Feeling: stretched and fractured
Listening to: Evanescence - I Must Be Dreaming
Reading/Watching: Under the Tuscan Sun, which is giving me SO many of all the wrong ideas

Okay, so PG already did this, and I figure it's time for me to mimick him, except mine will take a more existential standpoint, instead of mere material shopping-list type things. Feel free to reach for the clicky-button that closes this poncy entry right now.

Need:
1) Music bachelor's degree
2) Graduate degree to follow (getting a job is well-nigh impossible otherwise... the world is full of promising BAs working at Starbucks)
3) Enough money to afford graduate school, a.k.a. student loans out the wazoo and/or winning lottery ticket
4) Permanent residence (I'm not very nomadic)
5) Decent job involving my chosen field, which requires acquisition of #1 and #2, but is not guaranteed by them.

Want:
1) Family. Love, children. Etc.
2) A published book with my name on it
3) A good two or three months away from responsibilities (school, work) to finish the published book that will have my name on it.
4) A trip to another country, preferably the two-week Europe trek for which I have been praying (and saving) since I was sixteen
5) About $3,500 for aforementioned European trip
6) A miracle that will allow me to possess the sum of money I need for Europe without having to give up on the idea of working on my book the summer of graduation (as I did after high school), and still be able to begin school the following fall with more than twenty-five cents in my bank account.

This is idiotic, really. I truly truly miss the summers of being fifteen and younger, when the point of my life was writing, instead of working and earning and being a responsible adult who understands the value of a dollar.

A girl from my training class at work quit on Saturday. She wasn't a particularly close friend, but she was sixteen and impatient and decided she didn't like the job, that she could live off her allowance from her parents and just get a job later when she was a boring adult.

It's funny, realizing that I never quite had that option. I remember joking to her, "I can picture having that conversation with my parents: 'I hate my job and I'm quitting.' -'No, you're not.' And it's just that simple." She laughed, and I laughed too, and I realize that I'm a total brat for wanting someone to take care of me all over again (I couldn't stand it while it was happening, but didn't realize the full extent of exactly how much they coddled me until the past few years), but I'm just not the wonder-woman who can work and go to school and also write a book. I can do two out of three, perhaps.

I just have to choose two. The gateway continues to approach, and now that I've let go of some of my expectations for the future (not hopes, dreams, or goals, just the things I was expecting to happen), I'm re-evaluating everything.

A year ago at this time, I made a colossal mistake and wanted in the completely wrong direction for far longer than I'm comfortable with. A year ago at this time, I had a lock-step plan for how my life would be for the next five to ten years. A year ago at this time, I was so sure that I just wasn't meant for certain things, good things, the kind of things they write about. I was sure I'd spend my life singing the songs, not inspiring them (and congratulations to mon coeur for changing my mind about what I deserve).

Now, I'm considering everything, wondering what might happen if I put off graduate school for a year and just worked somewhere, in a semi-crappy job, and forced myself to commit to writing. I wonder whether I'd finally edit DCMI and make it bookshelf-worthy, whether I'd accomplish a long-postponed childhood dream and live the life that's been on the back burner for so long, or whether I'd just fulfil the clich� and wind up in a crappy job, procrastinating and not writing, never going back to school, and whine many years from now about how I was on track and I let it all slip away.

But I don't want to be a railroad track for the rest of my life. These self-imposed rails might seem strong and safe, guiding me to a life where I will have most of what I need but little of what I want, but they leave little room for deviation, and I've never been the type to stick to plan. I can't decide whether that's a flaw or an asset.

People do it all the time, goose-stepping in the wrong direction because they think it's safest, or charging into dreams and ending with dust. I do not want to be one of those "all the time"s. I'm enough cautionary tales already.

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