I teach freshman and sophomore young women on Sundays, and this Sunday it was on being in the world but not of the world. One of the things we talked about was deep beauty. We were listing off qualities that make up deep beauty and discussing what it means to have unconditional love and standards at the same time. This of course led me to talk about my teenage years. I decided to see if I could find any pictures out in an old box in the garage- of the Mormon friends that changed my life and my posterities lives for generations.
The first thing I found was a letter that my Dad had left for me when I was probably a junior in high school. Emma found this particularly enjoyable because she's got yet another thing she can blame me for. I tried to convince her that grumpiness was not hereditary, but she wasn't buying what I was selling!
The note says "Hi Sis, I hope you had a good time at the dance. I know you are up late and I also know you can get a little grumpy when you haven't had enough sleep. You will be getting up real early tomorrow so please try not to be a grump. ok, ok. You can catch a few zzz's in the car on the way to Newberg. Good night Baby, I love you lots, Dad."
The next thing I found was the name tag used at our senior party. Nate got a lot of milage out of mocking those bangs of mine in French class.
I tried for a few years to have some musical abilities. It started with the violin in 5th grade and I played thru 8th. Back then it was so not cool to play in the orchestra and I was already being mocked for so many other things (you will see why in my next post) that something had to give - it was the violin. I was pretty good at it though, and held 2nd chair in the 1st violin section.
After that I began my short lived love affair with the piano - well, I still have the love, just not the ability. My Dad really loves George, so he took me to go see him live. I can still see what he was wearing - a blue turtleneck, jeans and no shoes. It was were I learned that everyone experiences music differently. My dad was describing beautiful scenes that he was seeing as the music played. I couldn't peel my eyes away from his fingers and listening so intently to each and every note and anticipating what note he would choose next. I was fascinated by how putting certain chords together could effect you emotionally. If I could ever be tempted to sell my soul - playing the piano like that would certainly give me pause. Luckily I saw Amadeus and we know how that turned out!
When I looked at these photos, a song popped into my head. "Three of these kids belong together, 3 of these kids are kind of the same, but one of these kids is doin his own thing..." I was the only non-mormon in my group of friends. This was a surprise birthday party for me. I was really bummed that day because everyone had plans so I went and had a pity party at my grandmas house until she kicked me out. She lived a street over from us and had to get me to go home to my party.
This was also the first time the boys had been to my house. In addition to being the only non-mormon I was also the poorest in the group. Nicholle's house was the official hangout, although we did spend some time at Tom's house (his dad was the stake president so we did FHE over there), but never Brian's (because his parents were afraid of me -which as a teenager I interpreted it as hated)
So on the picture below from left to right starting on the back. Natalie ('Cole's younger sister) Brian and Tom, then it's 'Cole and Me and my brothers off to the side (who were so happy to be in the picture)
Tom's dad had a gift for making you feel amazing about yourself. He was so good and kind and loving towards me. Tom would often get embarrassed by his parents because we were always acting out the scriptures or playing some kind of scripture pictionary at his house. I loved it though. It's like a moth to the flame. I would say that this family taught me what living the gospel was about and it was also where I learned to pray. His family's example showed me what I wanted for myself. His mother was also one of those people who was overly happy all the time, but she was for real. She passed away shortly after Tom came home from his mission.
Brian's parents were the exact opposite. They were afraid that I was going to ruin their son's life and didn't want me around and made it painfully obvious. But even their example was a good one if you remove their weakness in this area. They had the having standards down really well, they just needed to work on the loving part. His dad was the branch president of the singles ward and there were many heartaches in their family so I can't really blame them. It taught me that the church is about the gospel and not the people. You know that saying - the church is true, the people aren't. Many people struggle with that and I was fortunate enough to learn that before I even became a member.
Here we are going to another Mormon dance. I didn't have money for a dress so I again had to borrow something from one of 'Cole's sisters. When Ethan saw these pictures he said, "wow, that was the olden days." Yep, all I needed was a bonnet to make the outfit complete. My date was Matt and he was Brian's best friend. He could make me laugh like nobody else could. He made me feel completely safe acting like fool and we were obnoxious. We were the only 2 in the group that actually liked each other, but couldn't be together because of the drama that would create. We could have written a fleetwood mac song about it! lol
What is interesting is that it wasn't like I lived in an area with a ton of Mormon's, there were only a handful in the entire school. I naturally gravitated towards them and because of that, it changed my life. I always have to chuckle when I can see that someone keeps getting put in situations where they are "surrounded" by Mormons and they can't seem to figure out why everywhere they go- they are there. When they're ready, they'll figure it out. Just like I did. What made these friends so influential was that they were never afraid to be who they were and that's why I loved them. They had high standards and I was expected to keep them if I wanted to hang out with them. That was why I knew that if I ever wanted to marry one, I was going to have to become one or it wasn't going to happen. I know that all of them got married and sealed in the temple- where they all are now, I'm not sure because we've lost touch.
Those friends had real beauty and I am so grateful for their example to me and am forever indebted to them. We had some great times......even though one of them should have had the guts to tell me that my bangs were ridiculous and to knock it off! :0) Now that I think about it -I guess I married the only one that had the guts to tell me.
One last picture to marvel at the hairspray magic that was happening to create such awesome hair. The key was using the blowdryer while holding out the hairspray soaked hair. That is magical! I love the cool matching suit jackets we were sporting with the massive shoulder pads. Gotta love senior pictures!
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