I wrote this last night before Blogger crashed. Thank goodness I saved it before I tried to post it.

I got so sleepy a couple hours ago but had to force myself to stay awake so I could finish my laundry. I have since abandoned the laundry in the dryer downstairs until morning, but here I lie awake in the dark, unable to shut my brain down for the night. I should have just gone to sleep when I felt the need because now I have passed the threshold into insomnia. I have had so much on my mind lately that I have been finding it difficult to flip the switch and shut down.

I feel like life moves so quickly. Somehow, our society has adopted this mindset that we have to rush through our youth and work ourselves to death so that we can enjoy a retirement that most likely is never realized. From the moment they place that illusive college diploma in your hand, they expect you to know exactly who you are and what you plan to make of yourself. I feel intense pressure to go to grad school, speed through the next two or three years by burying myself in study, finish as quickly as possible, and then move on to the next strenuous and difficult phase of my life. I have been in school for 17 consecutive years now. By time I am able to earn a living and support myself, I will have toiled for 20 years under the weight of papers, assignments, deadlines, expectations, and the knowledge I should know.

I would really like to slow down. I feel like my parents are making me plow through the next few years. Finish at WVU, speed through grad school, and for what? So I can work for the next 45-50 years? Where do I draw the line? When do I say, "For once I am not going to care about the figure on my bank account, how many possessions I own, or how many degrees I have. Right now I am going to do what I need to do to enjoy my life."? Am I not afforded the luxury of saying that? Is this whole system some subtle rite of passage where failure to stay in between the lines means you have no chance at all of making it in this world?

I don't know what I want to do or who I will become. Sometimes I think it doesn't matter. Sometimes I get the overwhelming sense that there won't be a need for me to make that decision, but that's not something I can explain to anyone. So, for now, I trudge on. I wake up in the morning and continue to hate Tuesday-Thursday. The only reason I don't hate Monday and Friday is because I only have choir/Same Diff, and those ensembles are the only things I look forward to right now. For a brief hour and a half, I get to be who I truly am and make wonderful music.

At the end of the day, what will I have to show for myself? A degree for which I sold my soul and with which I can do nothing? Then can I take that step out of my comfort zone of hating this phase of my life and attempt to start a new one? Can I leave the people I have come to love so much? In a perfect world, I would graduate in August and still be here to just enjoy time with people. Still, time goes on and people move on.

Sometimes I wonder how professors manage it. What do they make of the many students that walk in and out of their lives? Do they just pay us lip service, feed us our daily regimen of pedagogy and theory, and then wait for the next batch to come along no different than the one before it? Do they ever wish they could slow time as well and just enjoy the company of a few choice students? Get to see us as more than a midterm that has to be graded? When we walk across that stage and out of their lives, do they feel like a piece of them goes with us? Do they feel our absences the next fall when they look where we always stood, where we always sat and where we are no more? Or are we all just a blur?

I just want to slow down and observe this world rather than blow right through it. This afternoon I remained in the car for a moment to hear the rest of a song before I went inside my apartment. Just then, I noticed how beautiful the leaves were. The sun was shining through their fiery orange, red, and yellow blazes on a perfect periwinkle sky, and I realized that this must be only a prelude to the beauty in God's kingdom. I was brought to tears. I could have stayed in that moment for an eternity.

Precious Lord, take my hand.
Bring me home through the night,
through the dark, through storm,
to Thy light.
I have been to the mount.
I have seen the Promised Land.
Precious Lord, take my hand.