aud’acious

My mom made sukiyaki for my brother’s birthday today. It was so good. The real version is where you cook the meet and the vegetables in the sauce by yourself. It’s an experience as well as food. I love that home cooking for my mom is usually Chinese or Japanese and she is good because she studied under a chef that made food for the Guomingdang ruling party in Taiwan.

Oh, and I went to a family ward today. It was full of newly weds. What a way to put life into perspective. I was about to count how many of the sisters were not pregnant because I wasn’t sure if I could find any.

I’ve taken a lot of criticism direct and indirect over the years because of my marital status. The windows of opportunity open and close and we follow where our opportunities take us. What few people really know about me is that I came from very humble circumstances going into college. Money, or the lack of it, many times drove me down the path I am now on. It’s not completely shocking that I’m not married. When I was in college I was wearing clothes people gave me, whether they fit or not, didn’t have a car, couldn’t afford to move away from home. I studied hard for the half tuition scholarships but I didn’t have much else to do anyway because socially it was hard for me to hang out under such circumstances. There were even times I was holding back the tears because I couldn’t afford basic foods at the grocery store.

The real miracle is not whether I’m married or not. It’s the fact that I’ve traveled the world and speak 4 languages. As crazy as this sounds, it was cheaper for me to live in Israel than to move down the street away from home because people gave financial need scholarships. And now I get opportunities to travel abroad for free all the time. They say, How would you like to spend a month in London all expenses paid? How would you like to be in Jerusalem for a month all expenses paid?

If I wear nice clothes now, it’s because I worked hard and earned the money myself–I didn’t want to always have to shop at cheap discount stores. I have my own car after carrying groceries on my bike for years.

I tend to get two general reactions from people and especially from guys. One, that I’m apostate for not being married and working. Or two, the opposite, that I’m larger than life. But whatever people think, I did what I could with what I was given. I look at all the pregnant women with their husbands and I’m very happy for them. It’s a different path and one that I’ve always wanted. However, sitting in the place I am now I have no regrets and love every ounce of the rewards of so many years of scrimping and saving and going without. It has made me who I am. Tomorrow a reporter is coming to interview me and my students for something I helped to make happen. We all have our different paths. I like mine.