Loving Me; or The Self-Aggrandizement of Nate

"Don't sit and worry what they say;
you are more than they'll ever know.
No time to be afraid."  --Natasha Watts

Over the last few years, I have been told by many sources that I am not up to standard. They said I wasn't good enough, righteous enough, rich enough, thin enough, well-written enough, experienced enough, etc ad nauseam. I heard it enough that I repeated their words to myself sometimes. Some of these sources were institutions or companies I wanted to be a part of. Some of them were pretty girls I wanted to marry. Some were family members.

In the face of this kind of feedback from people or groups who I admired, it was easy to take the Nard Dog's way out. Instead, I thought about Piglet.

For the first 17 years of my life, I thought Piglet, Winnie the Pooh's forest-dwelling friend, was a girl. When I was finally told the character is actually a boy, I had to accept it. My perception had no bearing on the reality of the situation. Similarly, all those people who told me I wasn't "enough," had no bearing on the reality of me.

Cause I'm a freakin' rockstar.

Without further ado, here's why I'm "enough":

In 4th grade, we had to team up for a month-long class competition. All my friends--and my crush--joined forces with the popular kids. I got stuck with the two dirtiest, most-unpopular kids in the grade. But I accepted the situation and determined we were going to do our best. We beat every other team, tied with the popular kids, and won a pizza party for the three of us. And my crush admitted her love for me later that year.

See what I mean? Pure rockstar.

I wrote my first poem at six years old.

I'm good with kids. I started babysitting as a teenager,but I've been an uncle since age 2. Children are so much fun to work with. I've taught youth theatre, help raise nieces and nephews, and taught elementary school. Plus, I was a kid myself, and a pretty cool one.

I played knights and castles a lot when I was a kid. At 16, I decided that I wanted to learn to swordfight for real. I looked up a national fencing champion who lived nearby, found him, and asked him to teach me.

 

  In 11th grade, my hard-nosed AP US History teacher often used the name of my God in ways that have been forbidden. I wrote her a polite note asking her to refrain from that. In return, she pulled me out of class, hauled me down to the teacher's lounge, and gave me a tongue-lashing on my disrespect and foolish ways. My mom told me I didn't have to put up with that and urged me to drop the class. I said no. I finished the class, got AP credit for college, and then submitted an essay on how American education was teaching us book-learning but not actual life lessons or morals, using this situation and teacher as an example. It won a Top 10 Award that came with a nice cash prize.

I earned my Eagle Scout Award in May of 2006 with 25 merit badges. By July, when I aged out of Scouting, I had 45.

I graduated from the LDS seminary program at 18. For those unfamiliar with that, it means that from ages 14-18, I got up at 5:00 a.m. every day and attended an hour-long religion class before my high school classes. I memorized more than 100 scriptures and graduated with 107% attendance (on vacation in other states I would attend multiple classes)

In high school, I was dating a college girl. Bam.

As a teenager, I rounded up more than 50 kids and adults and led them in an 11-month journey to create the film Pan. Along with my best friend, we shot a 30-minute modern-day re-telling of Peter Pan, a la Baz Luhrman's Romeo+Juliet.

With no budget, no script and no equipment except an old home video camera and a home-made boom my buddy designed from PVC pipe, we shot, if I do say so myself, a surprisingly well-made movie that had comedy, romance, and drama in it.


I spent three weeks on my own in a foreign country where I did not speak the language. I left with dozens of pages of interviews, facts, figures, and pictures. I then spent four months compiling those into a 1st-draft manuscript that went into a book my brother was writing.


When I was 19, I was ordained an Elder and volunteered to be a missionary for my church. I wore the black name tag and knocked on doors and invited people to learn about Jesus and live by His teachings. I taught lessons, baptized people, ran meetings, trained new missionaries, and performed service like helping people move, visiting nursing homes, and chopping wood and clearing the all-invasive blackberry brambles of northwest Oregon. I was a guest lecturer at Concordia University where my companion and I taught about LDS beliefs. I did this 15 hours a day, for no pay, for 18 months.

Twice on an airplane, I've had women give me their numbers unbidden.


I completed the Glenwood Polar Bear challenge.











After seeing That Thing You Do! as a nine-year-old, I decided to become a drummer. So I taught myself to play the drums.

 

And the bass. 

and the guitar. 

In 2011, I taught acting classes and directed plays at the SCERA theatre, directed Narnia: The Musical at another theatre, worked as a copywriter for an SEO company, worked as a writer and editor at my university's newspaper, worked at a Provo restaurant, was performing with my band, participated in church, helped my friends start a theatre, and carried on a relationship. I was also taking a full load of college credits. All at the same time.

I spent two weeks on my own in a foreign country where I did not speak the language or know anyone, in the middle of a massive government protest. When someone tried to blow up the resistance leader, I told all the guards I was a reporter, snuck under the cordon, shot photos and interview people, and reported the story to Western media before any of the major new sources.

I was courted by a lot of colleges, but I only had eyes for one. I was accepted to BYU (Provo) not once but TWICE, four years apart.

I watched Work and the Glory III with Gordon B. Hinckley and some popcorn.

I was a member of the best group of roommates who ever existed.

I dance like no one's watching, but everybody does.

My curly hair is unbeatable.

I didn't read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows until 2009. The real feat here is not letting anyone spoil it for me for two years. 

That first poem I wrote, at age six? It went like this:

Oh as the stars fade,

oh as the stars fade

It makes me feel like I am prized.

And, as you know, I am prized.

21 years later, that's still true. Others can say I'm not "enough" of one thing or another. But I'm so much of me.

My name is Nate.

And I'm an awesome guy.