Lonesome Road

I know I've already used this picture for a recent blog post but it captures exactly what I want to talk about and I'm a little more than a little bit in love with it. 

I'll explain its meaning later on.

Most of my blog posts lately have been written for my readers but this one is for me. Writing organizes my thoughts and de-stresses my mind in a way nothing else can.

I've always considered myself a diligent worker. I can't really say that I'm a hard worker, but definitely a diligent worker. 

Let me explain.

I've always been involved working on a lot of projects at once. In elementary school there was ELP one day every week, orchestra, band, bell choir, horseback riding at my grandparents house, building things with my grandpa, sewing and crocheting with my grandma, making potions out of plants, building a house out of refrigerator boxes...

Activities in Junior High turned into academics, orchestra, shop class, Junior National Honor Society, raising kittens, walking across the same crosswalk 100 different ways in the pouring rain...

High School was primarily academics with choir, orchestra, NHS, VP of Math Club, service hours, applying for endless scholarships, seminary president, time with friends, a week in D.C. with Close Up, two weeks at a university in Mexico studying Spanish...

In college I maxed out on credits every semester, first majoring in chemical engineering and then changing to geology, choir, dancing, American Sign Language, sociology classes, honors contracts, study abroad, visiting Great American Cities, GeoClub VP, picking up one job and then a second, every weekend filled with field trips after I'd been at school and work all day and all night, buying the most trashed house I've seen outside of movies and remodeling it while balancing 18 credit hours and two jobs...

Every summer was another trip, another job, another tight packed schedule.

I won't say I didn't skimp out at times, didn't sleep through classes, didn't spend a day here and there laying in bed with ice cream and a book because I was too tired to move..

I'm definitely guilty a thousand times over for those kinds of things..

But I still got everything on my plate done.

Not necessarily a hard worker, but always diligent.

And then... it ended.

After the most exhausting semester and summer of my life I came home to nothing.

No school. No job. No weekend camping trips. No late nights cataloging rock specimens.

It never occurred to me that such a situation would ever exist in my life.

I suppose in the back of my mind I had always expected that when I finished my bachelors I would already be married. Already know exactly what career I wanted. Already have my dream car and life..

Instead, I decided to take a few months off and discover what life was like without all of those things.

Super easy, right? 

Here's what my day is like-- I wake up whenever I feel like it. I eat breakfast while I catch up on the internet. After that I might clean my room or house, might watch a movie or read a book, might visit the temple or work on a blog post, might work on a puzzle while listening to Pandora, might tan in the pool or play with baby parakeets..

Every night I'm either invited to do something or I make my own plans to get out of the house.

I'm not going to complain-- I love having the option to do all of those things. Did you know that I've wanted to spend a rainy day at home drinking hot chocolate with a book and puzzle for a few years now and I actually got to finally do that this past week?

It's a great life but here's the other half-- I've never felt so entirely worthless.

It's my nature to be always busy and not being that has been difficult and a lot less rewarding.

As I was finishing reading Hunger Games last night I stumbled across a paragraph of Katniss's thoughts that I thought related really well to my own life:

"For the first time, I allow myself to truly think about the possibility that I might make it home. To fame. To wealth. To my own house in the Victor's Village. My mother and Prim would live there with me. No more fear of hunger. A new kind of freedom. But then...what? What would my life be like on a daily basis? Most of it has been consumed with the acquisition of food. Take that away and I'm not really sure who I am, what my identity is. The idea scares me some. I think of Haymitch, with all his money. What did his life become? He lives alone, no wife or children, most of his waking hours drunk. I don't want to end up like that."

I don't think I could have worded my thoughts any better. In high school at the end of choir concerts we would exit the stage and stand around the audience holding hands while we sang a song called Lonesome Road. The first time I had the opportunity to participate in this I had strepp throat and I still made it happen because it mattered that much to me. The quote by Katniss made me think of this song:

Walk down that lonesome road all by yourself 
Don't turn your head back over your shoulder 
And only stop to rest yourself when the silver moon 
Is shining high above the trees 

If I had stopped to listen once or twice 
If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes 
If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart 
I'd not be on this road tonight 

This is the point that I'm at in my life. Starting out on this road, worried that I'm going to be walking it alone, ever cautious of making the right decisions. It's often said that who you are is determined by what you do when no one's around. For the first time in my life no one is giving me a grade or observing me every minute of my day and I'm simply learning what it's like to be me.

I'm learning what I care about. I'm developing better habits and skills. (I cook and buy produce now!) I'm learning what I like about myself and what I need to work on. I'm refining what I'm looking for in my future.

So to explain the picture at the top-- 

I'm ready to go. I'm gneiss, tuff, and a little wacke. I've got my Camelbak with my gear, ready to start the hike through a narrow slot canyon.

But it's still a little bit scary.