Night

A lull. For the first time this summer, I've actually got time to sit and write. No deadlines looming over my head, no wedding music to prepare, no packing to worry about. Because all the packing is done. All the deadlines have been met. And the wedding, as I've mentioned before, went off without a hitch.

Summer's over. And I'm sitting in my half-decorated room wondering what the hell this year holds for me. And from where I'm sitting....I'm not sure.

The classes aren't the problem: with thirteen credits, this is the lightest that my load's been since I was a freshman. I actually applied for a second job - that's just how much time I've got. But as I moaned in my last entry, a good number of my friends have graduated. And while I've put on the happy face all day - the "oh, I'll figure something out, I've got this whole thing covered" face - it didn't help me when I was sitting in the back of my parents' car on the way back from dinner, biting my lip and staring out the window to hold back the tears.

It won't be the same. It will be very, very different. And I might just have to get used to that.

I read a book once that dealt a lot with the moving-on of life, the having to say goodbye and press forward in a different fashion. And there was a story that was told by one of the characters to another. It goes something like this:

There used to be a lake close to our house. We loved it when the summertime rolled around; we would spend hours on the water, swimming, splashing around, floating, going around in a little raft. One time, this flock of ducks came and landed on the lake. And while they were still sitting there, the temperate dropped so fast that the lake froze, right then and there. But you shouldn't feel sad - those ducks flew off and took that lake with them. I hear now it's somewhere over in Georgia.

There really isn't any moral to that story; there's no lesson to be learned, no tidbit to be shared. But somehow it makes me feel better to see it again. So things happen. Sometimes you're going along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden you're stuck in a frozen lake.

The question is, what are you going to do with it?

I don't quite know how I'll tackle this frozen lake yet. I'm actually asking for some major prayers, if that's your thing, because tonight my heart is melancholy and I don't feel like putting up the happy face. But I ask for a curiosity, an eagerness to see what lies ahead of me in my senior year of college - my last little bit of freedom before the harsh reality of adulthood sets in with its taxes and its ridiculous medical examinations. I ask for bravery to face the trials that I will encounter, and strength enough to pull forward myself and the others around me.

And yes: that was a horrendously-written last sentence. But when you've written twenty-six pages in a week-and-a-half, you're really entitled to make as many grammatical faux pas as you damn well please.