Regarding My Twenty-Eight-Year-Old Self

I was filling out a job application this morning—and the various irritations and outbursts coming with that activity are the content of another blog post some other time—and during the process I was required to list the expiration date of my driver’s license.  Gamely I pulled the little card with its thuggish self-portrait out of my wallet, and I was struck by the year that I saw.  2018.  Two thousand and eighteen.  It’s only six years away, but it might have been sixty for the amount of thought I’ve put into that date. 

All my life, I’ve been dreaming about this year, 2012.  Well, not all my life.  As a child I didn’t care what year it was, and what an enviable position that is.  Then, upon entering middle school, the year 2008 was the pinprick of light in the distance: high school graduation.  Once that came, I celebrated myself vaguely for a while, then set my sights on the next level of achievement.  Ever since then, my only goal has been May 2012—simply to make it that far, to survive the work and the trouble and the life to be lived, so to obtain that moment of glory in my college education.  And this morning it occurs to me, with a mild sense of panic, that this moment is gone.

What do I dream about now?  For me, an abstract, hopeful kind of dream is just not enough.  I need to know what I’m looking at, to be aware of what’s coming.  But where will I be in six years?  Driving my son to preschool, my baby daughter to the doctor for a checkup?  Flying out of Korea at the end of my most recent worldwide book tour?  Living in a box somewhere in the intestines of the world?  Or still sitting on this pull-out bed in my parent’s sitting room?  (Heaven forbid: much as I love my family, I’d rather take the box.  At least it would make a good story.)

I just don’t know.  I have no idea.  And it occurs to me that most people live their lives this way.  Oh, sure, we most of us have a reasonable certainty where we will be, and things like a house, a job, a family, tie us down a bit more.  But I, having none of these things, am floating untethered in outer space.  No bonds, which  means no boundaries.  And I don’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified.

So I write this now for the curious, perhaps settled, and probably wiser self who will come back in June of 2018: Don’t forget this feeling.  Don’t forget that anything can happen, because you can make anything happen.  Laugh at your wild ideas about the future, because I’m sure none of them will be true.  And smile at the thought that once you were afraid of the world, because by this time, you’ll know enough about to face it with equanimity.  Best of luck to me, and to you, too, because you, of course, have your own problems to deal with.

Oh, and please don’t freak about turning thirty in two years.  It is NOT A BIG DEAL.

The Lesson of Mistakes

Sometimes, when you take on a responsibility or a project, a single problem can send everything spiraling downward.  Everyone’s had those days: the ones where nothing seems to go right, no matter how prepared you are.  When the pressure’s on, one mistake can turn into several, and each one makes you feel worse, and more likely to make another mistake because of the distraction. 

Something like this happened this morning, not to me, but to someone else, which is almost as bad.  Our minister is gone for a few weeks, and so we have a few substitutes to fill in on Sundays.  The woman who took on the job this morning is our newest fill-in minister, and she seemed to have a rough go of it.  There were a few things she added to the order of worship, which is a risky business with habit-bound Presbyterians.  I was prepared at the beginning for eye-rolls and stone glances, but there was more trouble to be had.  Several mistakes filled up the morning—our leader picked up the wrong prayer at the wrong time, and we had no children for children’s time (fortunately I and a few of the more precocious teenagers were willing to sit up front for a few minutes and pretend).  Then the organist (also a substitute) missed the cue to leave the organ and cross to the piano for the anthem.  That was one of the more awkward silences I’ve experienced—what could we do?  In my particular church, no one tells the organist what to do. 

As I watched the leader, I could just imagine the gut-twisting nervousness that she must have felt. When you’re in that situation, when you’re the one everyone looks at as things are falling apart, you might want to just leave the room, but you literally cannot.  Everyone expects you to be the one that fixes things, even if the fix consists of barreling on to get it all over with.  I wondered if she was upset about how things went.  Now, you would think a church congregation is one of the more forgiving audiences to experience this kind of thing, and mine is one of those more likely to meet mistakes like this with laughter, or with understanding smiles.  But people always have certain expectations from their leaders, and a leader with pride in herself would find this kind of morning very frustrating.

I choose to think of this, however, in a positive light.  Things happen, and these mistakes, while mortifying, can teach us something.  If we let our minds linger on what we’ve done wrong in the past, we tend to mess up more as we continue on.  In the end, our mistakes only matter in that they teach us what to do or what not to do next time--we can’t let them keep us from moving onward.  I admire the strength of a woman who can not only take on a position that isn’t hers, but also introduce changes and keep it all together when things don’t go quite as planned.  That is a form of courage, and we all have it to some degree.  All we need is to be more aware of it.

Blast From the Past: Metaphysical Musings

Today I was going through my rambling journals, searching for notes I had made at one point for a story I have started writing.  I was looking in all the wrong places, and as I did I came across several musings that I had written down at one point.  Though the quality of the writing is rather nebulous, I am glad that I found them, because they include thoughts that I’m glad to come back to.

For example, an excerpt from volume 11, p. 51:

“The self is the eternal mystery.  Everything we do, the questions we ask, the things we look for, all of them in some way lead back to us trying to explain who and what we are.  We are ghosts with no pasts…struggling to figure out who put us here and why.  The self is that which seeks desperately for purpose, something to distract from the yawning uncertainty that touches all of us.  After all, while there is a neatly spinning world full of things we know, it spins through a universe whirling with things we can never be sure of.  We are the largest mystery, and despite that or perhaps because of it, we cannot abide mysteries.”

Now, I am my own critic in reading back over this—the voice is a bit pretentious, and the wording rather obscure in places.  But there’s a few interesting ideas in there.  I wrote this, by the way, in January of 2010, at which time I was taking a seminar about creativity.  Professor Larson encouraged us to ask questions that had no answers, to adventure into ideas where we had no right to be and start poking around.  The above excerpt was one result of this experimental period.

Creativity, I believe, rises out of a wish to explain oneself and one’s world.  We make up stories—or paint or build things, or pretend to be other people, or however we choose to follow a dream—so that we can learn more about the world and our own place in it.  Faith isn’t the only thing that can tell us why we are here, though it does attack the bigger question.  For me, though, the answer to the little question—why I, personally, am here in this world—is my writing, and my music, and the understanding of myself that these things give me.  By understanding myself, I can understand others, at least a little bit.

But it’s not enough to write one thing.  Though it’s been said, many times many ways: it’s not the destination, but the journey.  It’s not the answer, but the asking.  The simple fact that we are trying to figure out a mystery beats back the terror of not knowing.          

Pretty hefty metaphysical stuff for a Saturday afternoon.  Sometimes, though, you have to wonder about these things.  “What is the ultimate truth about ourselves?” Sir Arthur Eddington once asked.  He offers a few answers, and then says, “There is one elementary inescapable answer.  We are that which asks the question.”

Excuses, Excuses

Isn’t it interesting how easy it is for us to fall behind on things?  When I began this blog, I promised myself that I would write something for it every day.  At first, it was easy—every morning I would roll out of bed, boot up my computer while I brushed my teeth, and sit down and write whatever came to mind.  As long as it was part of my routine, part of my habit, I could do it easily.

It has been two and a half weeks since I wrote anything for this blog.  The previous three entries came at rough three-day intervals, and before that is a large gap between April 23^rd and May 7^th.  In the end, it’s guilt that brings me back to work. 

How has it gotten to this point?  It was an easy enough task.  Writing a blog post takes me thirty minutes at most, and on my best days it can take as few as ten, when I’m feeling particularly inspired or eloquent.  Even now, I don’t feel particularly resentful about having to write this.  So why have I put it off for so long?

I think the root of procrastination can be found in excuses.  We are very good at making excuses for ourselves.  I can clearly remember some of the ones that I’ve made in the past two and a half weeks.  “Oh, I wrote a very strong post last time—I can take some time off.”  “It’s so hard to work here—I don’t have the right kind of atmosphere.”  “Blog?  Oh, right…but I planned to read for a few hours tonight before I go to bed.”  “I don’t have many readers anyway.”  And suddenly it is June 7^th, and I’m wondering what kind of slacker I am.

Personally, I hate excuses.  I’m usually very strict with myself, refusing to give excuses to others.  If I've disappointed someone, then I deserve to feel bad.  And yet it seems I’m very good at accepting them from myself—I do it so easily that I hardly notice I’m doing it.  It just goes to show how quickly we can dismiss our own failings.

As faults go, this is a little thing.  I’m quite certain that most of the world has procrastinated on something, maybe on many somethings.  I do think that the hardest task to take on is the one you set yourself.  With no one but myself to be disappointed in me, I’m far more forgiving than I might otherwise be.  I hope that by writing this, my excuses will be more noticeable to my conscious mind, and maybe I will be more diligent in my writing, in spite of myself.

Farewell Hollins Home

Exactly twelve hours ago, I graduated summa cum laude, second in my class, from Hollins University, a place which has held my heart since the age of thirteen.  The ceremony was the culmination of four years of so much work that it makes me tired just thinking about it all--classes, study abroad, work and internships and personal projects, all contained within the metaphorical walls of a very sheltering place.  Hollins is a small women’s college, and it becomes home to those who spend any more than a week there.  The people there are open-minded and bright-hearted, and the women who are grown there truly do become sisters to one another.

I have so many lovely memories of that place.  In the past week, everything I looked at was something precious, because something special happened there.  My roommate of four years and I lived in three of the dormitories and made fun of the others.  I worked in the library, took classes in Pleasants, Turner, Dana, and the VAC, and practically lived in the music building.  We were constantly criticizing the food in the dining hall.  More than just the buildings, though, were the little things, the random memories that I prize most of all.  Jumping atop the three-foot wall outside the dining hall to play tightrope, talking about climbing the old silo, hiding in the secret entrance to the music hall to cry alone at midnight…  These memories, these things that I saw every day, are the mark of a place which was my home, one that I deeply love.

But today it was different.  Today, as I was making my final walk out to the car, I looked around and I saw just a place.  A beautiful place, of course, with the classic brick buildings, smooth curving walks and brilliant green grass and trees everywhere.  But just a place.  For those few moments, I looked at Hollins and I saw it as I did at age thirteen, when I first came onto campus—a strange, lovely school with a great deal of potential.  And I realized that Hollins doesn’t belong to me anymore.  Or better, I don’t belong to it.

It was a strangely reassuring concept, proving that I am ready to move on to greater things.  I will always find a home at Hollins, but it will not hold me back from the life I build on my own.  The wonderful things about Hollins were never in the walks or the ways, but in the people I met and the changes they made in me.  And those things, I take with me.  So I am not afraid or sad to leave my magnificent school behind me.  What I gave to it will remain, and what it gave to me will give me strength and courage wherever I go.  That is a gift beyond price.

How to Run a Life

I went out to lunch with two of my good friends, both of whom will be graduating college with me in a few days.  It was a bit of a surreal experience.  All three of us have completed final exams and projects, theses, theatre productions, dance performances, all behind us.  So the conversation did not revolve around our school lives.  Instead, we were three adult women, talking about life in general—“real life” as we called it, life which involves taxes, credit reports, jobs, separation from family and choices based solely upon one’s own desires.  Isn’t that terrifying?

It’s funny how we learn to judge adulthood.  As children, we think that “grown-ups” are the ones who have everything together.  They have all the answers, all the plans and ideas and reassurances.  What a laugh that is!  Then as a teenager moving into college, we begin to think that we are adults, that by choosing a school and moving out on our own, we are making our own choices and running our own lives.  But a life is a complicated machine, and it takes more to run one than staying up all night, eating junk food, and deciding to go to class for once.  College isn’t really a choice anymore: in this society, it’s an expectation.  And thinking back, there was really ever only one college that I chose to apply for myself; the rest were my father’s idea.  Going to college is a big step, yes, but it’s still safe. 

Leaving college, on the other hand, is stepping off a damn cliff.  There are no safety nets—parents are expected to cut you off at this point, and suddenly no one is able to tell you what to do.  There is so little helpful advice for those of us at this point in our lives, because no one in the world knows better than you do what is going to make you happy.  Here is the point where we begin to put our education to the test and, unfortunately, begin to see where it fell short.  How do I get a good credit score?  What do you mean, year-long lease?  And no, I haven’t actually balanced my checkbook this month. 

With all this hanging over our heads, our lunch date was a bit less buoyant than others have been in the past.  But looking at my fellow graduates-to-be, I couldn’t help but think that we will all be fine.  The best way to learn how to do something is to do it, right?  And hard and cold as it might be, life itself is an excellent teacher.  So in three days, I will take that step off the edge, and whether I crash or whether I build a parachute out of my socks is up to me.  Either way, I’ll learn from my mistakes and be better prepared for the next step, and the next and the next.

Think Before Speaking: Spice Up Your Vocabulary

English is a bewildering language.  On the one hand, it’s got enough rules to make you dizzy, and once you get around those, there are at least half as many exceptions to the rules.  But on the other hand, the language is always growing and changing, picking up new words every day—from other languages, from technology or the internet, or just from people’s minds.  Over the past few months, I’ve been collecting a list of words I would like to add to my vocabulary, and I would like to share them with you.  If you have any you'd like to add to the list, I'd love to hear them!

Fussbudget and its companion, flutterbudget, both nouns.  I picked these up from friends.  They mean people who are uncommonly nervous or anxious, or, in the case of fussbudget, nosy.  Someday I will have a pair of dogs, dubbed the Budget twins, Fuss and Flutter.   

Hippopotamic, adj.  Used in the 1987 film The Princess Bride as one of Vizzini’s terms of endearment for Fezzic.  Meaning large, bulky, taking up too much space, with a connotation of lazy, slow, fat.  Because sometimes there just aren’t enough words to describe bigness.

Pookie, adj.  Used by my father.  Describes a feeling of listlessness, sadness, perhaps even mild illness.  General “got-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed” feeling.

Ah shidanza! int.  Used in the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog by the warty prince himself.  Simply an exclamation of excitement or amazement.  One of those that’s just really fun to say.

Scuzzy, adj.  Used by my roommate, Taylor Hodge.  Describes something grimy or otherwise suspiciously unhygienic.  I also picked up the word “sketchy/sketch” from her, which has a similar meaning.

Bangorang, int.  Used in the 1991 film Hook.  Because I’m a Lost Boy at heart.

Hoopla, noun.  Not sure where I heard this first—it’s used pretty frequently.  A good word to describe an exciting or messy situation.  And again, fun to say.

Coo coo k’choo, int.  Used in the 2003 film Finding Nemo, though I’m not entirely sure if that was its first usage.  In the film, it was used to express mild amazement at how quickly time passes.  “Ah, it’s awesome, Jellyman.”