Feelings

     I don't get it. I feel like everyone feels so differently than I do. When I go to a family event I want to stay until they kick me out. I don't want to leave before anyone else. Maybe that attitude started when I was younger. When my mother went a couple hours early to ever gathering and left a couple hours late to every gathering. I loved it. I was there when my favorite people arrived and I was there when they left. I never had to worry about missing anyone because I was there already. No one could come and go without me seeing them first because I was in charge of the doors. It was perfect. Then when the people I wanted to really sit down and talk to came in I could sit down and just talk to them. No worries about anything. But why would I ever want to leave the people I love before I had to?
     When I was in like 4th grade I was talking about one of my cousins and I distinctly remember someone looking at me and saying "You like being with your cousins? I hate my cousins." I mostly remember thinking, "How could anyone hate the people you're stuck with for forever." I didn't know. I don't think I ever will. Maybe people like to leave family things early because they will have forever, but that doesn't really make sense. If you have to spend forever with someone then why not get to know them the best you can? Nothing matters to me like the people who I'm related to. There are some people who are comparable in my love for them and they're only good friends but think about the people you love that much. Are they not the people that you always hope can marry into the family some how? They are usually the people who you want to be part of your family. Some might say that the reason for that is because they want some sort of tie to that person but you don't need to have someone be an official part of the family to have a tie with them. You really just want them to be with you forever. I know the feeling. There really is nothing quite like it.
     Sometimes I think that I'm a strange teenager. Most teens don't want to be with their family and they wish that they could just live with their friends all the time, but not me. I love my friends. I do. But they will never mean the same thing to me as my family. Friends are a great break from your family but Family is Forever and friends are for the times in between. There isn't much time there. There are some friends I would beg to have with me forever but I can't think of many. There's one main friend and the rest I can be happy knowing are happy with their own families. I could die if I didn't know that I get to be with my family forever. It's one of the most comforting things in my whole life. So when I kneel down to pray at night I thank our Heavenly Father for giving me that gift if I'm worthy of it. If there is anything that has motivated me more than this, I don't know what it is. I don't want to spend my Saturday nights with my friends painting nails and talking about boys in our English class. I don't mind but I would much rather stay with my family every day. Is that what we're here for? To be apart of a family and have one of our own? Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I just want to know if my pain for being parted with the people I love more than anything else in the world is unnatural. And if it is please tell me why. I don't know what to do when my mom tells me that we're leaving the latest reunion. I want to fall to the ground and beg her for another hour, for ten more minutes so that I can just be where I feel most loved. I feel the best I've ever felt when I'm with my family. I don't worry about the world or what they think. I only know that there really are people out there who love me and I've never loved anyone more. But something in everyone else is different. They don't want to be with them the way I want to. It's like I never want to leave them and people don't feel that way? Why not? People are so great! Especially the people who already love you, so why? Why doesn't everyone feel the way I do? I could spend....well I could spend forever with my family. So why doesn't everyone feel that way? What did I do wrong? Or what did I do right? What makes it different? Why don't you feel that way?
     There are so many kinds of love. There's the kind of love between siblings and parents. There's the kind of love between friends. There is even a kind of love between enemies, otherwise they wouldn't hate one another so much. There's a romantic love. The best kind of love I've ever felt (I haven't felt them all, it could change for sure), is the love I feel for my extended family. My cousin used to tell me that cousins are the best. You don't fight with them like you do siblings. You don't feel any need to be anything more or less than you really are around them. I don't know if that's just my family but it's the best. There is no better way to feel accepted. I never feel left out when I get to spend time with my cousins. I never feel bad about myself. I never worry about what other people will think because I'm finally being myself. I don't have to worry about what my cousins will think because they love me anyway. So why don't I get to be with them all the time? Do they know that there is yet to be anything better in my life? Maybe they have what I'm missing. Maybe that's it. I just don't have what they do yet and that's why I feel this way. Or maybe I'm no missing anything at all. I like all the music everyone else does. I don't like very much music that everyone else likes because it's bad. I get made fun of because I'm not the middle school "perfect" but I still smile. So why am I punished? Why don't I get to be with the people who don't care if I straiten my hair or wear size six jeans? Why can't I just be with people who are so much fun? I could spend every minute of my young life with those people so why, why not? Why do we have to go to school, why do we have to live in separate cities, states, countries (only occasionally)? So when that does happen I promise never to complain. When I get there I will say so long to all the people who are not part of forever for me and I'll keep walking. I can't wait to walk into forever. It won't be an easy walk, more like a tedious hike but it's the only hike I'm really willing to take. I can hardly wait. Perhaps I'll just keep smiling and keep walking. Because sooner or later I'm gonna get there and then it wont matter what happened on the way up the mountain because I finally got to see the view and for the first time it was really worth it for me. Nothing bad will have truly happened because forever fixes the things that need to be fixed. I wont have to cry. I won't have to hurt anymore. It will be the best thing that ever happens to me.