A love note to myself

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How many times have you been asked what your most embarrassing moment is? It comes up in speed dating, fortune cookies, myspace surveys, get to know you questionnaires, you name it. And to be honest, I never really know how to respond when asked this quesiton. 'Uhhhhh, once I tripped in front of the boy I liked.' No. Stupid.

So for a really long time, (and if you ignore the incident that we don't speak of,) I didn't really have a 'most embarrassing moment' -- until February 28th. This is what happened. That week, I'd had a couple midterms to take. Truth be told, I was not doing well on them. My heart was rent with sorrow. I always seemed to leave the Testing Center feeling horrible, as if my New Testament grade was going to determine my eternal salvation or something. So, on that fateful day, I decided that I was done walking home with a pit in my throat and a lump in my stomach. I wanted to feel happy, regardless of whether I got a good score or not. So what did I do? I'm so glad you asked. You know how people leave notes for people on that little window ledge at the bottom of the stairs? Well.

I wrote myself a note.

In retrospect, I should've taken a picture because it was glorious. I wrote my name in cursive, decorated it with flowers and hearts and smiley faces, even folded it in a fancy way. I wrote a whole page chock full of awkward self-encouragement: "You're a beautiful daughter of God" and "This test doesn't matter in the eternal perspective" and "Baby, you're a firework." But wait. The cherry on top is that I signed it. I addressed it to myself, and then I signed it, "love, your future self (well technically your past self...)." I left it on the window ledge and went up to take my test.

An hour later, with my test handed in and my feet makin' their way downtown down the stairs, it dawned on me that there was a note sitting patiently on the ledge, waiting for me to come and claim it. The prospect of this made me want to skip, but skipping down stairs is hard so I just walked. ...But I walked with urgency!

When I arrived upon the landing, I found myself staring blankly at an empty window sill. Just wood. And window. But definitely no notes. "No... That's not true... That's impossible!" I thought to myself, eyes still glued to nothing, like maybe if I concentrated hard enough it would appear. Was I going blind? I looked at the floor. No note. I looked at the ledge again. No note. I checked the trash can for cryin' out loud -- but alas, there was no note.

As I slowly turned and started home, all I could think of was BYU Testing Center employees, laughing at the girl who wrote a love note to herself.

I would say that since that incident, I have been able to think of nothing else and I will never again write myself a note -- but that's absolutely not true. Quite the contrary, in fact. I think I'm going to leave letters for myself every time I go to the Testing Center. Chances are I'm bound to get at least one of them.

Moral of the story: Take every opportunity you can to love yourself. If nothing else, you'll get a mildly amusing anecdote to tell at your next dinner party. (Because if you're anything like me, you go to dinner parties all the time, am I right?)