24.11.11

Just Blowin' in the Wind





21 days until I'm done school.
20 days until no more exams.
18 days until no more papers.
7 days until no more books.
4 days until no more memorization.
I got this.

And on to the rest of my life because, believe it or not, I do have better things to think about. Example: how will I spend my glorious, nearly month-long Christmas break? So many ideas, so many glorious potentialities, and most of them revolve around a good night's rest.
Another example: how to best celebrate six amazing months with an even more amazing man? That's tricky. We're both so busy with end of semester cramming, but fitting incredible into the crevices of mundane seems... sacrilegious? Or maybe just unfair. But even if it's the worst night ever and everything that could go wrong does, there is no one I would rather spend a crappy night with (as already proved in the Fiasco-that-was-Save-On night).
Another example: how will I spend my summer? I don't plan on doing much of anything...and for me, a full-time job (as long as there's no work to take home) would feel like a break compared to the last five and a half years. Yes, years. I don't think I have taken a legitimate amount of time off from the rush and pull of things both necessary and over-the-top ridiculous since the summer I graduated high school. A week here and there does not count. It will be nice to be normal.

It's funny. The closer to the end of the semester I get, the more active my brain gets. Normally it's the opposite, but I think she knows it's almost time to use thinking and planning and creating for fun again.

Tonight I'm going to get a bit ahead on homework, drink some tea and get to bed by 12:30 at the latest. Then, even though it's my sleep-in, I will get up before 10 and do more homework. I actually never thought I could be that person.

18.11.11

Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come for You?




5 - Swimming lesson instructor.
6 - Teacher.
9 - Famous singer.
10 - Missionary.
12 - Writer.
15 - Married to a billionaire.
17 - Actress.
18 - Mother.
19 - Youth pastor.
21 - Pastor.
23 - Travelling poet through Japan, conquering skyscrapers and scary hairstyles with my devastatingly touching iambic pentameter.

At each age, these were my highest aspirations. Some are still with me (hello, famous singing career, here I come), and some are long dead. I never wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or astronaut or princess, because it was never about the money (except marrying rich, of course); it was about living out what I was passionate about.

So. Self-analysis time. What am I most passionate about at this moment?
...Reading my Bible, making delicious food, making anything really, going on adventures.
Okay. Now why am I doing anything else?
Obvious answer: it's all part of the plan. Finish school, do what's required, I'll thank myself later. And realistically, I'll be done in just over 5 months. That's all. But until then...I'm dragging myself through the mud.

I want a better attitude! I really do. And there are parts about school I absolutely love to bits. But there's the parts that literally take the things I used to love and twist them into ugly representations of lovely things. Too hardcore? Fine. The joy for learning is gone when I'm over-worked and under-prepared and hungover (JOKES) and, in some cases, have already learned exactly the same thing in five other courses (this happens more often than you'd think). And other things still hurt. I think I've mostly forgiven the painful bits from over the last whiles, but it doesn't make the hurt any less legitimate. Sometimes I forget how badly it still affects my heart, and then a reminder stuffs itself into my face and I cannot breathe all over again.

Sidenote: What do you do when you know something that literally no one else on the planet knows except the person whose secret it is to tell, and this information could destroy everything for someone else? What do you do when there is no "sworn to secrecy," but instead a mutual silence? What do you do when you know you should do the right thing, but in the end no one will thank you for it?
End sidenote.

I am fighting through this, but I'd rather enjoy the ride. What's the worst that happens? I don't get A+'s across the board? Unlikely at this point, anyways. I don't graduate with highest honours? ...I'm guessing that I'm the only person who cares if I do that or not. The school I want won't accept me because my grades blow chunks? I take the road set out for me instead of the one that was obviously of me.

I am officially letting go of perfection and instead striving to enjoy this at least a little bit more than I have been. Hello, folks! It's celebration time. Freedom is nearly here. It's taste is strongly overpowering my leftover coffee and midnight cigarette (JOKES...about the coffee. JOKES! Gosh).

12.11.11

You'll Never Know, Dear




It is truly a pity that the majority of my teenage years were spent with my heart bound up in producing angsty, cliché poetry; I was empowered by deep emotions, but I in no way did them justice. My potential was high and I wasted it. I read back now and it is not just my embarrassment that colours previous words, but a sort of wisdom that sees more depth in recent haikus than in any pager I wrote in the tenth grade.

As part of my Christmas artsy to-do list, I want to go back and revisit the circumstances that demanded such a profoundly lacking creative statement and come at them from a new angle, thereby rewriting what needed to be said with more retrospect and less chained-to-the-bottom-of-my-humanity by every circumstance that came my way. By the end of break, I want to have an entire art journal full of what-could've-been's (but without the bitter resentment of " what if"s).

This probably sounds stupid. It might be. I am probably wasting my time, but to me it is then a necessary waste. Maybe you don't understand = perfect. No one else could possibly see the ridiculous dissimilarity between the profundity of parallel universes: that of my waking life and the one relived in print. I want to do justice to my life, not just live as one who has no past and must therefore make entirely spontaneous, momentary decisions with nothing from which to refer.

11.11.11

Falling Together, Rushing Towards the Abyss




The more that life falls together, the clearer it becomes that there is a gaping hole. When will I release the hold on what I cannot keep to gain what I cannot lose? This ongoing process...some of it is effortless and I see myself growing by leaps and bounds; some of it seems hopeless, and I continue to cling.

In less than six months I will be graduated. When did this happen? In six months I will be free. What will I do with my time?
Ideas:
  • Write a book.
  • Make lots of ridiculous homemade crafts and sell them online to people too lazy to make them for themselves.
  • Travel to all the places I want to see.
  • Plant an herb garden.
  • Make art all day.
  • Travel around making art all day.
  • Travel to inspiring places and just make art. All day.
  • Go on a crazy year-long missions trip because I'm crazy and want to do something that will mean something to someone, not just to me.
  • Go stay at a cabin by a lake and go for a run every day and swim every day and paint every day, and do this, every day, until I'm buff and a decent painter and a panini and latte master.
  • Elope for the fun of it.
  • Get a 6 Flags seasons pass and go to every single one.
  • Get a grown up job on weekdays, only see friends and boyfriend on weekends, and volunteer because that is what good people do.
Did you just make the same sighish noise I did? Every part of my body made it with me. Everything on this list is beautiful and adventurous and lovely, except for the one I should be doing. Why is life like that? Why do I let life be like that? Why do I feel entitled to any more than that? Why do I feel that I shouldn't feel entitled? Why don't I just do whatever I want to?

The answer? The answer is a question. What does God want me to do? Me, I have dreams. Some of them are wonderful and some of them are selfish and some are godly, but that doesn't answer the question. Maybe He wants me in a season of doing beautiful things and making my own beauty and following His to the far corners of the world. Maybe He wants me to buckle down, get (or keep) a job, and be a big girl. Maybe He wants me to wait and see what He brings.

If only I knew. If only putting off my Masters - because, I now realize, I desperately need a break from learning in a classroom - meant that the rest would be sorted out.

I want a lot of things. Some of them are unattainable and therefore not even on my crazy list. Some are possible and therefore on the list. Some are in my heart and do not have names yet. Some are in my ovaries and do not have names yet, either. Some are in God's hand and, when the day is right, they will be hand-delivered to my soul.

Now that I think about it...that sounds really good to me.