biding my time in the now

I am not so good at living in the NOW right now. Depending on what your definition of "living in the now" is, I suppose.

It's not that I don't have a spontaneous bone in my body. I have lots of bones full of spontaneity. TONS of it, in fact. I just also have lots of other bones that are focused on a goal, which must have a plan to be reached. "Bones" here is clearly a metaphor for the rest of me... or the all of me. What I mean to say is...

In approximately nine months, I will be submitting college applications, including one to U.C. Berkeley. According to their website, for the Fall 2010 application period, 12,338 transfer students from within the state of California applied, of which, only 3,301 were admitted. That's around about 26.75%, in case you were wondering, which I was thank you.

I have an appointment with a councilor next week to set up a plan for what I need to do over the course of the next nine months to be ready for the application process. I just turned in the forms to turn my Sociology 110 class into an Honors class. I need to get another form signed by about three different people to let me retake an online refresher math course I should have finished the first -two- times around. I need to keep doing what I've been doing as far as academics go, and then step things up a notch.

I am getting. Nervous.

I am [actively] biding my time.

It's hard for me to feel like I'm "living life to its fullest", "living in the now", "living for the present", or doing anything remotely close to any of those things... when a large portion of my time and energy is being exhausted on something that is far off in the distant future. I admit I'm sometimes envious of my friends who have chosen to have the freedom to travel around the world, living in their own personal moments of spontaneous bliss. Instead I work, and I study, and I work, and I go to class, and I work, and I read and write, and I work, and I sleep. Boy, do I sleep. I have to, so I can get back to all that work.

I'm not really complaining, though (had ya fooled there, didn't I?).

We each have our own paths. Many of our roads are in truth much less traveled than we realize. And for me, this is my way of living in the now. My now is filled with the toil of hard work and dedication that will someday, just maybe, end in an admittance to a school I've kept in mind since fourth grade. My now consists of learning, taking it all in, expanding my breadth of knowledge, practicing ways of thinking outside of boxes... things of that nature. So while my now may not seem so glamorous as I might like it to... it is still my now. And the more I dive in to my studies, the more I take advantage of this opportunity to learn and improve, the more I stand to take with me to the next step, wherever that step may lead.

The lesson of living in the now may not be so much to always be doing "great things" in every moment. The lesson may just be to learn how to make every moment great.

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." -Friedrich Nietzche

childhood comforts

Disclaimer: This picture was taken tonight, October 22nd 2010. My roommates and I are all 25 years old.

Shawna & Angel-bear Blankie, Dusty & Blankie, Nanny & Bunny

 

 

 Are we cute, or what?

Shawna & Angel-bear Blankie are mine. Dusty & Blankie are Laura's. Nanny & Bunny are Emy's.

As you can see, the quilted fabric blanket held up much better than the knitted ones the girls had. This has led me to decide my kids will definitely be getting the fabric kind of blankie.

Emy's Bunny is on her third set of clothes and survived flying off the roof of a van on the freeway a few years ago. Shawna survived falling out of a car on the side of the freeway once when I was a kid.

Through high school, college, travel, moves, boyfriends, and breakups, these remnants of simpler times have been kept close our whole lives. And here they will stay.

if failure means i'm trying

I recently cleaned out my room, and in the process discovered a stack of old journals, spiral bound notebooks, and even one Marble Composition Book that had been covered up with a picture of Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls. Every one of these were unfinished. Every blog, Live Journal, etc, I've ever started has been left undone. It's kinda my thing. Start some form of writing. Stop said form of writing. Start again.

I've heard from more than a few sources that it's good to write every day. I realized today that I already do that, just not in the sit-down-with-pen-and-paper-jotting-notes-in-a-journal kind of way. I write email correspondence at least a few times each day. I post to various social networking sites, respond to my friends' posts, comment on photos and videos. I write papers and responses to questions for my classes. I write the occasional inspirational message or affirmation on my bedroom closet doors (which are mirrors) with markers made for them. I suppose none of these things really count as writing every day. Unless I decide that they do.

Which I do.

Here's to another 25 years of failed writing projects.