Feeling a Little Like Beth...

I am wildly in love with the novel "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott as well as the movie by the same name. The movie especially. I love it mostly because it reminds me of my sisters (I have four). Secretly, I have always wanted to be just like Beth. Beth is the soft spoken, sweet, even tempered sister. However, Beth is always in poor health and manages to catch every disease of the day from colds to Scarlet Fever from the Hummel's baby. It's ridiculous, really. Note to Beth: just stay away from the sick people and you'll be just fine. But I digress. Though Beth is my role model in my endeavors to be virtuous and sweet (ha!), there is one thing about her that I do not wish to one day embody.

Beth is always the sister that does not leave home and does not do anything particularly exciting. She just remains at Orchard House with Marmie while playing her piano and snuggling up in her cute little knit shawls. What she does is not bad, it's just not fun. Her sisters go and do something else with their lives either outside of Concord or with a man (married of course). I would like to compare the March sisters to my roommates freshmen and sophomore years. There were 4 that were there both years: Gina, Kallene, Kaccee, and little Teresa. Then there was Britni from freshman year who ended up getting married the summer after. Finally, Lauren took Britni's sophomore year and we loved her just as much. After two years of greatness together, three girls decided to go on missions (Kal-Hawaii, Kaccee-Chile, and Teresa-Spokane, Washington) while another got married (Gina), and Lauren moved back to Boise because she was done with her program. I remained in Provo to continue on in my schooling. This school year, I was worried that I would have a crazy roommate that I couldn't handle (I knew two of the girls I would live with but not the one I would actually share a room with). But Susie was an answer to my prayers! Glorious and hilarious and a genuine lover of BBC films, Susie was my heartsong and more during the fall. But, like others before her, she left for bigger and better things that just happened to be in Washington D.C.

This brings me back to my Beth analogy. My "sisters" are all leaving me for foreign countries, beautiful men (Laurie!)and marriage, or to further their education/to go on an adventure in the big city. These are all great things and I support them wholeheartedly. But there are moments when I can't help feeling a little like Beth; stuck and a little left behind in the world. What I'm doing isn't bad by any means. I'm doing what I need to be doing. It's just that what I'm doing is...well, boring.

I figure, the only way I can really get ahead of those who have gone out into the world before me is to DIE like Beth. Like she says (or whispers) to Jo, "Why does everyone want to go away. I love our home...I do not like being left behind. But now I am the one going ahead." Yep. That's what I have to do. But I would DEFINITELY prefer not to. When I say stuff like this, I know that I'm being ridiculous. 95% of the time. My roommates are on to new and different things and, though it all feels the same to me, I'm doing new things as well. I wonder if this is how Beth felt too...