Good Will Toward Men

It is hard to feel good about the world today. I have been especially disappointed this past week as multiple people seem to be telling me, an avid Aggie fan since birth, how I should feel about Gary Anderson ditching the Aggies.

I said it.

He ditched us.

And no, I will not be happy for him just because he tripled his salary.

You can tell me what you want. I will listen politely, but I probably won't change my mind. Then I will tell you what I believe (because in Aggie Nation, it is all about what you believe).

I believe the man lied. I believe I could have been happy for him to move up in his career, had he not strung us all along for the past month about him staying here.

But, no, he said he would stay and then, once the big offer came, whoosh! He was outta here!

Personally, I don't think anyone who hasn't been an Aggie fan for at least ten years can really comprehend how much this hurts us. You can say that it's just the way it is and I should be okay with it, but I will tell you why I cannot be happy that this "is just the way it is." This small situation is just a sampling of what is wrong with the world today on a larger scale. His choice exemplifies a lack of three basic morals that we desperately need in our society: integrity, loyalty, and contentment. Let me outline them for you:

1. Integrity means you say what you mean and you mean what you say. You are true to your word. And if you don't intend on being true to your word, you don't share those words.

2. Loyalty means sticking with something. Aggie fans (at least those that have been around more than the past three seasons) understand this: loving something not because it is victorious, but because you believe in it. For example, I believe in goodness, but "goodness" isn't always the winning team in today's world.

3. Contentment. It means being satisfied with what you have. Today's generation is all about entitlement. We deserve bigger, better, faster, stronger, more more more. There is such a thing as being happy and not being rich.Contrary to popular belief, money isn't everything.

I have been asking myself over and over how I am going to instill these values into my daughter when every time she steps outside our door she will be confronted with ideas that tell her the opposite. And how am I going to keep myself believing in these things when good people--even my friends--are telling me I should be okay with less than this?

My insides are in knots. There are no easy answers.

This is the time of year when I am supposed to have good will toward men. Obviously, if you've read this far, you know I don't seem to have much of that going on. I know. I feel awful about it. I want to be happy. I want to know peace. At some point, I would like to believe that people really are what they say they are, that they really will do what they say they are going to do, that they won't leave it all when something better comes along.

Maybe I am overly emotional right now because I am slowly tearing apart the only home my daughter has ever known to pack her up and move her to a place almost completely foreign to her (and to me). Last night I finally had enough. Knowing that my husband would be staying the night with his parents down in Salt Lake because of his new job, I decided to do the only thing that I knew would make me feel better.

I packed up my daughter and I went home to the home that will always be home.

And I asked my mom, "am I right to feel the way I do? All these other people are telling me I should feel the opposite." And she said just what I needed to hear--that integrity, and loyalty, and contentment should still count for something, that my feelings were valid, and it was okay that it didn't feel okay.

And for the rest of the evening, I wrapped presents while watching White Christmas and keeping an eye on Kevin, who is trying so hard to crawl and expand her world. Early this morning, when I was trying to get her to go back to sleep for a little while so I could too, we cuddled on the bed in my old bedroom, surrounded by the yellow walls I love. I read to her stories out of a Christmas Treasury that my mom bought for my family in 1993 (I am probably the only child who has read this treasury). Sleepily she smiled up at me, content to look at the pictures, listen to my voice, and run her hand along her yellow fleece blanket until she drifted off again.

And I realized, the best thing I can do for her is what my parents did for me: give her a home to come home to when life gets tough and she needs just a moment of peace before she can pick herself up and move on.

And now, I am going to pick myself up and move on.