After

The hot upstairs bedroom in my grandparents’ small brick home seemed to close in on me as I clung tightly to my worn scripture set. My quivering curled body pressed into the soft white delicate linens that covered my grandparents’ large bed as if I were glued to clouds with no hope of being removed.  Tears poured out of my closed eyes pasting my dark curly hair to my flushed cheeks and soft whimpers escaped my dry speechless mouth somehow.  All I could hear was the distant conversation among various family members downstairs that knew that all I wanted was to be alone.  Before my mission, I would have been downstairs with everyone else probably making fun of my overly cocky cousin, Alec, or listening to my grandma go on another rant about how perfect she thought my sisters and I were.  But not today.  Today I was anything but perfect. 

Perfection is a funny word – without blemish or fault or hardship.  For such a decisive and strong word, I always wondered why people threw it around like it was fresh fish at Pike’s Place in Seattle.  So flippantly.  I mean, between the highly successful lawyer living in overpriced upstate New York to the single mom working night shifts in order to support her family and from the struggling student pulling all-nighters with mountains of debt to the free-spirited homeless man trying to save the whales, there is not a single person who can claim they have a perfect life.  Why, then, did my grandma always tell me that I was perfect?  Why was I the exception?  Why did people always look at me with scrunched foreheads, raised eyebrows, and amused half-smiled half-pursed lips about to say that I had nothing to worry about because I had the perfect life?  Three weeks home from my mission and lying on that once inviting bed in North Ogden, Utah, I realized that perfection, simply, is not possible. 

            

Before my mission, I always had high hopes for where my life was going to go.  I wanted to be a teacher.  I wanted to be married.  I wanted to be a mother.  I wanted to own a cute little home with a white picket fence and maybe a small dog running around with the kids in the yard while my husband pulled into the driveway with a smile on his face calling out for me with a kiss ready on his lips.  Cheesy as it may be, you know how it goes.  The kind of thing you would see in a fairy tale.  The American Dream.  When you’re a teenager, no one tells you that life is most definitely not that way.  Your parents tell you that you need to be obedient.  Your Bishop tells you that you need to keep going to the temple.  Your teacher tells you that you need to keep studying.  It’ll all pay off, right? Your life will go places, right? You can make your life what you want it to be, right?

            

The minute I stepped off the muggy airplane in Denver, Colorado, three weeks before my complete meltdown in my grandparents’ home, my heartbeat was flying out of control and my palms were as wet and as sticky as a melted popsicle in the middle of June, but I was ready for all the blessings that, according to Malachi and echoed by Nephi, I didn’t have enough room to receive.  Every single day of my mission was fueled by knowing that I’d be rewarded with a wonderful life afterwards.  Every single blistered step I took was forced by knowing I’d succeed in school afterwards.  Every single lesson I taught to a broken Hispanic family in the ghetto was inspired by knowing I’d have a family of my own afterwards.  Every single Spanish word I said was orchestrated by knowing that I’d never be at a loss for words afterwards.  After the mission.  After the mission.  After the mission.  That freezing cold day in November, my two swollen and tired feet touched ground in Denver and it was my first day of after.

Little did I know, of all the things I would think about, it would be the silence.  Not of the scriptures, not of the Gonzales family, not of my companion, not of God, but of the silence.  Day in and day out, always the silence.  My parents had uprooted our family less than one measly month before I entered the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, so my well known and inviting home in Aurora, Illinois was now a distant memory as I sat in the foreign terrain of Castle Rock, Colorado.  I didn’t have access to old friends, or new ones for that matter, and I most definitely did not feel like I was home.  It felt like a new transfer on the mission without a reassurance from God that you were going to find a family of 5 to teach and baptize.  It felt like walking into a bustling high school cafeteria on your first day at a new school and you don’t know anybody.  Everyone knows their place and you don’t know yours.  Where do you sit?  Who do you sit with?  I sat in my sister’s stupid new pink and black bedroom.  Alone.  I had to face the fact that no matter how many scriptures in Alma or 3 Nephi I memorized, I would still be alone.  Based off a night in Paris, the overly decorated bedroom instilled a desire in me to just get up and travel the world.  I didn’t know exactly where I would go.  Anywhere, but where I was.  Anywhere to dull the sharp distinct feeling inside my gut.  As much as I wanted to do that, the bitter quietness sat heavily in my stomach and my heartbeat was slow and steady, paralyzing me for what felt like days at a time.  The silence was deafening.  I couldn’t hear anything, but the loneliness that engulfed me.  I felt like God had abandoned me in a time where I needed him most.  I had given so much, so why couldn’t I get just a little back?

            

Since I had just barely gotten back from California and I hadn’t seen most of the extended family in 18 months, my parents decided it would be a good idea to go to Utah for Thanksgiving.  I thought that getting out of the house would probably do me some good, plus I was excited to see my cousins and aunts and uncles that I hadn’t seen in a while.  I actually was excited to do something for one of the first times since I’d been home, so needless to say, I assumed it would be a positive experience for all of us.  Upon visiting the newly redone and rededicated Ogden Temple, I felt peace.  I felt God’s love.  I felt happy.  The loneliness lifted for a moment and perfection seemed attainable.  This is the House of God.  This is where families are sealed together forever.  This is happiness and joy and everything good.  This is perfection.  Complete perfection.  This is what I was waiting for.  The warm sunshine bouncing off the Angel Moroni shined with a hope of eternal happiness.  The gentle breeze blowing through my hair and brushing against my skin felt as if God himself was kissing my cheek and singing the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. 

            

Sometimes we get along :)

Naturally, I knew this picture perfect scene was too good to be true.  About 100 feet in front of me, my two younger and wonderfully obnoxious and contentious sisters started yelling at each other at decibels not anywhere appropriate for the sacred grounds that we stood on.  NO.  No one was going to ruin this moment I’d been waiting so long to experience.  Determined to end this banter, I deliberately and confidently walked up to my sisters and told them to “knock it off.”  There was no

need to argue right now, but they could work out their problems later.  Under the false impression that I was helping the situation, I was blindsided with what my sisters said and did.  Anyone who has sisters knows that it is simply impossible to quickly disseminate an argument, so I don’t know what I was really expecting.  I was attacked with some of the most vicious and cutting remarks I’d ever heard in my life.  Worse than what I’d heard on my mission.  “What got into you?”  “What makes you think you’re better than us?”  “Just because you served a mission doesn’t mean you’re more righteous.”  “You’re not the same person you were before.”  “Leave us alone.”

            

What was I doing wrong?  I was trying to help and I was getting rejected.  I wasn’t good enough.  I couldn’t do it.  I wasn’t loved.  No one wanted me.  No one understood.

            

I was alone.

            

Before I could process what I was feeling and what was happening.  I was on the ground in complete tears.  No matter what I did I couldn’t stop.  It was as if I was Niagara Falls and the temple patrons were all tourists who stood there in awe taking mental photographs of a rare scene yet doing nothing to interact with one of God’s creations.  Nothing could hold the tears back.  No one could help me.  This was the House of God.  Families are supposed to be happy here, yet my sisters had deliberately turned on me and I was estranged.  If this was what eternity was like, I didn’t want any part of it.  Where was the happiness and where was the perfection? Moments later, my grandparents’ hot upstairs bedroom suffocated me as I laid there and everyone gave me some space. 

The Parentals

My meltdown during Thanksgiving was a signal to everyone around me.  My parents started to recognize that I probably wasn’t emotionally okay contrary to the positive and spiritual façade I was wearing for everyone around me.  My mom became especially concerned with making sure I wasn’t going to fall of the proverbial bandwagon by taking me to the temple each week, watching movies with me, and letting me know how much she loved me.  My dad tried by telling me stories of his mission, recounting all the great things that accompany returning with honor, and giving me warm giant bear hugs that only a daddy could give to his little girl.  My parents are great.  They really are the type that everybody wants, but only a few are lucky enough to have.  The type that openly show love for each other and their children.  The type that go out of their way to volunteer at almost every school event contrary to your begging and pleading because you don’t want them to embarrass you.  The type that don’t hold back from grounding you because you stayed out too late or got in a fight with your younger sister.  The type that are always there for you when you fall down and get a boo-boo on your knee and can make it automatically feel better with a kiss and a Band-Aid.  As good-natured and practically perfect (there’s that word again) my parents were, they really could not fathom the pain I was in.  My mother never served a mission and my dad came home from his over 20 years ago after which they were promptly married and didn’t have to deal with life alone.  How could they possibly understand what life was like after the mission?  If I had worked hard and been true to what I knew, then why was I so miserable? Why did I feel like I was being punished and held captive by my own life like a prisoner?

            

What was the point of trying? My mission was hard, but compared to the aftermath, it seemed like a cake walk.  Living like this was like one of those dreams where you’re trying to run, but can’t move.  You’re about to get attacked, yet no matter how much will power or effort you put in, your body simply will not move.  You’re frozen.  Except in my reality, the jolt of waking up never came.  Is that what trying to live up to expectations and perfection is? Does the jolt of waking up ever come?  Why does it have to be this way?  What is the point of trying?

            

Piccolo Section

It’s not like being in Provo, Utah makes it any easier.  Perfection is always hanging in the air like a humid Chicago summer – heavy, inescapable, and miserable.  No matter how much air conditioning or hair product you use, the inevitable frizz of your voluminous locks traps you in a bubble of fur that’s slowly shrinking.  With the ability to slowly suck the life out of any living object, perfection in Utah Valley is always there.  Serve a mission, they say.  Return with honor, they say.  Get married right away, they say.  Start a family soon after, they say.  Graduate with honors and with a great paying job already set up, they say.  Be perfect, they say.  Who the heck is “they”?  Where do all

these unnecessary and completely ridiculous expectations come from?  With everyone walking around with seemingly perfect hair, perfect kids, perfect families, and perfect testimonies, I’m actually surprised that there aren’t more complete mental breakdowns at BYU.  Maybe perfection is just the ability to hide your flaws.  Maybe perfection isn’t really perfection at all.  Maybe perfection is a myth that we’ve all made up because we want to feel more secure about our own insecurities.  Why do we do that?  Why can’t we just be comfortable in our own skin and accept ourselves for who we are?

At school, I am constantly having deep late-night conversations with my college roommate and best friend, Natalie.  They usually consist of Natalie standing in the dimly lit vanity space of our cramped bathroom brushing her pearly white teeth and wearing nothing but an oversized navy blue t-shirt she probably got from a nursing convention and me wearing something similar doing similar things, but instead of a nursing convention, the t-shirt’s from a past season of marching band.  I would consider us fairly normal individuals, but the drowning and suffocating feeling of perfection and lack of companionship is almost a daily topic of conversation.  Sure, we may stand half clothed in our tiny Provo apartment late at night or even take off our bras at 6pm because we can’t take the long day anymore, but we’re just as good as anybody else.  We’re both returned missionaries, motivated learners, hard workers, great cooks, fun-loving students, hilarious friends, outgoing individuals, righteous daughters of God, and smart and beautiful women, but no one seems to get that despite our flaws, we are good enough.  Why does perfection have to be so specific and defined?  It’s always looming overhead and threatening to destroy any good and sweet moment that could happen.  Even in my tiny apartment that I share with my best friend, I can’t feel safe and secure with myself.  Joyous and carefree laughs, at any moment, can be thwarted and choked into a bitter and soulless plea for help.  Always aware of the outside criticism, I can’t even live in the comfort of my own apartment without being attacked. 

The little moments when I sit alone in my small apartment are the most bitter and gut wrenching.  The silence once again becomes deafening and the pain of expectation becomes unbearable.  Sitting in my lonely and dim-lit apartment is when I realize that I’m always going to be living in an “after” of some sort.  My “after the mission” phase may be coming to a close, but my “after college” phase is just beginning.  Am I going to let that looming expectation of perfection eat me?  Or am I going to realize that aiming for perfection looks like loneliness?  Silence and loneliness are only possible because we know that joy and companionship are possible.  We’ve all felt it.  We’ve all experienced it.  Good things happen in the “after”.  Before I know it, I’ll be in a whole different world of “after” and wishing I was in this “after.”  There will always be expectation.  There will always be looming perfection.  There will always be silence.

But there will always be an after.