life lessons from 90210

Obviously the main issue that I write about on this blog is about dealing with my attraction to girls and its incongruence with the gospel that I know to be true.  But there are other things that I struggle with.  They are not so acute but they do exist.  However...because liking girls is so...I can't think of a word...but it is something that would require a significant, to say the least, lifestyle change...including giving up things that I love and hold sacred...it seems to be front and center in my life.  This is NOT in any way to say that my life is more difficult than anyone else's.  I don't believe that at all.  In fact I believe that your challenges and struggles and obstacles are as difficult for you as mine are for me.  I believe that principle to be true.  I like to call it my 90210 principle.  I will explain...


In 1990 Beverly Hills 90210 made it's television debut.  It was not a show I had any particular interest in  (except for when Rebecca Gayheart and Tiffani Thiessen were on...they are both really easy on the eyes...I digress) but it taught me a great lesson about judging other's situation against my own. 


I was sitting at lunch one day...at the lunch table were a group of girls, with whom I was friends and who had a deep LOVE for 90210...and then a couple of my closer friends who had about as much interest in the show as I did.  One of my closer friends commented on how lame the show was, which of course almost incited a lunch room riot.  Being the peace maker/people pleaser (working on that) that I am I tried to temper the increasingly incendiary situation.  My closer friends took the stance that the show was so fake, so ridiculous and that if their lives were anything like that they would have nothing to complain about.  The 90210 girls immediately countered saying...well honestly I don't know what they said...but I do know they were horrified by the lack of regard given to their televisions "besties" (just an aside, this was LONG before the term "bestie", but I am fairly certain that these girls would have been part of the group to incorporate the word).  


This is when true Divine inspiration struck my 13 year old mind.  In less than articulate terms, I'm sure...I was in junior high, cut me some slack...I explained to the fuming group that the lives of the TV CHARACTERS (yes...I am sort of about to defend television characters) were as difficult for said TV characters as our lives were for us...that my life was as difficult for me as it was for any one of my friends...90210 lovers and anyone else...and though our struggles were very, Very, VERY different (especially from the likes of the students at Beverly Hills High) said struggles were still just as difficult, and heart wrenching and stressful and painful and whateverelseful for each one of us.  I don't really remember anyone being awed at my words of wisdom (I guess I was no Mother Mary) but things settled down and I was the heroine for the 90210 crowd...not sure if they understood what I was saying totally...but they could tell I was on their side...and as far as my closer friends...they just chalked it up to me being my usual crowd pleasing self...and we continued on, peacefully, with our non-90210 related conversation.  


To be honest...I think it was many years later that I was actually awed at my own words...not so much at what I had said, but somewhat amazed that at such a self centered and moody age (it wasn't just me, right?)  I came to understand what is a very true principle...regardless of someones struggle...I cannot compare it to mine...I cannot judge that what I go through on a daily basis is more difficult than what you go through.  Of course and by all means...we can support each other and share with one another our heartbreaks and our "heart-heals"...and we indeed learn from one another.  But I would loath the thought that anyone out there ever thought that I felt as if my life was so much more difficult than theirs.


Our trials...they are here to make us better...make us who it is we truly are, who we can really be...I don't always love that idea...but there are a lot of principles in nature (muscle growth immediately comes to mind) that seem to evidenced the truth that our growth and progression come often times from obstacles. 


And I will leave you with some thoughts that are not my own but that I would like to have etched underneath my eyelids so I read them while I sleep!

"The path of least resistance can lead through a minefield" (this comes from the main character in the movie The Nannie Diaries)         

"Patient endurance permits us to cling to our faith in the Lord and our faith in His timing when we are being tossed about by the surf of circumstance.  Even when a seeming undertow grasps us, somehow, in the tumbling we are being carried forward though battered and bruised." ~Neal A Maxwell

And for those moments when you're 100% POSITIVE that you've learned ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that you are going to learn from a particular trial...Neal sheds some (more) much needed light:

"In our approach to life, patience also helps us to realize that while we may be ready to move on, having had ENOUGH of a particular learning experience, our continued presence is often needed as part of the learning environment of others." 

~Neal A Maxwell