We all know how it's supposed to work:
Go to college. Get Married. Have Kids. Start a blog.
Not for Myrinda. Medical school was for me, after a mission of course.
Aren't we taught to get as much education as possible? Surely a 'Doctor' before my name would suffice. And a mission. Why should boys have all the fun? Wanting to serve is a righteous desire, so it must be the right decision right? Plus we all know those guys who think girls only serve because they're ugly and can't get married could use a little proving wrong.
As for marriage? There is plenty of time for that when eternity is your timeline. I'm sure I would have fit it in when it was convenient.
But I couldn't do it like everybody else.
And after all I knew what was best for me.
Now you might be interested to know that I'm turning 21 next month. And while some of my friends are opening mission calls, I am opening wedding gifts.
That's right. I was sealed to my sweetheart one week ago in the Draper, Utah temple, and this week I begin an adventure far different than any I had planned for myself. And far more rewarding.
My new husband is actually the person to which the credit goes for my actually starting this blog.
We were driving somewhere together, and he was listening to me ramble about my day. I started to say something about how sometimes I see things that should be photographed for people to see. And how sometimes I think things that I think maybe people should hear. And how I thought starting a blog for these kind of things would be ideal, if it wasn't 'totally cliche'. It's what everybody does right?
He surprised me then by cutting me off mid-snobbery.
And saying 'who cares what everyone else does??' If it makes you happy then do it. You can't spend your life trying to live it differently than everyone, because odds are you're going to repeat something somewhere. Just do what makes you happy.
Add another mark to the "Husband says exactly what I need to hear in order to stop being a lame-o" tally.
I'd like to see a medical degree do that.
Do what makes you happy.
I can't say why that had such an impact on me, or why it never has before. But that, along with the recent events of my life have caused me to take another look at what I thought would make me happy.
And I am fortunate enough to say I was wrong.
Maybe the reason everybody does the same thing isn't because they're incapable of doing anything else. Maybe it's because they've figured out a pretty good way of doing things.
Maybe living for someone other than yourself is the only way to become the version of yourself you want to be. And maybe living for the beautiful parts of life, whatever kind of life that may be, will bring the sweetest kind of happiness into it.
Those beautiful things are what I hope to fill these pages with.
Photos and feelings and words and wishes.
And all the reasons I am so glad I don't know what is best for me.
If I am cliche, I am finally happy.
-MD
