Mother Knows Best

There have been many times in my life when I've gone to my mom with worries and problems I've been dealing with. She's listened to me cry and complain and pity myself and then gives me advice. It's always been good advice, but I can't say I've followed it very often. I don't listen well and even when people tell me things, I usually end up doing what I want to do. In the end, I'm always back in my mother's room telling her she was right.

Tonight I went to a wedding reception for a girl I grew up with at church. She's a year older than me and the third girl from our class to get married this year. She has always been kind to me and I call her my friend. But tonight I realized how little I knew her in high school and how I know her even less now. That's how it is with all the girls in our stake.

I saw a large handful of the girls I've known all through middle school and high school. The ones I danced with at stake dances and shared tents with at girls camp. We all smiled and greeted each other and asked about college and we all like it. But really, we're just being polite. I don't really know these girls and, while I'm glad they're enjoying college, they're not my friends. They're friends with each other and they all room together and are in each others wedding parties, but them and me? We're just people who grew up together, so we say hello out of courtesy.

I can't help but wish I had been better friends with the girls in my stake. I had good girlfriends in the stake, but one moved away, one thinks she's superior to me because she graduated a year early, and the other hates me and won't talk to me (for reasons unknown). I picked poor friends, I realize this. Sometimes I just wish I had been able to be good friends with those girls at the wedding receptions. Maybe if I had, I would be better at having best friends. Instead, I go to these wedding receptions and the only people I'm really glad to see and talk to are my leaders from when I was in Young Women's and seminary teachers.

I talked to my mom about this, since I was caught in a fit of self pity. After bursting into tears I mentioned that I know this isn't that big of a deal, but I've got PMS so it feels like a bigger deal than it is. My mom just laughed and listened to me blubber on about high school and not knowing the girls and how poor high school aged Amanda didn't fit in. Then after telling me that high school doesn't matter and you make your real friends in college, she said, "What I think you should do is get a cup of hot chocolate, go to bed, and know that these next few days are going to be tough."

I did just that and I feel much better.