Life
Kind of an all-encompassing title, isn't it? I know what you're saying, Wow... Way to narrow it down for me! I know exactly what you're talking about.
If so, stop being so sarcastic. :oP
Just kidding.
I've been thinking lately ("A dangerous pastime" "I know!") about, you guessed it, Life.
Life, and Time, and Relationships, and how everything Changes.
I'm not so sure I like the changes.
I suppose what started me on this Thoughtful Journey was what I did on Thursday. And what I did on Thursday was Petition for Graduation from Napa Valley Community College.
And since I'm graduating from NVCC, I have to start thinking about what I'm going to do next.
And thinking about the future always always always prompts thoughts of the past. For me, at least.
So, basically, I'm caught up in a mental time vortex, with my past and my future swirling before my eyes. If you know me at all, you'll know that I don't deal very well with change, so I focus most of my attention on the past. But then I start second-guessing myself and pounding my consciousness with What Ifs, and it becomes so painful that I look to the future again. The problem with that is that it is so uncertain and unknown that I really don't want anything to do with it. The only variables I like are X and Y in a quadratic equation, because quadratic equations have a formula with which you can find the solution or prove that no solutions exists.
News Flash for Bethany: Life is not a quadratic equation.
More's the pity.
So, even with the second-guessing and never-ceasing What Ifs, I discover that I'm wishing myself back to a time when life was simpler. When I didn't have a job. When my social life consisted of NLA and NLT. When the greatest worry I had was what score I was going to get on my English test (Yes, I actually did worry about that. You have no idea what kind of pressure I was under. Stop rolling your eyes. :oP) Quarrels with friends that seemed like the end of the world were generally patched up in a week or two, a month or so at the most. In the times when boys were a novelty and boyfriends weren't really serious... comparitively speaking. Before friends and relatives went off and joined the Army. *sigh*
And then I grew up.
I always knew there was a reason I resisted it/still resist it. There's a corner of my life that I absolutely refuse to allow the Adult World to infect--the corner of my life reserved solely for the Children's section of the Library, Fantasy Books and Star Wars, and my ever-present desire to Write.
When I was little, the future seemed so simple. I'd grow up, get married, and live happily ever after.
College and Higher Education never ever figured into this algorithm. Let alone the dollars and cents that would be poured into attaining those goals.
I suppose the best words of comfort I can offer myself are those of an old song: "I know Who holds Tomorrow, and I know He holds my hand."
As Anne says, "When I left for Queen's, my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does."
Or as the Disney songwriters phrased it,
"I look once more
ust around the riverbend
Beyond the shore
Somewhere past the sea
Don't know what for
Why do all my dreams extend
Just around the riverbend?
Just around the riverbend..."
And that's my introspective moment for the month.