Becoming a writer wasn't a decision I ever made, it was a discovery. I was 12-years-old and still didn't brush my hair or wear shoes or care what boys thought of me. I did however, realize with absolute certainty that I would be a writer, whether I wanted to be or not. I knew that no matter what, no matter where, I would always be writing. Even without pen and paper, I would always be writing in my head.
That was nearly ten years ago.
These are the last few months before I have to start making real decisions. "Real Life", as people keep calling it, will start when this school year ends. All anybody seems to care about is what kind of job I want after I graduate. All my parents want to know is what kind of job I'm going to have. All I hear about is career fairs, internships, resumes, interviews. I am running from it all.
I have a boyfriend and I am in love with him. He keeps telling me he thinks fate will pull us apart after college. I don't believe fate has that power. I believe we have decisions and we make them and the results are ours. We don't want to think about those kinds of decisions now. We're both scared. We both have no idea what we're doing.
I have a job. But its not a real job. I work at a fancy soup, salad and sandwich place. It's expensive and the only customers we have are rich sorority girls, grouchy old women and middle-aged business men.
I am floating in an unreality. I am waiting to see what happens when it ends. It is easy to imagine that after college I will travel the world, runaway with my boyfriend to India or Paris or maybe just across the country to California. I can easily imagine running all over this crazy world, standing in sunlight in Rome or China or Australia. I can see myself taking photos and floundering in the beauty of everywhere that is new and different and poetry. I can imagine writing, writing, writing. I can see pages and pages of handwriting and I can see them sitting on a desk in a small, peeling apartment in Ireland. I see the blue paint that is fading from the walls and I can feel the thrift store sweater against my skin. And I can see him there, still laying in bed, the blankets twisted around him. I see all of this and I am afraid. These things that I see are not real. They are just imagined and hoped.
I am wearing a cheap sweater and black leggings. My computer is falling apart and covered in stickers. I am sitting in the Journalism building on campus, waiting for my boyfriend to get out of his class. It is raining outside. It is raining hard. All the changing leaves are getting knocked to the ground. Tomorrow there will be a carpet of yellow and red. When my boyfriend gets done with his class, I will kiss him and we will go eat scrambled eggs and pancakes even though it is 10:00 at night. We will eat in a small diner with wood-paneled walls covered in framed newspaper clippings and articles of the restaurant's success. Then we will watch a horror movie at midnight. We will probably make-out in my car in the rain at some point.
Tomorrow I will drink coffee, read something, go to work. I will be one day closer to the gray that waits for me.
The one thing I hold tightly is this: no matter what happens, I will not regret the great adventure.
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