Day of Dejection

One day you wake up late and you don't get enough breakfast and it's cold outside and it's November and by the time you get to class it's as if every disappointing, stressful, and difficult thing from the past six months is sitting on your shoulders. Weighing you down. Forcing the shape of your spine into a parenthesis and the shape of your thoughts into a circle of self-defeat.

Of course on a day like this I was working on a project for Nameless Utah College's theatre department.

Don't get me wrong. I love theatre. And I love projects, especially hands-on projects that require building stuff. As a kid, I wanted to be a construction worker. (And an artist. And a doctor. And everything else ever). When I first volunteered in the theatre department, the foreman was all, "Here are some two-by-fours and an impact gun," and then left me to figure out how to use those tools with no previous experience.

It was horrifying, but with trial and error I got it. Since then it's been fun. Now I know how to build and paints things and how to hang, cable, and gel lights. Good times.

In spite of how much I enjoy the work, I find the atmosphere in the theatre project shop to be oppressive. Depressive. My parenthesis spine slouched a little more as I kneeled on the cold floor, taping down carpets.

Except the carpets would not tape straight. I don't know why. Tape is a straight line. The edges of carpet are straight lines. But when I placed the tape on the carpet, the tape got all loopy and weird and then the carpet looked like it had this lopsided black border.

I hated the way the carpet looked, and quickly some of those feelings transferred over to myself.

Wow, awesome, Awkward Mormon Girl I thought in a mature and non-self-indulgent way. This tape job is almost as messed up as your life.

And so it went.

The end of the tape roll is stuck... just like you!

The main difference between you and this faded, ugly carpet is that the carpet is useful.

Something clever about the splinters in that piece of wood over there and your prickly personality.

FOREMAN: Oh, you're finished taping? Why don't you sweep?

So I took a dust bin and a hand broom. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled across the floor, sweeping as I went. Fragments of glass, broken screws, and dirt was everywhere.

Sweeping this dust is like sweeping up the dust of my dreams.

At this point, I just started praying. Not with my arms folded or anything, but in the back of my mind.
"I'm doing the best I can," I said. "You know I'll keep going no matter what. But I need some encouragement to remind me that I'm doing the things I'm supposed to.  Please give me something to encourage me."

Directly after sweeping, I went to the cafeteria to get some lunch. As I wandered around, looking at the options, I noticed this cute boy who's in one of my classes.

He'd never said two words to me. As I passed him, though, he looked directly at me and smiled. Widely.

I smiled back. In that moment, I felt a little less dejected. "Thanks," I prayed in my heart, "for the encouragement."

After selecting my food, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands before eating as any RN's child would.

As I stepped up to the sink, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and froze.

No wonder the boy had smiled at me. I had dirt all over my face! Apparently not all of what I'd swept up had found its way to the dustpan.

"Very funny," I said to Heavenly Father. I swear I could hear Him laughing.