I feel like when you graduate they shouldn't hand you a diploma but the plan for your life. Like the five year plan you've been forced to create in course after course throughout your college career, only it will actually come true. It will tell you the next steps you're about to take, countries you'll travel, music and foods and really crazy experiences you should try, what kind of handsome successful man you're going to marry. And it's all up to you what you'll try, where you'll go, what you'll experience. I mean, it should be like that anyway... but within this scenario, it's like you'll literally be handed the permission to live your life- really live it. Instead, they hand you this piece of paper declaring your degree... your degree, and what does that really even mean? To what degree do you really have a grasp of anything? Of this specialty, this field... I'm not really sure.
All I know is that people keep telling me I have my whole life ahead of me. When really, there's a significant part of it behind me, and a whole lot of which I'm in the midst... that's the part they never stress. We're so eager to look past it that we so often miss the moment... the now, this time and place and sense that we're in the middle of. We're so busy planning for our lives we forget that we're in the process of living them. I'm living this life, right now, and I have this beautiful opportunity to make things happen, allow them to happen... to attempt to just be happy. Like Laura says, "do what you like, like what you do..."
I've got more... I'll put it down later.
Needless to say, this house has been filled today with delicious food, wonderful people, and so much laughter and love. That's more than enough for now. More than enough.
Goodnight folks.
dear Lizzie,
ReplyDeletea degree is an artifact of the past. it's tangible--kind of like a letter? it's a material representation of an intangible experience. the past has a layer of weight and tangibility because it's already happened. it's what you own, what's under your belt, etc.
the future is lighter and more ephemeral. you can't make it into an artifact, for better or worse.
can you tell i have not moved on from dear?
and while i'm at it... is a letter like this that exists only in cyberspace still an artifact? where does it exist on the spectrum of tangibility?
Love from,
Laura H. (different Laura from the one mentioned above ;-)
i just discovered this comment while looking through old posts and it's brought such happiness to my day!
ReplyDeletei love you, laura.
i think it's okay to have not moved on from dear. i don't think i really have either. maybe that means we should continue with it in some capacity this next year? because that work is a very tangible artifact of my past that i would like to give new life in the future.