Random reflection brought on by Facebook photos…
January 9, 2009
This morning started just like any other, my alarm went off at 7 and I hit the snooze a few times, barely leaving myself enough time to shower and get out the door for work at ten til 8 (thankfully I live about 5 minutes away from the office!). It was freezing outside (as usual) and I got to chip a few layers of frost off the car I begrudgingly drive and head off to work. I wasn’t too stressed about the time, knowing that today my boss is out of the office all day and that just makes the entire office staff more relaxed and laid back. It’s a nice way to be on a Friday, especially after all of the insanity lately.
So I make my way to work and open up the office, check my email and bounce around on myspace, netflix and finally facebook. I noticed that one of my old friends from back in the day in Maryland had posted some photos, so I checked them out and found them to be mostly of my old youth pastor’s kids (the oldest was born when I was in 8th grade!) and I let myself take a few minutes to flip through all the photos and be in complete shock that all of them are so grown up (and completely adorable). It feels like a lifetime ago when I was spending most of my high school years in that house, hanging out with my youth pastor, his wife (who became like another sister to me), and the girls. The two oldest I got to know best, as the two youngest kids weren’t around until right before and after I left for college. I started thinking about who I was in high school and what I wanted to be and it was so odd to think about because when I was that age, I didn’t care. All I was looking to do was to get out of the city I grew up in and start somewhere new where I could be who I wanted and do what I wanted without anyone else having any pre-conceived notions of who I was.
And so I ended up in Indiana, actually going to a “Christian” college (who would have thought, right?) thanks to my youth pastor’s wife who graduated from there and gently steered me in that direction when I was floundering around trying to decide between which state schools to attend. Instead of making an informed decision, I applied, got accepted and was heading out to Grace College the summer of 2001 without ever even seeing the place. Practicality and informed decision-making were never really high on my priority list at that point in my life…and honestly they don’t rank that high on it now…maybe a little higher now that its about 7 years later!
And that decision to go to Grace completely changed my life. And not in a lame promote the school way. In a real way, it wasn’t the courses (although I loved, hated and slept through so many of them equally), but the people. It was the most amazing thing to be all of a sudden transplanted into an environment where no living soul knew who I was – it was the perfect time to start over and figure out what I wanted to do.
And so I did…after failing my very first college course (Drawing 1 – thanks Prof. Young), I dropped my major and went undeclared for awhile before switching to English and finally to Journalism/Communications. I had always had the verbal/written thing going for me, I just never thought about channeling it into a major, so it took about 2 years to convince me I should make that leap, not to mention my insane speed reading habits made my literature courses a breeze. I continued to head back to Maryland in the summers and it was always kind of odd, but good, as I picked up jobs when I felt like it and spent too much time out in Salisbury/Ocean City with my big sister.
When I wrapped up my college years, I had this odd panicked sensation that I knew what I wanted to do…kind of…but had no idea how I was going to do it. So I just focused on surviving. Which is a hilarious couple years to look back on – not so funny at the time, but my word. The memories of sharing a 2 bedroom apartment between 3 people, using it as basically a hostel because we had friends crashing there constantly. Barely scraping by getting paid $9.25 an hour to deal with the most boring job on the planet at a psychiatric facility, using my BP gas card to buy groceries at the gas station because otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to eat, maxing out ATM withdrawal limits on credit cards to just get by paying the rent, extreme sleep deprivation leading to writing my first novel and spending every waking moment in coffeehouses with some of my best friends hashing out plot points and illustrations, listening to fantastic music and horrible music, none of it mattering because we just needed something to draw inspiration from.
Then I finally got a job that was paying my bills…and Fez died (for those of you who don’t remember, Fez was my orange 1972 superbeetle and my very first car) and I got to enjoy the entire saga of that, since his engine exploded when I was almost to Indianapolis (that is an insanely long and hilarious story that I will tell another time). BUT it happened at the perfect time, because my best friend in the whole world (aaron) was getting rid of his old car and getting a new one, so I bought Trixie Anne from him and drove her until she died and now I have a car I hate, but begrudgingly respect because it is safe and warm, even though it is sooo fugly.
Anyway, now I am at that odd point again where I’m ok financially and have the time to think about what I want to do next. I don’t have to take a job just to pay my bills – I really want to focus on what I want to do next and what will get me closer to the goal of starting my own publishing house. I’m working on my second novel and it’s completely new and exciting and I love the thrill of being buried in a new project. Location wise I really really hate living in Indiana, mostly because I miss the coast and my big sister, brother-in-law and my nephew…and the fantastic friends I have back in Maryland and Pennsylvania. And so I have some decisions to make, some things to plan…unless I go with the way I made my decision to go to Grace and just blindly make a choice and see what happens…
And to think, all of this started with photos on facebook…
