My 25 Inch Trout

I've driven from Phoenix to Pleasant Grove twice recently. 10 days ago in a moving truck with all of my worldly possessions, and yesterday in my 215,000 mileage car. In preparation for the second trip, I took my car to my mechanic and told him to fix anything he thought might break on it. $1300 later, he and I both felt good about making the journey. After the events of last summer, I have been extremely paranoid about getting stranded with my car broken down, especially since there are stretches during the drive when I don't have cell service. So when my check engine light came on during one of those stretches, I took a few minutes to rail at God. Because that's always productive. Frequently, in spite of doing all that I am capable of, life doesn't go like I plan.

Today I was in a lesson at church led by my parent's stake president. He started by telling a story from his past week - he had just returned from his dream vacation of fly fishing in Alaska. He has been fly fishing for years, and his one dream from this trip was to catch a 25 inch trout. The day arrived that they were going to the location where he was mostly likely to catch one of these huge fish - the Gibraltar River. All day the people around him caught fish after fish, and eventually each member of their group had one of the coveted 25+ inch trout, including an 11 year old boy who had never been fishing before. Everyone it is, except him. He, the most experienced fisher in the group, barely caught anything at all, and certainly nothing near the size he had hoped for. He was frustrated and disappointed and decided he would rather have not gone on that trip. He too expressed that life frequently doesn't go like he plans, and that it can be hard to deal with the consequences that arise. He then asked if anyone had any Gibraltar River experiences. I raised my hand.

I turn 31 in a week. Kind of an unremarkable birthday to most of the world, but in my world it means that I'm too old to attend the Young Single Adult congregation at church. The YSA program has been the source of most of my social life for the past 12 years, providing friends, entertainment, opportunity, spiritual growth and protection. Oh yeah - and pretty much every boyfriend I've ever had. It won't be a surprise to anyone reading this but just for the record: I want to be married. And not just married for the sake of it, but married to someone where there is mutual respect, someone who is kind and intelligent, someone who is willing to face uncertainty and work everyday to make a happy life together. I'm not overly dramatic about it - I know that I'm young and have so much life ahead of me. But I also do analytics for a living. And I know that the older I get, the worse my odds get. So while there is a whole new life awaiting me on the other side of 31, this birthday has felt like the end of hope in some respects.
So I raised my hand, said that I was unmarried and turning 31 on Saturday. That people were landing "fish" all around me and had been for years. That in spite of my having, what I consider, fantastic technique and great experience, the fish keep swimming past my bait. (Ok, you can definitely push this analogy to an uncomfortable level.) And that yesterday while I was crying and yelling at my windshield, the words that came into my head were, "Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead."

President Osguthorpe came in the middle of the class, sat next to me, pulled out his phone, and showed me a picture of himself holding a 27 inch trout. He caught it the next day. "Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, then it is not yet the end." And I believe that.