David

Well...I miss David. Part of the issue could be that I've been bedridden all day with what I'm sure is the Black Plague, or at the very least severe and  deadly pneumonia. Being sickly and in bed could add to the depression I'm experiencing from last night's traumatic farewell, but David is the kind of guy who really leaves a hole when he's gone. 

David is, of course, not perfect in every way, but he's perfect in just about every way that matters. He's nice, and just plain caring. He always looks out for the underdog. 

He's smart, though in our family he maybe doesn't get as much credit for that as he deserves. He's fully, 100% committed to the gospel, not because he's supposed to be but because he truly believes at his core. Peer pressure doesn't affect him because he's confident in what he believes and who he is. He's sweet, and even though he is capable of losing his temper (only West child to ever be suspended from school), the guilt he feels afterwards makes it impossible to be upset with him. He's the best sibling in our family and has a positive, personal relationship with all five of the rest of us, and my parents. 

On that note, a more personal note, David has always made a real effort with me. I am single and live alone - I like my independence but sometimes I need help and David has always been there. He brought me a drill at 11:00pm when I was having serious issues replacing the lock on my front door. He came back the next night (20 minute drive one way) to help me lift a heavy package into my house. He accompanied me various places when I couldn't make myself go alone. Don't get me wrong, I bought him a lot of dinners to thank him. 

Something I can never really thank him for is how he always made me feel welcome within our family. My family is great, across the board, but sometimes I haven't been the most liked member, largely due to my own grumpiness or impatience. David never lets me get in the way of being part of the family, no matter how much I might resist. 

I could go on, believe it or not, but the bottom line is that David is just a guy you just want to have around. That's why not having him around for two years is really, really hard. For now I'll share him with the people he'll meet over the next two years because other people probably deserve to get to know him too. 

Depression

I have issues with Depression. I'm not embarrassed to say this (anymore) but at the same time it's very hard to talk about. I think many people can share their experience after they feel like they're out of it, which I am not. Or some people like to share how they're feeling when they're in the depths of it, which I am not.  I'm somewhere in the middle and still figuring out how to figure it out. 

It may be hard for me to talk about because I apparently have a "limited emotional vocabulary". I'm an "isolator", an "introvert", and "in a bad way." I have days of real "darkness" and "despair" and I have days of "relief". These are all terms that get thrown around in the land of "mental illness" so it's easy to use them to describe what is going on without really saying anything about what's really going on. I don't intend to say anything terribly personal about it here, other than Depression is a bummer, I don't particularly care for it, but I've learned a lot about myself through the process. 

I've learned that I'm apparently "emotionally constipated" and that if my therapist were to draw me as a stick figure (which she has done on multiple occasions) I would have a very large, overdeveloped head with a tiny, weak undernourished heart/chest region. (I would have thought this setup prevented all that "feelings" stuff from getting in the way but apparently that's not how it works)

 I've learned that ignoring emotions doesn't make them go away, and that it isn't normal to be extremely uncomfortable and want to run out of the room when someone starts crying.

 I've learned that I have an extreme and irrational fear of looking stupid, which is why I appear perfect to all of you, all the time.

 I've learned that sitting on a couch with both parents talking to a therapist about feelings might just be one of the most unpleasant experiences a human can have.

 I've learned that fish tanks, TV series, Groupon deals, and takeout food are not the answers, but that cats, sunshine, Mamma Mia (the movie with Meryl Streep), and a nice little cocktail of medications...those help. 

My blog is not very personal. I don't talk about my deepest fears, my worries, my bad days, my greatest hopes, my goals...my blog isn't a story of my day to day life. In fact as I was going back through my posts, this blog doesn't really tell anything about my life since I began blogging. You could not read through these posts and get a sense for the path my life has taken. You won't know what I did last weekend because of my blog, you won't know much, if anything, about my job after reading my blog, you won't know much about the people in my life...you really won't know anything about where my head is at or where most of my time is spent. And I like it that way.

Now, not that there is anything wrong with using your blog to talk about  your weekend or your kids or your job or your relationships...I enjoy reading blogs that do all these things. I enjoy feeling caught up and connected to my friends and family who provide this kind of insight into their lives.

I've been told that I'm fairly...closed-off. Which I always sort of knew, and sort of liked, but am now discovering that it has it's drawbacks. The point is, I think I may try to work towards becoming slightly more upfront and maybe a little more personal in my communications with other people. It sounds painful, and without my therapist I probably would have given up already. But I thought about it, and it seems like this blog may be a good place to start. So, in the spirit of openness, here are some things I don't generally tell people and rarely ever talk about:

• I do not know how to braid hair. I've tried once or twice, it didn't work. Thinking about asking my 6 year-old sister to teach me but I know the face she'll make, and I think I'm still a little too proud to ask. I'm working on that.
• I enjoy my job, I really like the variety and the people and the sense of accomplishment that comes. However, I hate office politics and processes that seem to be there just for the sake of having a process. I hate it when people say no just because they think they can't always say yes. And I have found working at the same company as my dad a little tricky to navigate at times. People ask me about working "for" my dad a lot, and I usually say, "Oh, I never see him, he's in the corner office and I'm in the basement cubicle." Which is true. But even with that organizational distance, things still happen...opinions, office politics, and bosses definitely can conflict with a father-daughter relationship. However, it's actually really really great to have someone to talk to who really gets my job, and it's been eye-opening to see what my dad has really been doing all these years. "Dad's working" means something TOTALLY different now.
• I have not graduated from college, however I almost never bring that up. It's easy to say I went to BYU and was a Philosophy major, which is completely true. But...people draw their own conclusions and I don't jump in to correct them. I think of myself as college educated, and who needs a silly little paper that says you jumped through a bunch of hoops! Except I don't really believe that...I have two classes left, well I'm halfway through one of the two, but I kind of enjoy seeing how far I can get without a degree. Plus I completely hate the idea of going back down to Provo to sit in a classroom and talk about theoretical philosophical stuff and write essays and...yuck.
• I haven't been to church in several months for two reasons. One, at a certain stage of life, church becomes all about finding friends and/or dates, and even the people with the most sincere intentions can't prevent this from interfering with their church experience. And two, let's be honest...9am on a Sunday, getting "dressed up"...not my thing. 
• I think I may be allergic to hugs. With very few exceptions, I get extremely uncomfortable, a little warm, and completely flustered by them. Contrary to popular belief, it's not because I dislike them. I dislike them because this always happens! Plus I'm really not good at it, when you're told that hugging you is like hugging a cardboard box, it doesn't make you eager to repeat the experience. Also, I don't think hugging is necessary to say "Hello" or "Goodbye". That's why we have the words "Hello" and "Goodbye". If a hug communicates something, it should be something that can't quite be communicated in words. I'm not sure what that is exactly, but I'm sure there's something there.  
• I really really love my parents. I never say it, I don't tell them that, but I really do. My parents are smart and supportive and generous, nice people. There are moments from time to time when I find myself thinking, "Wow, some people's moms didn't ever cook and they just had hamburger helper all the time!" or "I can't believe some people's parents didn't teach them table manners." I guess that sounds kind of dumb, but I feel incredibly lucky to have been raised the way I was. I think I'm still too close to my teenage years to admit that to my parents, but maybe they might read this post someday. Then they'll know and we won't have to have an awkward conversation about it.
• I enjoy living alone, it's fabulous going home and really being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. My time is my time, and it's not impacted by anyone else. However, it can be lonely too. Not speaking to another human being for 8 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours...I've been surprised how much I have to say at the end of my "alone time". I sometimes think having another warm body around would be nice...hence the reason I am in the process of adopting a pig! I thought an aquarium would help, but fish do not count as "warm bodies" by any definition. Plus, the pig will never mess with my DVR or eat my food. It does mean I'll have to give up pork products, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. 

There, how's that for being open? A little window into the real me.

Last Valentine's Day

It's been approximately one year since my mom told me she had cancer. It was Valentine's Day and my mom had asked if I could meet her for lunch. Work was busy that day, so I couldn't. She then asked if I could go to dinner instead. I knew something was up then, my mom wouldn't be asking to go to dinner on a school night for four of my siblings when my dad was out of town.

Needless to say, finding a place for dinner last minute on valentine's day was not easy. The pickings were slim. We ended up just going to a place called the Gecko, I think. We walked in and found the clientele to be similar to Chuck-o-Rama before 5:30....lots of sweatpants and denchers.

I have no idea how the food was that night, it would take a lot for food to be memorable when you hear your mom say "I've got cancer, and oh by the way there's this brain tumor and spine issue".

A year later, I'm not sure my mom would consider the whole experience a blessing, and I probably wouldn't go that far either. But looking back, it was probably appropriate that I found out on Valentine's Day because the experience, for me, was a giant lesson in love. I am not a person who cries, except in cases of injury or rivalry game losses, but I was moved to tears several times because of the unbelievable outpouring of love we received from everyone imaginable. It was nothing short of incredible.

My Dad

As of yesterday, my dad is officially not the CEO for Control4 anymore. And while he's just moving to new role with the company, this was a bit of a milestone. I usually find him an easy target for criticism or jokes, everything from his lack of hair down to his Tevas-with-socks fashion choices, but this feels like a good opportunity to reflect on why I'm proud of my dad.

Until I was probably sixteen I didn't realize that most people considered 'work' a 9-to-5 deal. I always saw how hard he worked - he was working when I left for school in the morning, he was at work when I got home, sometimes we'd see him for dinner, and then he'd be working when I went to bed. And that's when he wasn't traveling. What I didn't really get to see, until I started working at the company three years ago, was what all that work produced. I am so proud of what he's been able to accomplish in his career, especially at Control4. The late nights, early mornings, and hours of travel aren't easy but I think the results speak for themselves.

In a busy work environment, it can be easy to lose sight of the human element. I've seen and heard plenty of examples...using an employee's lack of performance, an elevated title, or potential financial gain as an excuse to mistreat or disrespect people.  One of the things about my Dad that I am the most proud of is that he simply doesn't think that way. He has been successful without ignoring or forgetting the well-being of people around him. He is a successful businessman, but he is an honest, caring and good person first.

His commitment to his work has at some points caused him to miss out on family time, something that I used to remind him of constantly. Being the manipulative teenager I was, I would often remind him that he had missed something like six of my birthdays, especially when I thought I could get a laugh or use guilt to help me get something from him (never actually worked). But, when I was a Freshman in college, my dad was invited to speak to the Entrepeneurship club at my school.
I went to watch and to my surprise, he spent quite a bit of time talking about the impact his work had had on his family time. In fact, he even got choked up as he told everyone how he had missed six of my birthdays. Needless to say, I haven't brought up the birthday issue since. Despite the amount of time he's spent working over the years, none of my siblings, or my mom, or I have any doubt as to how important we are to him.


 I love my dad. He's passionate about Control4 and making it successful, he's put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into getting it to where it is and I'm so proud of him for that. He's a great example, a great human being, and a great dad.

Democracy and Senior Citizens

Tuesday I had my first voting experience working as a poll-worker. It was not the efficient machine-like system of democratic expression I had expected but more of a slow-motion geriatric comedy of errors. Hearing aid problems here, senior moments of forgetfulness there, and the distinct scent of the elderly was everywhere. But for all that, the people in our precincts were lucky to have these old poll-workers, and I was lucky to have been put with this group. There are not many people with whom I could spend 15 straight hours but I thoroughly enjoyed almost every minute with them.

Our Poll Manager was Sue, she had been the chief nurse of a 400-bed mobile army hospital (four times the size of a MASH unit) in the National Guard for 20+ years and now works at the King's English bookstore. She was very calm throughout, making sure some of the more excitable old folks kept their cool and that we all had plenty of breaks. She even initiated a little pool, we all were betting on how many voters we'd have by the end of the day...sadly I took third.

Rex was our technician, a very very nice old Greek man. He has diabetes and so had toes and parts of both feet removed. Walking was not easy for him, but he was always quick to jump up whenever anyone was having trouble understanding how to work the voting machines. When he wasn't helping in that way he would sit by the doors on his big wooden stool, thank people for voting, and tell them about all the free Starbucks coffee, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and Ben and Jerry's ice cream they could get for voting. He would typically say 'Don't forget your free coffee, doughnuts, or ice cream.' This lead about half the people to turn around on the spot and say 'Where!?' Twice we had two people collide because the one in front turned around abruptly to look for the free food while the person immediately behind did not.

Rachel was our Provisional Judge, and the youngest worker....probably in her late 40s. She was given the nickname Deep Throat because she would get updates of election results on her phone and quietly relay them to us without letting the voters hear. (We were supposed to maintain complete political neutrality and not discuss politics in any way.)

Jeanne was the funny one in the group, a fifty-something year old English-major who came in wearing her daughters turquoise converse sneakers. She lead us all in a big cheer for each and every first-time voter who came in. She could always be counted on to know exactly how much time we had left...'six hours and 37 minutes!' When I was being too quiet she would say 'Alright Jennifer, let's turn the heat back on you...tell us why you're at BYU, or tell us about Philsophy.'

Anne was an almost-seventy year old English major with a fabulous vocabulary and a fiery competitiveness. She initiated a second contest, to see who could guess the time that we'd hit 500 voters. She beat me by 4 minutes and was tickled about it. At one point, when it was getting down to the wire, we had a man come in who had to vote on a provisional ballot. She was worried that I would count him in our tally and had he counted, I would have won, so she began saying 'He doesn't count, he's not in our books he's on provisional so his vote doesn't count!'. She made no attempt to keep her voice down and the man was looking concerned until Poll-Manager Sue went over to assure him that his vote would in-fact count.

Sue #2 was a 68 year-old originally from Montpeilier, Idaho who was sort of a math guru. When Poll-Manager Sue announced our original total numer of voters contest, Sue #2 spent almost an hour counting and calculating numbers to reach her guess. Unforunately her magical math did not give her the winning guess. Towards the end of the night as the number of voters dwindled to almost nothing, the rule of political neutrality went out the window. All of my left-leaning cowokers were letting Palin jokes fly and talking about moving to Canada or Mexico if the election didn't go their way. Sue #2 found all of this to be absolutely hilarious and would giggle to the point of tears. The sight of 68 year-old crying and shaking with laughter, on top of all the wittiness of the others made for lots of laughing all around.

Then there was Bill and Ruth, a married couple in their eighties, both with hearing aids, and seated on either side of me. Ruth graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music as an Organist and Bill is a former Physics professor at the University of Utah. Ruth was the grandma of the group, she brought homemade cookies, homegrown pear tomatoes, carrots, and nuts to sustain all of us. Bill is not a proponent of String Theory (the only physics topic I knew enough about to discuss with him) and does not understand things like music and sewing machines, he understands semi-conductors and likes them for their usefulness. Our only error in reconciling the books came when I took my ten minute afternoon break. When I got back and we checked our books against the machines we were off by one. Bill and Ruth started arguing about where the mistake was but eventually Ruth and I found the error and fixed it. Then she said, "You can't even leave us alone for ten minutes without everything getting messed up!" This gave me a completely exaggerated sense of importance.... like an indispensable cog in the machinery of democracy.

We had a good crew and at the end of our fifteen hour-day I was sorry to leave their company. But, they had stopped their almost intravenous intake of coffee and were all quickly losing steam so they each gave me a hug, I felt like I had gained eight new grandparents, and we all hurried home to watch the numbers come in. Senior citizens may not be the most efficient folks, but they take their title of 'citizen' seriously. It's not easy for an 80 year-old to work from 5:30am to 9:00pm, no matter how much coffee they've got. Things like hearing aids, canes, sight problems, unsteady hands, and even poor memories don't make it any easier. But their age group seems to be the one that answers the call of civic duty. This 'slow-motion geriatric comedy of errors' was what allowed approximately 643 people to vote, and probably millions more across the country.

What is it about Fall that is so appealing? It would seem that Fall should be the most repulsive of seasons. After all, Fall is essentially a dying time. The vegetation, the fun, the free time, almost every aspect of the life that came in Spring, and peaked in Summer, withers and dies in the months of September, October, and November. So what is it? My theory is that by the end of Spring and Summer we are just ready to be done with the frolicking and the happy. I suppose I can only speak for myself, perhaps I am just a grump, but I am a realist. I am a person who likes to wear brown and black wherever possible. I am a person who likes, at times, to hole up in my room and avoid the sunshine and the people who seem to exude it. So, I like Fall because it brings people out of the clouds, they've got to get back inside and get back to work. I like the 'darker' seasons because the obnoxious springy and summery happiness is contained indoors and out of my face, by structure and schedules, work and weather. The Fall brings a different kind of happy, not loud and exuberant, but rather content and serene. Nature is on it's deathbed in Fall, and it is dying a calm, cool, and collected death.

Note: Picture taken by me last November in Central Park.