my ripped pants story

It was 2006. A couple of months before, I had graduated from high school. My family was in the process of moving 19 years of stuff from Idaho to Utah, and my sister Michelle and I had decided to attend Girl's Camp in Idaho with our stake. Michelle went because she was not exactly excited about the move and she wanted to treasure as much time as she could with her old friends. I went because when the stake young women's leaders had made an announcement about Girl's Camp earlier in the year, I had had an impression that I needed to go even though I had already graduated from high school and wasn't attending Young Women's anymore (I varied between going to Relief Society with my mom in the new Utah ward and going to singles wards with my friend Morgan Price in Idaho).

This was my second time being a YCL (Youth Camp Leader). The YCLs are the oldest of the Young Women and take on much of the leadership responsibilities for Girl's Camp. We went a day early to get things set up for the rest of the Young Women. In the morning of the second day, before the rest of the Young Women arrived, the tradition was for the YCLs to go rafting.

Before I went to camp, I was aware that we were going on this rafting trip, and I had been adequately informed of what clothing would be appropriate for rafting. We were encouraged to wear swim suits and shorts or at least light and breathable clothing that wouldn't make us paralyzed once we got wet, as would inevitably happen.

At this point I should explain that I am quite fair-skinned. And being a self-conscious 18-year-old, I was always nervous about exposing my very white legs. I owned a swimsuit and also a pair of swim shorts that would have been very appropriate for this activity, but if I were to wear this outfit I would be exposing my white legs to the world. The horror!

With respect to pants, my wardrobe consisted of jeans and a nice pair of black pants with pinstripes. Obviously the nice pair of pants was not suitable. Jeans would slightly restrict my movement, but they had the advantage of covering my legs. So I made the decision that it would be better to go rafting wearing an old pair of jeans than to wear a swimsuit and shorts and humiliate myself by showing my white legs. I know, it was great logic.

The morning arrived. I pulled my old pair of jeans out of my duffel bag and got dressed. Hmmm. They were a little tight. I hadn't worn this pair for over a year. Oh, well. It would work.

We went to the place where the rafts had been placed in the water, and everybody put on life jackets and got ready to climb into the rafts. I was starting to feel slightly embarrassed that I had opted for jeans because nobody else was wearing jeans. I sensed that some people felt sorry for me and were considering offering to loan me something better to wear, but there wouldn't have been anywhere to change anyway.

I was one of the last people to get into a raft. It was a bit of a stretch to climb over the side, especially in my old jeans. As I threw one leg over the side of the raft, I thought I heard a horrible sound that resembled ripping cloth. As I sat down in the raft, my suspicions were confirmed: There was a tear in my jeans that ran along the zipper and down my left leg. I stared helplessly at my lap. All the cars had already left to go down the river to where they would meet us, and all I had with me was the t-shirt and jeans I was wearing and a tube of chapstick in my pocket. I had nothing that I could use to cover the huge tear in my jeans, and my leg and underwear were exposed through the rip.

Ripped pants are one of the top ten most embarrassing things that can happen to a person. Everybody knows that. I couldn't tell anybody what had happened because that would be too embarrassing. But a leader had seen, and she found another girl who was wearing a t-shirt over her swimsuit who could loan her shirt to me. So I rode down the river wearing ripped pants covered by the t-shirt in my lap. I did enjoy myself, but the enjoyment was dampened by the fact that I was wearing soggy jeans with a huge rip in front and that I had to focus on that t-shirt in my lap to make sure the rip wasn't exposed. I thought over and over again how silly I had been to worry about people seeing my white legs. Now I was in an even more ridiculous situation.

We stopped near some high rocks at one point, and most of the girls got out to jump off the rocks into the water. I stayed put, desperately holding that t-shirt around my legs. Several people, unaware of my plight, urged me to try jumping off the rocks, but I shook my head. I have no idea why I didn't explain that my pants were ripped and ask if anyone could loan me some shorts or something!

After a couple of hours, I knew that we were nearing the end of the rafting trip, and I was faced with a new worry: getting out of the raft without exposing myself to the world. When we arrived, I struggled out of the raft, clutching the t-shirt against my legs with one arm as best I could. Then I darted to the van that held my backpack and pulled out my towel, which I wrapped around my waist. I couldn't sit down anywhere because the towel would come unwrapped, so I walked around and felt quite foolish and forlorn. Somehow I managed to eat lunch one-handed because I didn't want the towel to slip off and expose me. I could barely concentrate on responding when people said things to me because I was so embarrassed.

The irony was not lost on me. I had been so worried about being embarrassed about my white legs that I had decided it would be better to wear jeans in a situation where a swimsuit and shorts were more appropriate, and now the consequence was even more embarrassing. Yet even then I hadn't learned my lesson because I was too embarrassed to explain to somebody that it would be really helpful if I could borrow some pants or shorts from someone.

One leader was driving back to our camp a little earlier than everyone else and had space for me. I jumped at the opportunity. Somehow I struggled into the back seat of her van with the towel firmly held around my waist with one hand and my backpack in the other. The van had three seats in the middle, and I wasn't sure how I would get out again without throwing the towel off, but I focused on the prospect of the two clean pairs of jeans in my tent that I knew actually fit me.

I half fell out of the van when we got back to camp. But since I was one of the first girls back, there was still plenty of hot water left. I got a nice warm shower, and with it I washed away the embarrassment and stress of the morning. With a clean pair of pants, I put on new confidence. It was like a fresh start. The embarrassment of the morning no longer plagued me. In fact, I was very confident the rest of the week and had a wonderful, testimony-building time, especially as I bonded with my sister.

I learned an important lesson that day about the absurdity of worrying what other people will think about something as trivial as how pale my legs are. I have eventually come to the point where I appreciate my fair skin as a result of my heritage and would prefer not to be tan, although I am still self-conscious sometimes.

When I was 41.5 weeks pregnant with Heidi, I went to church without nylons--despite the fact that I had not shaved my legs (I couldn't reach them). Yes, I was slightly worried about someone noticing, but I declared to Ryan, "Anyone who's offended by my white, hairy legs can tie a beach ball around their waist and then try to shave and struggle nylons over the beach ball." It made a lot more sense to go without nylons than to endure the pain of them cutting into my belly just to cover up my legs and avoid embarrassment.

You see? I'm learning.

You can learn about the LDS church's Young Women program here (towards the end of the page) and the Girl's Camp program here. Here is the lds.org page for youth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.