Atheist Christmas

As an atheist, Christmas is an odd time of the year for me. Since I don't believe in a god, the whole idea of him having a son that was sacrificed to save humanity is pretty much thrown out the window as well. So the concept of celebrating the birth of this son seems pretty ridiculous.

However, Christmas has always been my favorite holiday and I'm rather reluctant to give up this holiday entirely. As such, while my love of Christmas hasn't changed, I'm finding my reasons for my love is shifting. (I touched on this last year.) Without a belief in god, I've tried to find meaning and joy in Christmas without the whole Christ bit. (I'm Pat Robertson's worst nightmare)

One of the main “reasons for the season” that I have found meaning in can be found in Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol.” I mentioned it last Christmas but I bring it up again because it really does exemplify my non-religious feelings about Christmas.

“I have always thought of Christmas Time...as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts, freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good and will do me good; and I say God bless it!”

Now, minus that bit about god blessing it, Dicken's words perfectly reflect my feelings about Christmas. This idea of Christmas being a time when, for once, people look beyond themselves and try to be kinder to each other really appeals to my atheist secular humanist beliefs. You don't need to believe in god to believe in being kind, to make an sincere effort to help people who are in need of help. AndChristmas is as good of a time as ever to remember how fortunate you've been in your life, how many good things you have going for you and to remember how there are others who may not have it so good.

This is what I try to remember during Christmas. Despite what Pat Robertson may say, I'm not at war with Christmas. I don't want to destroy Christmas or make religious people miserable because I'm miserable. On the contrary, I'm not miserable and I want to make others happy this time of the year. Christmas is a time to be kinder, better people, to look beyond ourselves and help those in need. And god doesn't have to have anything to do with it.

Love you.

Mean it. 

What am I doing?

My birthday is in a few weeks. I'll be turning 25. I was thinking about this as I was driving to Provo the other day for a birthday party for a dear friend. The more I thought about it, the more I began to experience something like a quarter life crisis. 

I'm turning 25. In another five years, I'll be 30. 30 seems like such an epic age. What do I want my life to be like in five years? Do I want to still be working at the Herald Journal? Do I want to be working at a bigger newspaper? Do I want to live somewhere bigger? Do I want to own a house or a really nice condo? Do I want to be married or in a serious relationship? Do I want kids? What do I want out of my life? Needless to say, I began to panic and freak out a bit. 

The truth is I don't know I'm doing or what I'll want to be doing in five years. I've been so focused on the most recent aspects of my life (graduating from college and getting a job) that I haven't given much thought to the next few years. 

The other day a friend of mine asked me how long I plan on staying at the Herald Journal before moving on to a bigger paper and then end up at the New York Times. I kind of laughed the idea off. I mean, I've dreamed about working at something like the New York Times but I've never really seriously considered it. I told this to another friend of mine and he said that if anyone is going to end up there, it would be me, that I was tenacious and plucky enough to do it. 

Now, granted, he could have just been being nice. He is a nice fellow despite what folks may say. But this only increased my quarter life crisis thought process. What if I do want to end up at the New York Times? The kind of journalism I enjoy the most and get the most satisfaction out of is investigative type stuff, exposing corruption or wrong doing and bringing attention to causes or plights that deserve attention. And as much as I love my job right now, it doesn't offer many opportunities for that type of work. And while I love my job and love getting up in the morning to do it, is it something that I want to be doing in five years? 

I'm coming slowly to the conclusion that I don't think I'll ever really know what I'm doing with my life. I'll perpetually be in a state of ricocheting in this thing we call existence, trying to force it to make sense and squeeze happiness out of it. And I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing. It's just semi-frustrating for a person like me who generally likes to have a plan. 

Trouble is life tends to be far more complicated and unpredictable to have solid plans or even tentative plans. It's all just wibbly-wobbly. 

So I don't know where I'm going to be in five years or 10 years or 50 years.  And I'm not sure how I should feel about that quite yet. I'll keep you posted though. 

Love you.

Mean it. 

Old bedroom

Right now, I'm laying in my old room at my parents' place. I'm not even laying on a proper bed, just a sleeping pad they've thrown on my old daybed frame. There is no other furniture in the room & nothing on the walls. It's really strange being in here once again. This was my room for over 12 years. It was the only place in the whole house that was truly mine. I wrote some of my first creative works in room. I talked & texted numerous boyfriends & crushes. I prayed fervently to a god I'd later realize doesn't exist. I cried myself to sleep more nights than I'd like to remember. I hurt myself, cut myself in this room in an attempt to make all the pain & depression go away. I read countless books in here, falling in love with each one. I cuddled with pets that have since passed away & have felt the loneliness when they are gone. I live my life in this room. It was mine & it experienced the best and worst of my life.

But it's no longer my room, not really anyway. My folks plan on turning it into a guest bedroom for when us kids come to visit. They're going to repaint over the baby blue I begged them to let me paint the walls. After that, it really won't be my room. It will only be memories, good & bad.

Love you.
Mean it.

Beauty won't pay my bills.

Don't get me wrong. I love my job. 

If I were the type of person who went out and made friends or just chatted with people as we sat at the bar and sipped beer, I'd brag about my job. They'd ask me what I did for a living and I'd tell them I was a reporter. If I was two beers in, I'd tell them I write. When they asked me what I write, I'd say, "Words, mostly."

I can't think of a better way to make a living. I write words and people give me money. It's brilliant. It's so perfect for me, I'm not sure how I got so lucky.

(of course, Chris would say that luck has nothing to do with it. In his zen Buddhist way, he'd say "You didn't come as far as you have from luck. In talent and passion and will, we are not all created equal.")

(Though I think my idea of luck comes from a combination of Chris's idea and Harvey Dent's "You make your own luck." In that sense, I've worked my ass off to be as lucky as I am.)

In any case, I'm one lucky girl to be paid to write words. 

But there is one draw back. 

I write words. Lots of words. SO MANY WORDS. 

By the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is write more words. As such, my other forms of writer have suffered as a result. I don't post on here nearly as often as I used to. The last poem I wrote was back in July. And my journal keeping has become non-existant. 

I write words for money. I no longer write them for the beauty of their existence. 

I usually don't mind this too much. It's more like a dull ache inside of me that could one day resemble regret. 

But on nights like tonight when I check in on some of my favorite artists/writers (See: Andy & Bodily), I feel like I'm not creating enough art, enough beauty. (Not to mention, both of those gentlemen are so bloody talented, I don't know whether to hug them or punch them in the neck.)

I guess that's a drawback to making words your living. 

Love you.

Mean it. 

Hope I'm not bothering you

I always figured that no one wants to hear the lonely words of a depressed girl. Folks have enough shit to deal with in their lives that adding a deluge of melancholy emotions to it is just going to be a waste of their time. Not to mention, depression seems so common these days. You can't throw a rock without hitting someone who's having to deal with feelings of depression. It's nothing unique. There's nothing remarkable about being depressed so really, what's the point in sharing those thoughts and emotions with people?

I always figured that if I really needed to share my lonely words, my depressed thoughts, I have to at least make them beautiful, albeit in a tragic, heartbreaking kind of way. That way I'm adding a bit of beauty to this work, even if it's a bit dark and haunting. It's not just me trying to get attention or just being depressed in the same kind of way everyone else is. No one cares about one more depressed person. I've got to try and make something out of this depression. If people are going to read my depressed and lonely words, at least make them feel something real.

Sometimes I succeed and I create something I'm proud of later. Those words that I put down are created solely out of desperation, a desire to stop feeling so bad, to get all that badness and heartache and haunting out of me and into words. I force all that badness into something devastating yet beautiful. And then when I look back on those words when I'm not trying to dig myself out of a pit of darkness, I fully appreciate what I have created.

Sometimes it doesn't work and I make something that's pathetic, trite and a waste. Like I said, depression is common. There's nothing new or refreshing about it. And I'm not the first one that's tried to create something out of it, tried to force some beauty into it. Unfortunately, it's so easy to make depression a cliche, to turn real human pain into something expected and dull. And no one wants to read that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is making beauty out of my depression is the most effective way to get rid of it. But those days when all I can make is shitty cliche tripe, it's just better if I keep it to myself, for everyone involved.

Love you.
Mean it.

I can't imagine doing anything else.

One thing I love about my job is the variety. When you're a journalist, you never really know what the day is going to bring you. Sure, you may have interviews lined up but sometimes those interviews can be really boring or interesting or life changing or a million other things. Then there's always a chance of breaking news where something happens right then and you have to drop everything to cover it. I absolutely love it.

I've always been slightly weirded out by how perfect being in journalism suits me and my personality, considering I mostly fell into this profession by accident. And the variety is really great for me. One of my flaws is I get bored really easily and with a job that is really repetitive and predictable, I get bored and frustrated. I've never felt that way when I'm working in a newsroom. There are other reasons why I love doing what I do but today I was reminded why variety plays such a huge part in my happiness as a reporter.

Today I had two interviews lined up. The first was with this husband and wife. The husband is dying of cancer. He doesn't know when he's going to die but at this point, the cancer has gotten so bad it's not a matter of if but when. It was one of the hardest interviews I've ever had to do, from an emotional stand point. Here I was, talking to this man who is dying. Really, seriously dying. He has five kids, the youngest being four years old. She was playing in the other room and would dart out occasionally. He told me that while he no longer fears death and is okay with dying, he's so worried about who is going to take care of his "baby." He gestured to the little girl and it took everything I had not to cry. I was trying to be professional about the situation and it was incredibly hard for me. After the interview was over, I got in my car and immediately called my dad. I told him about the interview and burst into tears. I just had to let loose all that emotion that I had kept in check. My dad was sympathetic and listen to me blubber about this man and his situation. After talking to my dad, I got home, made and PB&J and watched the beginning of Toy Story 3 during my lunch break. I had to pull myself together since I had to return to the newsroom and listen to the interview on my recorder and write an article.

A few hours later, I was at the Cache Valley Fairgrounds interviewing another man for our "Making a Living" segment. It features people in the community with interesting jobs. I was interviewing a man who is a horse trainer and farrier. He has a handlebar mustache that goes a good inch and a half past his chin. He was wearing cowboy boots, cowboy hat, Levi jeans and a plaid button down shirt. I asked him how he was and he responded that he was "finer than frogs." The guy was hilarious. He told me about what he does for a living, which is training both horses and kids for rodeos and horse shows (4-H is big in this county) and he always had a joke or a anecdote to go along with everything. He had me rolling. While I was interviewing him, he was training a kid to rope cattle. There were two calves that the boy on the horse would practice chasing down on his horse and lassoing. I felt like such a city girl around the man, the boy and the boy's father. I never grew up around anything like this so it's all very strange to me. But it was obvious that the man knew what he was talking about and was very good at what he did. Not only that, but it was obvious that the man loved his job, absolutely loved what he did.

After the interview was over, I couldn't help but reflect at what my day in my career had brought me. Earlier, I had a brief mini emotional break down from interviewing a man with maybe a year or less to live. Then I was laughing my ass off at the jokes and stories of a real cowboy. The comparison made me laugh. Not every day is like this when you're a reporter. We have our boring days too. But today kind of epitomizes just how random a journalist's life can be. And I can't imagine doing anything else.

Love you.
Mean it.

Life in Logan so far.

Now that I've lived in Logan for one week exactly, I think it's about time I catch the interwebs up with my oh so important life here.

I have a wonderful little one-bedroom apartment that is more spacious than you'd think. It has a washer/dryer and a dish washer and tons of storage. It's clean, modern and cute. As I said, it's one bedroom, one bath and has a rather big living room that feels a bit empty considering the only furniture in it is my desk on one wall and my two bookcases on the adjacent wall.  I finally have a bed (so nice) and my mom came up the other day and bought me a kitchen table and chairs. This was really appreciated considering I had been eating all my meals on the floor like some kind of hobo. The thing I'm really missing now is a couch. If anyone reading this right now currently owns the couch, thank whatever maker you may or may not believe in that you do. I miss couches.

Anyway, my job is just awesome. I've already written about five articles, all of which have been published in the newspaper. I really love my coworkers. They've all been super helpful and friendly. There's far less swearing than I'm used to in newsrooms (see: City Weekly & the UVU Review) but I'm sure I'll adjust just fine. My beat is the K-12 education reporter which gives me plenty of stuff to do. Today I was with the Logan School District Board of Education as they visited Mount Logan Middle School. Seeing all those pre-teen/teens running around made me so grateful that I had the good sense to get out of being a teacher when I did. What was I thinking???

The only real down side to my moving here is I find myself feeling terribly lonely. I don't really know anyone. Thank goodness my old friend Maggie was smart enough to let me know that she lives here and I'm hoping to have dinner with her soon. My aunt Dezi and uncle Scott also live nearby and I know that they'll have me over any time I want. But other than that, I find myself alone at night not really sure what to do with myself. I know I want to somehow go out and meet people but I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. How do adults meet other adults in a non-creepy way? I keep telling myself it's only been a week and I can't be expected to have best buddies by now but it's slightly depressing to be all alone so much. I might just get a dog for company.

Love you.
Mean it.