looking back

date and time have been on my mind these days.  the month of may especially:

may 2 - 2nd anniversary of the flood,

may 17 - my grandmother's 95th birthday,

may 22, today - the 20th anniversary of my high school graduation.

i can't help but try to remember who that 18 year old was and what the last 20 years have done to change her.  that, and how very much i still resemble her. 

i am the first to admit that i have never been one for plans, goals, rigidity or preparedness.  i graduated high school with a college scholarship to the only school to which i applied - where i was the third generation of my family to attend.  i never thought much about what classes to take, what to major in or what i wanted to do for a living.  i've never wanted to do anything but write.  the fact that i didn't major in english or journalism has not escaped my notice.  i chose political science and history  barely able to imagine a life of campaigns, waxing poetic about political theory and historical events while making a name for myself writing.  none of that worked.

i made a career in law with no ambition to attend law school.  i continue to write (everything:  fiction, non-fiction, poetry) and go where i go.  now, unemployed for 2 years, and at another crossroads, i have no idea where to go or where i will end up.  part of me figures that i will do what i always do - fly by the seat of my pants.  but another part of me wishes that i could have been and done what came so easily to other people - those of you who have always known what you wanted to do or fell into a job that you love or that fulfills you or pays the bills and doesn't make you want to pull your hair out. 

i never knew anything about what i wanted.  i only knew what i didn't want.  i never wanted children, i never wanted to work only for money, i never wanted to live in a small town again (by graduation i had already been living back in nashville for 6 months and felt very removed from the years living in the small town in which i spent the years 9-17.)

i don't remember much about graduation, just the white dress i wore, the dinner afterward with my family and a couple of parties after that.  i don't remember having any particular fears about what was coming...college...job...life...

now i have fears about everything and i wonder if that's the way life works.  what 18 year old has any idea what awaits them as the years go by?  not a one. 

grace and peace