I went to the Wright Brothers Monument in North Carlina. I stood on the hill where aviation first took flight ever. There was a large monument of stone on the hill in celebration of the Wright brothers. I stood on the grounds where they had flown thousands of failed experiments before they finally got one to fly. People scoffed at them and told them they were crazy. They had to deal with so much failure before they could achieve such great sucess. It was inspiring, it gave me the charge I needed.
Today was vacation day. Everytime I work really hard I scold myself for not vacationing and enjoying the trip more. Everytime I enjoy the trip, I scold myself for not trying hard enough to find the job. Now I just say to myself, "work hard, Play hard."
My good friend Karen from Arizona informed me of a massive LDS Church singles week long event going on in Duck Beach North Caralina. It wasn't church sponsored, just a bunch of ambitious swingin' party Mormon kids with some extra cash. The situation was about 25, one million dollar beach houses that everyone was renting out right on the beach. Duck beach is a real classy beach. Its got good water, sand and not a huge amount of tourists. They had six volleyball nets and close to seven hundred singles from 23 to 33. The beach was scattered with Modest is Hottest bathing suits and BYU shirts without the sleeves. It was like MTV Spring Break, only being hosted by the BYU TV Network.
My friend Karen was there and a few others I knew from school, but they were all there to meet new people, I can't blame them, they put down a lot of money for that trip. I was mostly on my own. Ordinarily I would be playing the field with the best of them, but this was different. I didn't know why I felt so out of place. They are all like me, striving for wholesome values and wanting good things. And like me, they were doing everything they can to make the most out of their singledom. Sure they would mostly like to have other things but they were taking full advantage of being single as they can. It was a Mormon single shan-gra-la.
Somehow I was different though. For me taking advantage of being single was to the the opposite, be completely on my own. Having no social network in close proximitty. I would prefer spending the weekend by myself driving across the nation I guess. Not that it wasn't cool, because it was awesome. Just not my cup of tea. I sat there on the beach for hours watching the buffed single dudes franternize with the women who had the most confident walk. Finally it dawned on me, this was not a place I was going to meet someone. How serious of a conversation am I going to have when I approach a girl in a bathing suit pretending she is only really there to be tanning? Plus, I have a propensity to shut down when I am in social situations where I am not familiar with many. So.... I decided it was a waste of my time. I did not plan on romance on this trip and I certainly wasn't going to find it here oddly enough.
Just as soon as I was almost completely had gotten off the beach and was ready to go somewhere else, a pretty 24 year old red head named Amy approaches me and and says, "Didn't you go to BYUI?" I figured she knew me from INEWS or Guitars Unplugged, but she remembered me from Dancing. I decided to stay and chit chat with her for a bit just to know that I at least tried. We spoke for a long time, LONG time. We hung out at the beach for several hours together. We had a suspicious amount of things in common. Both of us knew hardly anyone around, neither of us felt we belonged and didn't care to fraternize with the multitude of singles. Neither one of us let their eyes wander to other people as we spoke to eachother. She had just gotten off a similar road trip to what I am doing by herself as well. She too is trying to find what her new life is going to be and having very little idea of what she will do. I have never met a girl who did something like that by herself. She is as much of a traveling troubadour as I am. What I call a vision quest, she calls a walkabout, but we think very similar. We honestly had some extraordinarily meaningful discussions (not the way David Lee Roth means by meaningful discussions). It was incredible, I came to the beach expecting at best case scenario having a very shallow discussion on nothing with a ditz and getting the opposite.
I know a lot of people who say, "there is NO coincidence, there is NO accidents." I usually say thats just what simple minds think. I am a very spiritual person who listens carefully, but I DO believe in coincidents and bizarre accidents and bad luck and good luck. But, even I had to admit, meeting this girl was just WIERD!
We spent the remainder of the evening together just talking. We had full opportunity to cross the boundries and do more, it was memorial day weekend and all bets are off, but, I think we respected eachother too much to cheapen the experience. Neither of us believe in one night stands or NCMO's (non-commital Make-out). Oddly enough the two people who had the least amount of expectations from the trip, met someone like-minded. Like Pink Floyd once said, "we are two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl," I was very happy our paths crossed. It really helped put things in perspective.
scripture: 1st Nephi 8: 30
Today was vacation day. Everytime I work really hard I scold myself for not vacationing and enjoying the trip more. Everytime I enjoy the trip, I scold myself for not trying hard enough to find the job. Now I just say to myself, "work hard, Play hard."
My good friend Karen from Arizona informed me of a massive LDS Church singles week long event going on in Duck Beach North Caralina. It wasn't church sponsored, just a bunch of ambitious swingin' party Mormon kids with some extra cash. The situation was about 25, one million dollar beach houses that everyone was renting out right on the beach. Duck beach is a real classy beach. Its got good water, sand and not a huge amount of tourists. They had six volleyball nets and close to seven hundred singles from 23 to 33. The beach was scattered with Modest is Hottest bathing suits and BYU shirts without the sleeves. It was like MTV Spring Break, only being hosted by the BYU TV Network.
My friend Karen was there and a few others I knew from school, but they were all there to meet new people, I can't blame them, they put down a lot of money for that trip. I was mostly on my own. Ordinarily I would be playing the field with the best of them, but this was different. I didn't know why I felt so out of place. They are all like me, striving for wholesome values and wanting good things. And like me, they were doing everything they can to make the most out of their singledom. Sure they would mostly like to have other things but they were taking full advantage of being single as they can. It was a Mormon single shan-gra-la.
Somehow I was different though. For me taking advantage of being single was to the the opposite, be completely on my own. Having no social network in close proximitty. I would prefer spending the weekend by myself driving across the nation I guess. Not that it wasn't cool, because it was awesome. Just not my cup of tea. I sat there on the beach for hours watching the buffed single dudes franternize with the women who had the most confident walk. Finally it dawned on me, this was not a place I was going to meet someone. How serious of a conversation am I going to have when I approach a girl in a bathing suit pretending she is only really there to be tanning? Plus, I have a propensity to shut down when I am in social situations where I am not familiar with many. So.... I decided it was a waste of my time. I did not plan on romance on this trip and I certainly wasn't going to find it here oddly enough.
Just as soon as I was almost completely had gotten off the beach and was ready to go somewhere else, a pretty 24 year old red head named Amy approaches me and and says, "Didn't you go to BYUI?" I figured she knew me from INEWS or Guitars Unplugged, but she remembered me from Dancing. I decided to stay and chit chat with her for a bit just to know that I at least tried. We spoke for a long time, LONG time. We hung out at the beach for several hours together. We had a suspicious amount of things in common. Both of us knew hardly anyone around, neither of us felt we belonged and didn't care to fraternize with the multitude of singles. Neither one of us let their eyes wander to other people as we spoke to eachother. She had just gotten off a similar road trip to what I am doing by herself as well. She too is trying to find what her new life is going to be and having very little idea of what she will do. I have never met a girl who did something like that by herself. She is as much of a traveling troubadour as I am. What I call a vision quest, she calls a walkabout, but we think very similar. We honestly had some extraordinarily meaningful discussions (not the way David Lee Roth means by meaningful discussions). It was incredible, I came to the beach expecting at best case scenario having a very shallow discussion on nothing with a ditz and getting the opposite.
I know a lot of people who say, "there is NO coincidence, there is NO accidents." I usually say thats just what simple minds think. I am a very spiritual person who listens carefully, but I DO believe in coincidents and bizarre accidents and bad luck and good luck. But, even I had to admit, meeting this girl was just WIERD!
We spent the remainder of the evening together just talking. We had full opportunity to cross the boundries and do more, it was memorial day weekend and all bets are off, but, I think we respected eachother too much to cheapen the experience. Neither of us believe in one night stands or NCMO's (non-commital Make-out). Oddly enough the two people who had the least amount of expectations from the trip, met someone like-minded. Like Pink Floyd once said, "we are two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl," I was very happy our paths crossed. It really helped put things in perspective.
scripture: 1st Nephi 8: 30
"It was like MTV Spring Break, only being hosted by the BYU TV Network." Haha, comedic gold! Glad to hear this day was so much better!
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