I wish I had anything to say on any subject that wasn’t boys (Question: if they’re older than you are they boys or are they men? Where is the cutoff? I use “men” the same way I use “the priesthood”—to designate a group rather than an individual. I find it nearly impossible to call any individual person I’m romantically interested in a man. They’re all boys. What does that tell you about the level of maturity of the guys I have a tendency to notice? Discuss.). But I really don’t. My life is great. Even if I remember how much I do want to get married sometime in the relatively near future, I look at everything I’m doing in my life and I realize that I’m happy. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that with any degree of certainty.

I have a really great job working as the secretary/assistant to the director of a small charter school. So small, in fact, that I’m in charge of writing the weekly bulletin and monthly newsletter we send to students, managing any paperwork we need to send to our chartering district to remain in compliance with California Education Code, verifying contracts and going over monthly invoices from our class vendors, setting up interviews, taking care of all benefits paperwork (and I really do mean all: medical, dental, vision, disability, life insurance, retirement benefits—all of that paperwork goes through my hands before we send it on to our benefits representative), handling any sick leave or vacation requests for all of the 37 employees of the school, creating all agendas for Board of Directors meetings, attending these meetings and then writing the minutes afterward, managing the director’s calendar of meetings and appointments at all 4 sites we have (spread over at least 70 miles)…the list really does go on and on. Every week I’m amazed at the number of things I still don’t know about how to do my job, and I’ve been there for 6 months. But I love it. No two weeks are ever the same, and that’s a good thing. And I get full medical, dental, and vision insurance and a retirement fund. What more could I ask for at the ripe old age of 22? I’m lucky to have my bachelor’s degree and be able to have such a great entry-level position. I just don’t want to blog my work life. I try to keep work at work, and it works pretty well. But only if I don’t blog about it too much.

I’m the chair of the Friendshipping council in my ward, which means that I’m in charge of monthly Break the Fasts and Linger Longers, having greeters stationed at all the doors, and setting up a teacher and activities for weekly FHE activities. It sounds a lot more stressful than it is. The hardest part of the calling is getting my co-chair to get off his butt and actually do some work to help with the planning stages of all these activities. The last 2 co-chairs I’ve had haven’t done much to help take off some of the load. I’ve had both of them helping with FHE, and all they have to do is find someone to teach a 15 minute lesson each week. It really isn’t rocket science, but you’d think it was if you look at the amount of work I have to do to get them to do their jobs. Don’t get me wrong—I love all 3 guys I’ve worked with. The first one I worked with when I first got this calling was Scott, for heaven’s sake, and it’s obvious that I think he’s great (and for the record, he did take care of his calling). They just need a lot of encouragement-slash-bullying for me to feel certain that things are ready for the upcoming week. But I really love my ward. There are so many strong women in different single situations in my Relief Society, and I feel so blessed to work with all of them. There are a lot of college grads who know what they want out of life and are working to get it, and a majority of those girls who are in the ward permanently (read: not leaving for college in January) are endowed, and 2 of them are temple workers. I have a lot of great examples to look up to, and I’m so grateful to be out of BYU wards where the main topic of every lesson is marriage. My branch president hardly ever mentions it, and thinks that while it is really important, it isn’t really his job to make us women feel bad about a situation that is only nominally in our control given the norms of Mormon culture. That’s definitely a plus.

Being able to go to the temple regularly is a huge blessing in my life. I’m going to try and go a couple times a week, at least for the next couple of months, because the way I feel when I’m there and after I leave reminds me what it is to feel the Spirit. I’ve had a really hard time with that over the last year (in fact, the last huge prompting I can point to is the one that told me to break up with Derek). It’s nice to remember all the reasons why I’d glad I’ve made the decision that I’m never going to let myself get into a position where I feel like I don’t want to be a member of the church anymore. I love the temple already, and I’ve only been through to do endowments once beyond my own endowment. I love the way it makes me feel and the way it reminds me that I am a strong daughter of God who can do hard things.

Wow. This has been a long post. And I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the things that make my life so good right now. Who cares that Scott is impossible to read? (Although he did invite me over to his house again to play games. At least I know he enjoys spending time in my company.) The whole boy problem will work itself out in the end. I have so much that’s good in my life right now that I don’t know if I could handle another great thing (like a relationship) without exploding from joy. That’s a great feeling. It makes me wonder how I could ever have wanted to be run over by a car rather than keep living (just the once. I’ve never truly been suicidal, friends.) :)