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).

Composing a Symphony

I will be the first to admit that I really know nothing about music. I know what I love and what stirs my soul and what makes me wish I had been born without ears, but when it comes to the mechanics I am lost. Part of it is that I get impatient when I try to learn something, even if it comes naturally, and part is that I know that my life has a different purpose driving it. But just once, it would be nice to be crazy talented. Beyond the talent, though, there is a great misunderstanding between me and music. I understand that a particular swell or key change moves my heart, but I haven't a clue about the method behind it. Yet here I sit, composing a symphony.

Breaking my life down into movements is not difficult, as they generally revolve around God. By generally, I mean absolutely. I used to define years, when I was in high school, based on the guys in my life; I look back now and see no difference because they all blend together into a mash of mistakes and brokenness. Then God came on the scene: great in power and satisfying to the massive hole that transcended every part of my being. Holla, second movement. Then, as quickly as He came, He seemed to disappear. I know now that when God looks as though He is absent, it is either I who am absent or He is teaching me something. Or both. I have been floundering in a less than graceful manner ever since. Ebb and flow, high tide and low tide, flotsam and jetsam, driftwood and motorboat. I am a mess of life composition.

Today is a triumphant hailing of this movement's final notes. Life is moving with purpose again and I have never been so excited. I have money. I have a car. I have a career plan. I have the freedom of being nearly done with school for good. I have an expectation of good things to come. I have peace. This peace has been bought at a very great price, but it was worth every agonizing minute that led me here.

Thank you, God, for perfectly timing every second.

Sometimes These Thoughts Are More than Thoughts

You know when you say just the wrong thing at the wrong moment with the best intentions but those intentions are thwarted by a lack of saving grace (i.e. either right moment or right thing to save the one that was wrong) because, despite those best intentions, it is really not a wrong moment or a wrong thing but a wrong person to say it to?

You know when there is that perfect line in your head that will get the desired reaction if said with just such and such an intonation and enunciation and explanation and exclamation, and in your mind there is no fault in it except a delirious desire to be understood and a lack of fear that it could fail because how could it fail and oh gosh what if it fails because that never crossed your mind and then it does because no one line can save everything and because people are unpredictable and they fail too?

You know when you plan the future and it stretches out like a forever expanding and contracting roadmap of months and weather patterns and anticipated events and life seasons that looks like it is without a hitch so you begin to imagine hitches and fallout and easy fixes and really hard fixes, so you wait for the hitches and the hitches never come and with their lack of arrival comes a lack of need for all expected fixes, easy and really hard, and life plays out exactly the way the roadmap said it would and it's confusing and almost frustrating because life has taught that plans never go off without a hitch but here they are and suddenly fear can suck it?

You know when you think so deep and complicated that it hurts?

Yeah, that's right now.

Turns Out Freedom Ain't Nothing but Missing You

What do I say?

...I said it all. And nothing at all.

That feeling, when the words are right there and so is the moment but if they came out I would be more surprised than anyone at their content, and everything would change.

I'll go back, all the time.

We Don't have to Talk about the Ones that We Can't Live Without

The only thing worse than hating afterwards the thing you do is to be wrongly accused of doing that same thing while not even having the momentary satisfaction of having done it.

If You Wait too Long for the Perfect Moment, the Perfect Moment will Pass You By

I don't know anything anymore.

I'm leaving on Sunday, back on Friday. Out of contact with the world for five days. It's going to be wonderful.

I'm waiting on the moment things will change, the second they'll get better. I'm waiting on the day I'll be better, and it never seems to come.

Being in Toronto might be exactly what I need this summer. It might be a safe haven after all of...this. Or, it might be a nightmare.

Oh yeah, and it's only thirteen more days.

What a mess.

Yellow

Graduation is fast approaching; not for me but for people I care about. People are leaving who I may never see again, and I seem unable to reach out and embrace the last precious moments we have. I'm stuck. I'm stuck in my house, stuck in my head, stuck in a place I do not want to be. All I want to do is get up, get out, get enjoyment out of these last few weeks of school. All I am able to do is...

So then I took my time. Oh, what a thing to have done, and it was all yellow.

Quickest Blog of Life

This is the quickest blog of life.

I don't know what I'm thinking, where I'm going, or what in the world I'm doing. Somehow things are rolling and I don't know how.

Part of me is scared to death, the other part of me wonders what of. I have one life. Only one. I have this moment, and then it's gone. Now this one. Gone.

So I'm taking a risk. Chancing it. And if it all blows into oblivion in the end? So be it. At least I'm living, experiencing, FEELING SOMETHING. I cannot go on with this endless emptiness always seeping in around the corners and ruining the entire portrait. No more. This is happening. For how long? I don't know. Is that okay?

Yes.

Another moment.

Gone.