ACCORDING TO ZAC

For a minute there, I was mad at my therapist. Not for a breach of confidence or any other kind of unprofessional behavior. No, I was mad at him because he’s right, and he has been for the better part of the three years I’ve been working with him. Change is hard, and the process to develop personally can be grueling. But even if I was mad, it’s not lost on me how lucky I am that I’ve got a trained professional to help me through it all. Most remarkable about what I’m realizing isn’t that this guy has been right all along—I knew he had credentials and a wealth of experience at the outset—it’s that he has allowed this process to be mine , even if it probably (certainly) prolonged the outcome. He has let me move at the pace that’s appropriate for me, even though the path through this maze has probably looked pretty clear from his vantage point. While the endpoint, the goal of getting through this maze, was why I started working with him, the fact that he didn’t dictate anything has meant ...

Because of who I am (gregarious, emotion-driven, etc.), I’m predisposed to become emotional when I watch other people doing something cool. And usually it’s emotional in a good way, thankfully. And sometimes it feels sort of cosmic, or like there’s this great big interconnectedness between complete strangers that I can only catch a glimpse of every now and then. Instead of making me feel small, given how many people there are in the world, it actually makes me feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be by virtue of the commonality I share with literally every person on the planet: we’re all human, and we’re all trying. Yesterday I went to my first concert since last 2019. The screaming was fun, the singing was great, we didn’t get trampled in the pit like I thought we would. There was a lot of good happening! But I think what was most significant was early on in the band’s set when I thought about how incredible it is that there were a few thousand people in one place for the same re...

It’s not uncommon for there to be lulls in conversation during my sessions with my therapist. Sometimes they feel like a bit of a standoff to see who will fill the void first; those are the days that I’m not feeling as introspective, or our previous conversation hasn’t sparked much for me to sort through. But other times the quiet helps me make some sense of what I’m feeling (or reel from being confronted with something I don’t know how to make sense of) and then decide what to jump into next. This week there was one of these pauses, and I’ll admit that I didn’t feel like I was really working through much. But I wanted to wait out the break to make the doc determine the direction we would go. It’s a tricky game of chicken because he will either ask me, “What are you thinking about?”, and that doesn’t always work on a day I don’t have much bouncing around my brain, or he’ll ask me a question that cuts right through me. It feels like there’s absolutely no in-between. This week he leaned ...

Stanely Tucci is a national treasure, and I won’t hear otherwise. The Devil Wears Prada was probably the first time he came on my radar, but his role in Easy A sealed the deal for me. Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games ? The icing on top. I just want to be friends with them in real life. Stan (we’re on a first name basis, obviously) stars in Supernova alongside Colin Firth, and together they tore my heart out, ripped it up, put it back together, tore it apart some more, but then mostly mended it and gave it back to me. That’s pretty much exactly how I like my books and films because it helps me keep in touch with my own humanity. It’s a harrowing process, but one I think is really important. “Do I still have feelings? Am I still a person?” I’ll muse. And then a piece of media will knock me on my ass. “So I guess that’s a yes.” The premise of this film is that Stan and Colin are lovers, one of whom is living with early onset dementia. And that’s pretty much it; that’s the plot. Yo...

Once upon a time I moved to Mesa to learn how to be a functioning member of society (aka not be a leech on my dad’s seemingly unending generosity). I got a full time job, started cooking for myself, and navigated living with roommates. The other thing I did was build a social circle for myself. The other groomsmen are cropped out because they didn't time their jumps right. Another testament to the power of our friendship. On my first day in my new ward, I sat next to a guy in the “New Member” class. His name was Derek. Because we didn’t know anyone else there, he and I stuck together through those first few activities as we met new folks and figured things out. As I got acquainted with more and more of the members in my ward, I made friends and met cool people, but it seemed like I’d struck it best with Derek on day one. Fast forward a few months and Derek was assigned to be my home teacher with a guy named Eric. They came to visit me like the good men they are and Derek and I deci...

Growing up in a middle class family in suburban Tucson meant that I wasn’t exposed to a lot of different lifestyles growing up. I think that was born out of circumstance more than anything. I appreciate my mission to Kentucky because I was able to see and come to know an incredibly wide variety of people. Across nationalities, cultures, religions, education levels, languages, and economic situations, I’ve got a much healthier appreciation for the many components of identity that exist outside my own. I’m able to be more compassionate as a result; I see the value in what others bring to the world. That doesn’t mean there isn’t much more to learn, though. My exposure to the experience of transgender people has been incredibly minimal; I know so little of what trans folks go through. That’s why I’m grateful for my coworker, Catherine. She’s trans and is always very generous to share her thoughts and lived experiences. And while my association with her isn’t primarily so that I can learn h...

It’s so interesting how memories will surface after being tucked away so long, and how they can almost knock you over. That happened to me last week while I was reading a book called Warlight (3 out of 5 stars, FYI). There was a scene about packing a trunk and an impending separation between parent and child that was probably incredibly typical of WWII-era Britain. But what it jogged in my brain was packing for my mission almost 10 years ago. In the three months between opening my mission call and leaving for the MTC, everything that we bought for my time away got piled onto the bed in our guest bedroom. Periodically my mom and I would go in there and count out how many shirts I had, check the list again to see what else I might need, etc. Then the day before we flew out, we stacked it all on the living room floor, alongside the two big suitcases I would be packing my life in for the next two years. As I rushed around that day, packing somehow got away from me. And when I say “someho...

Something that continues to astound me is how immediately I’m put to the test after I spend time thinking about something I think is really important, especially in regards to working with other people. For many months, I’ve been telling myself how critical it is to lead with love and make assessments later in an attempt to prevent myself from making assumptions that are based wholly on my initial emotions instead of on actual facts and the commonalities that should be binding us together. I used that mantra of “love first, react second” all throughout the difficult election season that somehow continues to this day. I’ve done my best to also use that idea in church settings where I hear leaders say things that I don’t totally agree with. And in both instances, I’ve recognized how listening to other people’s viewpoints with open mindedness doesn’t detract from what I might feel or believe, but instead helps me become more compassionate and capable of meaningful connection by preventing...