Monday, August 30, 2010

above average

So the church has this new thing going - “I’m a Mormon.”  There are videos and profiles of members all over the world, which I think is cool.  There are so many misconceptions about our religion and theology, why not go straight to the members and see if we’re all cult-crazy zombies?


Because some of us aren’t.  I think.  


Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time someone found out I was a Mormon and was shocked and then said - “but you don’t act like a Mormon -” I’d have piles and piles of dollars.  Because they have this preconceived notion that I should be … well, I don’t know who, really.


So I thought - how nifty!  I’ll put up a profile and people can see how cool I am while doing the Mormon gig!


Except, if I try to describe myself on paper, I don’t have anything really interesting to say about who I am.  I’m completely average.  I’m a stay at home mom in Wisconsin to two kids… I used to play violin a lot… there are newscasters and doctors and actual musicians on there.  I’m oatmeal.


Ug, so there I am, feeling all boring and bland, and then I made the mistake of watching part of my master’s recital video, which further illustrated the average diagnosis - I never was a GREAT violinist, but I was decent.  Now I’m not being hard on myself here.  I have a bachelors and a masters in violin performance so I have the right credentials to go around critiquing talent.  Which I do allll the time in the car.  Last Saturday the local NPR station played the worst version I have ever heard of Rhapsody in Blue and I started screaming at my dashboard.  How could someone butcher poor Gershwin so?!?!?!  I have half a mind to march to the station and punch the program manager in the eyebrow.


Regardless, I have to come to terms with this average thing.  Life for an average person isn’t that bad, right?  No one is asking us to cure any diseases or run any countries - heck, no one even asks me to cook dinner.  We’re jsut supposed to live our little lives and make the economy hum.  I have a fine, modest and normal life in a small town in America, in a peaceful home where I can live in comfort - many in this world are not so lucky.


Still… I wish I had something up my sleeve.  Something new and exciting the world has never seen.  Something that wasn’t there before… okay sure, there’s that noble job I’m doing of raising two awesome humans, but that’s hardly revolutionary.


Maybe I’ll just settle for making average look a little less average.

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