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).

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.

"Let's Be the Quiet Realization that Our Time Has Passed"

I'm in the middle of a massive life-dilemma, and I figure that, potentially, the only way to solve it will be to talk it out. Nothing but nothing in return seems to be fairly objective, so let's start here.

In six months, I will be graduated. That's four long years (that remembers like two but feels like seven) of stress and assignments and figuring each teacher out to get away with doing less and learning how to listen with only 10% of my attention while taking in 50% of the content (and let's be real, who remembers any more than that anyway?). So the dilemma. I want to go on to graduate studies, I've picked the school (if they'll have me, of course), I've nearly picked my degree (MCS majoring in Old Testament or Theology), and all that is left before me is to choose the "when."

When?

When I go, I tell myself it will be different than here. Less credits, less classes, stuff I actually want to learn instead of stuff I kinda wanna maybe sometimes learn. But who am I kidding? I will put too much on my plate, as always, and die trying to get things that at one time would have been a snap but are now a marathon to Mexico.

So here are the options:

1. Because I have to decide by January, which is far too soon to know if I'll want to be there in September, I can actively choose to take a year off and wait until next January to apply.
2. I apply and (granted that I get in, because otherwise all dreams are squashed) I only take one course my first semester and see how it goes. From there, if I take two courses each Fall and Winter semester and one in Spring or Summer, I will finish in four years. Piece of cake. How could that possibly stress me out? And, if for some reason I decide to take time off in the middle, I have a two year time buffer (I have a max time of six years to finish).
3. I apply and go, and make it my mission to kill this thing. I do three courses each for Fall and Winter, and two Spring or Summer. That completes it in two years, with only my thesis left to do. And who am I kidding? I could knock that thing out in a month...but I could give myself an entire year. Or two. I could be done in three years, still never even becoming a full-time student, and enabling me to have a job and a life outside of school.

So, what do I do? Objective nothingness, what do I do?

Right. Answers out of nothing are no answers at all.

No One Runs Out of Gas in the A.M. like I Do

No one runs out of gas like I do. Maybe it's for the thrill, or maybe for the adrenaline. Perhaps I just don't like getting out of my car once I'm in it. The empty light comes on at a quarter. Passengers get nervous at the empty line. I feel exhilarated once I can see the slightest gap between the gauge doohickey and the empty line. Any minute, I tell myself. Any minute now my heart will start beating. No one runs out of gas like I do.

No one goes to the emergency room like I do. Tonight was Roommate Melissa's birthday. I got to light the candles. Halfway through, the lighter went out. I tried lighting it. Ow. Tried lighting it again. Oooh that kind of hurts. Tried lighting it again, holding my thumb to the searing hot metal. This is probably hurting me, I should stop. I used other candles to finish instead. The pain and the blisters and the water-under-tap-til-no-sensation-left started a few minutes later. Hospital. Alone. Nothing they can do. Ah! But it is Percocet! Percocet my old friend! It's no longer a choice between drinking or driving because you take both away from me. You know it's bad when the triage lady recognizes me. And when I start talking to the drugs. No one goes to the emergency room like I do.

No one enjoys the small things like I do. My brother graduated today. I attended his valedictory ceremony. Giggling. Girls with no idea how to walk in heels. Teachers with no idea how to speak. French that wasn't saying what I thought it was saying. Anecdotes and quotes I've heard a thousand times. Woman beside me watching her son cross the stage on her video camera, over and over again. Smiling at people I graduated with who were there for the same reason. 17 year olds smiling at me. My brother looking like he'd fallen asleep in his chair on stage, when really he just had his head sown so he could swing the dangly hat thingy in circles. A girl in an absolutely see-through dress posing with family members. A boy who wants to be an astronaut and a girl who didn't need to say she already plans to sell herself. No one enjoys the small things like I do.

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.