeks before the end of the semester, we decided to make a music video to "Maybe". The main focus of the video was balloons-- the perfect symbol of maybe. While the video was not professionally made, and had its cheesy moments, the project sparked a lot of introspection about the relationship between having hope and being realistic. We used to talk until all hours of the night about our project, the song, our lives, and the word Maybe. Such conversations helped to teach me important lessons about the future--that it is all just one big MAYBE. Nothing is certain, and that is why Maybe is such a beautiful concept. It is more optimistic than no, and more realistic than yes. It is the perfect blend of emotion that allows for the future to happen as it will. "Come what may and love it" if I may bring Joseph B. Wirthlin into this.
Jack Johnson is known for singing "It seems to me that maybe pretty much always means no." I believe that he is right--yet, he seems to be missing the true meaning of what he is singing: only "pretty much". There is always a chance with maybe. That is what maybe is about--chances, taking them and loving them for what they are.
"You can make a plan, carve it into stone.Like a feather falling, it is still unknown." -Bright Eyes
"Who can say where the road goes, where the day flows? Only time." -Enya
"It came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time." -Death Cab for Cutie
There are dozens of songs written about "maybe" and about the future. This shouldn't be surprising. The future is something that fascinates and frustrates us all in turn. We seem to simultaneously love and fear it because it holds what it offers tightly concealed until the present has been reached. Yet, "maybe" is an important part of everyone's lives. It is a part of my life.
"Maybe in the future" I'll have a good job that will allow me to not worry about money all of the time.
"Maybe in the future" I'll be able to get my business off the ground, and start doing what I love every day.
"Maybe in the future" I'll meet someone who will love me and help me to fulfill all of my goals, and in whom I can take pride.
"The only way to really know, is to really let it go. Maybe, in the future..."
Now all of those roommates have gone their separate ways, becoming wives and expectant mothers, or brides-to-be, pressing forward with education, leaving on missions, or graduating from the University. Some of tomorrow's maybes have become yesterday's realities. Some of the things that were important then are no longer important. Our hearts have been broken and mended, we've lifted each other up, we've seen each other through. We're not disappointed with how our pasts turned out, and are content with our present circumstances.
Yet still, in those moments that life never fails to give out, when we are thrown curves and plans fall through, I hope we'll all always be known as the girls who learned, in the fall of 2009, in a little apartment in Provo, the invaluable lesson to size up the situation, pack away the disappointment, and hum quietly to ourselves,
"Maybe, in the future..."
Today. Because it's beautiful.
Fall is finally here and serving yet again as a simple reminder of how beautiful the world is, and how beautiful our place is in it. I like the look of myself in the world, alongside the sight of leaves falling off of my wind and rain plastered windshield as I pull out of the parking lot.
I went gallivanting about BYU campus today and fell in love yet again.
Campus--with all of the students hurrying to their noon classes, faces careworn with the weight of responsibility, professors being stopped by students in the hall, just to see how things have been since their last meeting--and me. I have no reason to be there, except that I want to be. Just because today is beautiful.
All this going on below, while up above the clouds are brewing and the wind is breaking the stillness of the atmosphere, throwing my hair into my eyes, and hurrying me on my way. I see an old friend, and I smile and wave, as I take the first bite of the most perfect apple I've ever tasted.
Just because today is beautiful. Just because today is today, and I am free to do what I will.
"Don't close your eyes. This is your life, and today is all you've got now. And today is all you'll ever have." -Switchfoot
Provo in the fall. Complete with rain, wind, my best friend, and views like this picture. I know that the world is imperfect, but some days it seems closer to perfection than we give it credit for.
I went gallivanting about BYU campus today and fell in love yet again.
Campus--with all of the students hurrying to their noon classes, faces careworn with the weight of responsibility, professors being stopped by students in the hall, just to see how things have been since their last meeting--and me. I have no reason to be there, except that I want to be. Just because today is beautiful.
All this going on below, while up above the clouds are brewing and the wind is breaking the stillness of the atmosphere, throwing my hair into my eyes, and hurrying me on my way. I see an old friend, and I smile and wave, as I take the first bite of the most perfect apple I've ever tasted.
Just because today is beautiful. Just because today is today, and I am free to do what I will.
"Don't close your eyes. This is your life, and today is all you've got now. And today is all you'll ever have." -Switchfoot
Provo in the fall. Complete with rain, wind, my best friend, and views like this picture. I know that the world is imperfect, but some days it seems closer to perfection than we give it credit for.
Yesterday. Or, On Changing the Past
I have been thinking lately about changing the past, about how everyone always wishes that they could change it, and makes mental lists of the things that they would change if they could--lists that unfortunately do NOT simply gather dust in the corner of the mind, but rather overtake the center stage, and deny time to the simple, beautiful, yet under-rehearsed memories that would better fill that space....
I am grateful that the past cannot be changed. No matter what happens today or tomorrow, yesterday is the only carved-in-stone that there is. Yesterday will always be the same as it was left. Only one's perspective on yesterday can change.
No one can take the past away from you. Love it. Learn from it. Borrow its glowing embers to light today's fire, but leave its ashes where they are. (Elder Holland once said something to that effect in a BYU devotional address.)
Think of the morning after having completed a difficult task--after climbing, and wading, and pushing and struggling through something steeper and thicker than you had felt prepared to climb and wade and push and struggle through. You wake in the morning, and as the memory of what you have accomplished comes rushing in, you snuggle into the covers with a bit more confidence, and push the snooze button with a little less guilt. But, you're wide awake now, you won't be sleeping any more today--because it is today, the triumphant today, complete with all of its blessings bought with yesterday's sacrifice. And no one can change that such is and always will be the case.
(Font sizing variation was inspired by the blog of my dear Cousin, Michelle.)
I am grateful that the past cannot be changed. No matter what happens today or tomorrow, yesterday is the only carved-in-stone that there is. Yesterday will always be the same as it was left. Only one's perspective on yesterday can change.
No one can take the past away from you. Love it. Learn from it. Borrow its glowing embers to light today's fire, but leave its ashes where they are. (Elder Holland once said something to that effect in a BYU devotional address.)
Think of the morning after having completed a difficult task--after climbing, and wading, and pushing and struggling through something steeper and thicker than you had felt prepared to climb and wade and push and struggle through. You wake in the morning, and as the memory of what you have accomplished comes rushing in, you snuggle into the covers with a bit more confidence, and push the snooze button with a little less guilt. But, you're wide awake now, you won't be sleeping any more today--because it is today, the triumphant today, complete with all of its blessings bought with yesterday's sacrifice. And no one can change that such is and always will be the case.
(Font sizing variation was inspired by the blog of my dear Cousin, Michelle.)
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