Pfffft

So yeah. The whole writing every day thing didn't work out so great. But I'm going to get back on the wagon. It's been an overwhelmed-by-the-farmers-market, historical-novel-reading, Frasier-watching, crying, beer-in-bed kind of day. I was supposed to clean my apartment today.

I've been feeling more growing pains of adulthood lately. I feel like I'm constantly vacillating between confidence and contentment, and utter insecurity and confusion about my place in the world. Sometimes it's really hard to keep things in perspective and remember that 23 is REALLY FUCKING YOUNG and that I have Time. Lots of it (hopefully). I know that. Intellectually. But then I start doing the job math, and the masters degree math, and the oh-god-what-if-I-want-a-PhD math, and the career math and then that leads me right to my mid-40s with nothing but a black cat and the TV chip implanted in my eyeball to keep me company.

I went to Nashville for a conference the week before last. Every time I visit a new city I become convinced that This is It! This is the city of my soul. The one that will answer all the questions I have and the ones that are to come. For a long time, Portland held the top spot in my heart, but Nashville might have pushed it out. Nashville spoke straight to the part of me that is so fucking tired of the rat race to nowhere. The "right path." The "next steps." What does that even mean? Who decides what that is?
Here's my Nashville fantasy: go, move to a cute house in East Nash with a porch. Get a job with a grassroots arts organization and join a printmaking collective on the side. Start dating a sweet 'n soulful singer/song-writer who complimented my outfit the first time we met. Get to know my neighbors. Have a passel of kids. Live contently.
It's pretty far from my current "life path"-- the one I'm not really sure I want. That one is: Continue working at Stanford for one more year. Go to grad school on the East Coast for a Masters in Art History. Join a program that consists of all women. This program will be either in a city in a tiny apartment with weird roommates or in the Actual Middle of Nowhere. Remain single for the next two years. Graduate. Assess whether I want/need a PhD. Start working at a museum in the Education Department. Be awesome at my job because I actually really care about these issues. Try to rise in the ranks. Try to be a Career Woman Who Leans In (if that's still a thing we're doing). Be single forever. (???)
Or, I guess, the third option is to just settle into comfortable mediocrity. Which I KNOW is not the worst problem in the world, and I KNOW that these problems are so the problems of the privileged. But oh god, I don't want to be 43 and wondering what the hell happened and where did all the years go and who am I really? Too many people have fought for too long for me to actually, scientifically, literally LIVE for me to let that happen. Here's the thing (and this is so unoriginal it's almost painful to write, but what the hell, I'm the only one reading)-- we only have one shot at life. Ultimately, we only answer to ourselves. Trying to live our life in the way we think others want us to is futile and I think will ultimately result in deep dissatisfaction. I mean, ULTIMATELY, no one person actually matters on this earth (with some exceptions, OF COURSE. but I am not going to matter to that many people at all. and I certainly won't be Remembered). We are tiny little specks of matter smaller than dust in the universe. And there are billions of us! So, I think we have to do what we think will give us the most contentment in our soul. No matter how that changes. I think we need to strive for a sense of satisfaction. Not necessarily happiness, but satisfaction and contentment and growth. This is ramble-y. The beer is maybe getting to me. But it is what it is.

I want to live abroad! And try to write a book! I'm never going to be Jeffrey Eugenides but I want to write a book like Fangirl or The Princess Diaries. One where you feel like the characters are your friends and you just read it over and over just to hang out with them. And I want to learn to weave. And print-make. And lots of other things. Where does that all fit in? Does it? I don't know.

Also, I don't want to study for the GRE.

On the bright side, it is now officially summer and with that comes my second favorite thing: long summer nights, second only to my very favorite thing-- warm long summer nights. I'm forever yours, East Coast.