Body Bags, Secret Fears, and Bruschetta:

Today felt like rearranging deck furniture on the Titanic. A total joke, as days are concerned.
I left the house with a list of adult errands such as:
Getting my vaccinations updated for school
Buy my new books
Go by the financial aid office and rip someone a new one
Groceries
Mother's Day present and card
Post office to send present to mother.
Get gas.

Seemingly simple. I stumbled in the door 5 hours later with nothing to show for my time but 2 bags of groceries and a stupid coffee mug my mom may or may not like. But it doesn't matter really cause she wont even get it anytime close to Mother's Day seeing as how by the time I made it to the post office it was closed. Sweet.

I blame myself. I planned the day poorly. And then I got stuck behind the huge accident for like an hour and when I finally reached the intersection there was a body bag on the side of the road. I think. A startling moment of perspective for the sniveling girl (me).

I sit at home now, cooling off, eating bruschetta on crackers for dinner while shaking the day's failure off with a little music and typing.

How is everyone? I hope well. The day of waiting in lines and sitting in the hot car gave me time for some contemplation and consideration. I really want to get it all out...but I fear my head may be too cloudy, but I will make an attempt.

I wonder as we get older and we learn to silence our initial impulses and desires if we are actually moving further away from the purest form of life we are meant to live? The life He has for us? Maybe it is a naive notion that He has a "plan" for each of us...but I don't care. It is the one romantic notion of my faith I refuse to let go of. I have a big decision around the corner and when I envision it the exact way I want it to be, I talk myself out of it for one reason or another. Maybe we reason our way out of our dreams and our passions as a defense mechanism, because the sting of failing at these things would be as horrible as death in some cases. I'm not sure. I am almost embarrassed to admit one of the reasons I talk myself out of the things that I think He may have measured out for me (things like working in third world countries indefinitely or moving somewhere remote for the purpose of contemplation and simple living or continuing on in my education and becoming a nurse practitioner or a doctor (gasp!)). Here it is: I worry if I chose these routes I will be giving up the opportunity to be a wife and a mother. (a difficult secret fear to admit). I know any of these paths would take a tremendous amount of dedication, so...I guess the question is: can we have both?

Now, I think a great many of my dear readers have proven it is possible. Those of you that have married and started families and such have shown me you can live a deep purposeful life and "settle down"...(if you could even call it that, most of us are still a little more wild than that image allows). This fear is probably WAY preemptive, I know, but it's times like these (graduation looming around the corner) that you start wondering what you really want and if you have the courage to fling yourself into it.