A Journey

While I trudge through this daunting journey, I also look forward to the destination.

College life pretty much sucks.  And I guess I didn't expect to tread lightly through it, but I didn't expect the heavy stress that I currently endure.  It's not that the work particularly challenges me, either, but the ten week quarters create a bottleneck effect that stop-gaps my entire life.  I have to balance all of the things I want to do with all of the things I have to do, and as they all flow through the bottle of time, there comes a point where only some things pour immediately.

And, sadly, as much as I would like for aspects of my life such as playing music, writing fiction, playing nerdy turn-based games to exist at the forefront of my priorities list, I know that my education has to come first.  There are no breaks for me.  I can't take a quarter off to clear my head.  I can't put schoolwork on the back-burner to focus on songwriting for hours a day.  I can do all of these things in moderation, but I have come too far to jeopardize all I have accomplished so far.

It's kind of depressing.  The things I want most have to wait so I can secure a future where I can conveniently access them.  Maybe I'm just impatient.

I guess my biggest fear is that I'll be too late once I arrive at my secure future to enjoy the things I want to enjoy now.  I feel that once I become a professional, the joy-ride of youth is over.  While I have worked so hard to secure a stable future, I also finally have the opportunity to experience the youth that was stolen from my childhood by unfortunate circumstances surrounding my home life.

On the other hand, I know how awesome life will be when I don't have to worry about money.  It's going to be nice to not serve tables to make less than twenty-thousand a year.  I can afford the music equipment I need to facilitate my songwriting.  Teaching will allow me to have summers off to write the next great American novel or tour my music around the country.  I can enjoy taking Dani wherever she wants to go without having to plan budget cuts.  I can readily spend an inordinate amount of money on comic books and graphic novels.  I can play stupid games because I can afford buying enough random draw packs to hopefully draw some good units.  I can even get a new costume for Comic-Con every year.

I know that getting older doesn't necessarily mean growing up.  But I also understand that a lot of things in my life aren't within the area I control.  Who knows what I will become in the next several years?  Who knows how teaching will change me as a person?  I understand that there is always room for growth, but I don't want to grow anymore.  I want to hold on to this lapse in judgment and regression into a youth-like state.

I want to take the time to be the kid I never got to be.  But I can't do that without first going through this journey...  Which is a journey most people would say symbolizes a step towards independence and adulthood.

While these two things juxtapose each other, I'm crossing my fingers that I can have them both.

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