Monkey In the Middle

   

    Today (...ok, technically yesterday, since I just started writing this and it's 1:06 a.m., and surprise surprise, I get a writing idea and can't sleep until I get it written down) was National Kissing Day. Although I briefly contemplated going to the strip and kissing some random guy, my lips didn't touch more than a water bottle and some lipgloss. Kudos to me for not giving into to NCMO right? 

    Feeling a bit sorry for myself in that girly pathetic way, I chose the Ensign for my nightly scripture study to read the words of current prophets for some comfort. I noticed a talk from one of my favorite apostles, Elder Uchtdorf, and jumped on reading it. His talk "Forget Me Not" is my all time favorite and he's always so loving and encouraging. As I began reading through the talk, my heart sank further. The talk was only depressing me more! It spoke of this life and how we're in that phase where the short dash will be in our gravestone, how we should always consider ourselves not at a beginning or the end, as both of those can cause slow starts and finishes, but in the middle, with before we came to earth as the beginning, our earth life now as the middle, and eternity as the "end".


   Why didn't this make me feel better? It's truth, and it's good news. But as a single Latter-day Saint at an age where even most non LDS girls have a family and a few kids, it's hard for me to, every now and then (I'm honestly happy with my day to day blessed life) not to feel like I'm stuck in the middle, waiting for a beginning of a new middle, if that makes sense? Being single often feels like treading water instead of progressing in a race, waiting for that moment when I face the rest of that middle phase with my eternal companion. I want a new beginning for that "mid-life" phase I'm nearing. Yes, there are many benefits to single life, and I'm enjoying continuing to progress with my career in writing and teaching, spiritually through the gospel and the temple, developing new friendships, becoming closer to family members, traveling, etc etc etc., but my dating legs are getting tired.


    Why? As I walked up to a party tonight with my roommate, I sighed and asked her, "You ever feel like you're so over this single partying phase and ready to move on? Cuz I'm feelin' that right about now." This feeling was only reaffirmed when the three guys that talked to me at the party were roughly seven years younger than me, and worsened when my roommate yelled (letting me know if she was going down, I was going down with her - thanks, love you too Kel =D), "Emily's my grandma!" Returned missionaries know exactly what that means. It means I trained Kelly's mission companion who was her trainer, so it wouldn't take long for them to do the math and figure I'd been home from my mission for 6 years - Grandma indeed. Tonight's lemon juice on the cut was when I went home and watched a spoof on LDS dating, only re-emphasized the plight I was in as situations I'd experienced time and time again played out in front of my eyes. It was meant to be funny, and most of it was (minus the Aladdin twist - sorry, just my opinion), but also sadly true.


    I often feel like the monkey in the middle on a really long basketball court, running back and forth between younger and older guys, but playing the same game of disappointment. Hitting my pregame show hard by taking time to get all dolled up, working out, etc, then hitting the court without ever scoring. Going from dancing and singing along in my metaphorical banana microphone with Kelly Clarkson to "Miss Independent"  and Beyonce's "Who Run the World - Girls" then being ricocheted to belting "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perry and "Marry Me" by Train when I meet a great guy or get asked for the billionth time why I'm not married- back and forth, back and forth. I'm usually pretty good at getting the ball back and owning it with my swag ball handling skills, but this "grandma" is starting to feel it.

   Tonight's salt being poured on the cut was when I stumbled across an advertisement for Season something of "The Mormon Bachleor" while reading LDSLiving and laughed shortly in disgust when the bachleor was a youngin too and all those questions and qualifications the cookie cutter Mormons want came spilling out of the host's and his mouth. 


To sum it up, I'm ready for my knight in shining armor to come and fight for that ball for me...

 hand it to me, take my hand, and walk with me down the middle of our new middle.

 In the meantime, I'll bandage up my wounds and crank that Rocky music as I step out to battle once again. Am I gonna go all desperado and marry the first guy that hands me a ring or just marry someone so I can check it off the list? No, I'll turn them down just as I have the others if it's not right. Will I resort to internet dating? Meh, MAYBE if I'm single and 40. Will I go out and throw myself at guys every chance I can get and scrap with every girl who's my "competition?" Yeesh no, if you know me, you know how I loathe the cray-cray's. But I won't give up. I won't become a depressed cat lady hermit. I'll keep going to parties, meeting new people, flirting, dating, learning, hurting, loving, living, happily.

I'll get over my emo moment and life will go on as the Lord wills it. I hold onto faith in the Lord's timing and in the knowledge that He not only sees and knows all with all of His children, but that He loves me and wants me to have the "good gift(s)" (Matthew 5:10) 


What I have to look forward to even more than the middle of that middle is the eternal rest or "end" I will have one day with my Savior, the greatest beginning to another middle, and that's the perspective I want to keep and consider more important. Eternity isn't about me, it's about getting to truly know my Savior, and trying my best to model my life after His. It won't matter how much I was loved, but how much Christlike love I showed to others.


John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.