Friday, January 24, 2003

 

Do you ever go to bed, and you're almost asleep, and then you remember something important that you were supposed to do... and it wakes you up, and you get up, and stumble around the room for a minute, but then you can't remember what it was that you woke up for, but you know you can't go to bed unless you do this thing that you forgot to do in the first place, but can't remember what you forgot?

Me either. I'm just always up at 2am. I'm..... uhhh.... studying. That's it.

No really... I didn't get off the phone with Chad until like, 1am.... then I climbed out of bed and turned out the lights.... and climbed back into bed (force power would have been a good thing here)... and I was almost asleep... but I woke up with a paniced thought that I had forgotten to do something.... and it had to be done tonight.... so I got up.... but dadgum if I can remember what I was supposed to do. But now I'm awake....

I used some of this time to read Chad's new post (yes, I know I haven't updated the link to his page yet... I'll get to it... prolly before he gets around to updating his link to me... or maybe I'll move again, just to be annoying and stuff.)... Which was interesting and thought provoking. We had a long discussion the other night about the future, and what was happening with us... where he was going to be, where I was going to be, who was going to have what letters after their names, weddings and babies and all that stuff... and came to no conclusions. But, after talking tonight (actually, before we talked tonight, as Chad had already talked to Michael about housing), it looks like Chad will be coming back here. Maybe... It's still tenative at this point. But... at least we know, in the short term, what is happening.

Chad's post, as well as the conversations we've had over the last week or so, have really made me think. What are my goals? Where do I want to be in 5 years? 10? 20? I really don't know.... Right now, all I want is to get out of school. School is fun... but very stressful. Money is stressful (ie, there's never enough of it)... classes are stressful.... dorms are stressful.... long distance relationships are stressful... I realize that stress is not eliminated in the real world... and that, at times, the real world is more stressful than the college world. But... I just want to be done. When I graduate, I have nothing left to prove. I will have done what my mother always wished she had... and what my dad just barely managed to do... I will have earned a Bachlor's Degree... But where will I go? What are my dreams? I told Chad I didn't have any dreams.... but I don't know if that's exactly true.

Most of my dreams involve who I want to be, not what or where or how educated. I want to be someone who is known for speaking my mind... but to manage to do that with some amount of tact, as not to alienate the rest of the world. I want to be someone that my parents and Chad can be proud of... Someone that accomplishes things. I want to be someone everyone can relate to... someone that's fun to be around, but not too fun.... I want to be serious when I need to be. I want to feel like I know what I'm doing and where I'm going.... I want to show that my personal relationships take priority over eveything else... and yet no be too caught up in what other people think of me.

But what about my future? What dreams do I have for that?

I want to work in a webshop... I suppose that's a dream... I would love to be a database programmer... just spend all day designing and interfacing SQL, HTML, Java, Perl.... building database backends for some site somewhere... Have a cube, all to myself, where I could wallow in my own dorkdom as I programmed... Go to lunch with a couple of people from the office at least once a week... Spend Sundays at church, Saturdays in bed, and my evenings relaxing with Chad and doing something fun that I don't have time to do in school... like roleplaying. I want ot keep a clean house... but not so clean it doesn't look lived in... just clean enought ot be able to walk and sit and function without always having to move piles of stuff. I want to be able to cook dinner at least a couple of nights a week... and to go out every once in a while... Eventually, I want to have children... I hope to have children.... at least a couple... but i don't realy want to stop working... neither do I want to pay someone to raise my kids... Maybe I'll find a job I can do remotely... or just work in my spare time... At some point, I want to go back to school... I still want to teach school, and that requires a teaching degree... or maybe I'll just get a Masters in computer somethings... But that's not even close enough to be a dream.. more like a wisp of something unformed in the back of my mind... kind of like what dreams are, before they really become dreams.

Like Miss Patty told me once... When you're driving home at night, do your car headlights shine all the way to your house? No. They only light up the road directly in front of you. Is there anyway you can see all the way home? No. So you have to go with what you can see... and trust that the next peice of the road will be lit up when you get there.

So I can't see the road from here to retirement... or from here to careers... or from here to children.... or from here to PhD... I can't even see the road from here to July 4, 2004, though on a clear day, I think I can catch a glipse of it on the horizon. But I can see the road from here until tomorrow. And I know that tomorrow, I'll be able to see more. And I also know that it really doesn't matter where I am... or what I'm doing... as long as I'm with Chad, everything will be ok. And in the long run, that's all that really matters, anyway.

posted by Deedee 2:17 AM