Another Year has Passed and I'm Disappointed

Another year has come and gone. I'm now 27 years old and it causes me to pause and think. What have I done up until this point? What are my accomplishments? Sure, at my birthday dinner, I received a handful of cards from family with lovely notes of the same old sayings. I got a "I'm so proud of the woman you have become", a "We are so proud of the person you are", and a "You've always made us proud".
It makes me wonder. What have I done that is so great? There are so many people that by my age, have done so many amazing things that it makes me feel a bit inadequate. Shall we take a look and compare the lives of some people you surely have heard of to my pretty dull existence?

At age 27:
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. dropped out from his job at General Electric to become a full-time writer.

Henry David Thoreau went off for two years to live alone in a cabin at Walden Pond.

Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.

Memphis millionaire Frederic W. Smith, whose father built the Greyhound bus system, founded Federal Express.

Scottish botanist David Douglas discovered the Douglas fir.

Ernest Hemingway published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises.

Boston dentist William Morton pioneered modern anesthesiology after learning that inhalation of ether will cause a loss of consciousness.

Jimi Hendrix choked to death on his own vomit after ingesting wine and sleeping pills.

Janis Joplin died of an overdose of whiskey and heroin.

With the obvious exception of the last two negative outcomes on the list, all of these people have done great things at the ripe age of 27. Don't even get me started on the people that have accomplished so much at a much younger age then I am currently at. It isn't that I'm feeling "old" or feeling like the best years are behind me. It's just that I'm feeling like I've let people down. I feel like I've wasted a large chunk of life being a dreamer. What have I done that is so praise worthy? Because of possible fear of failure, I haven't finished a single thing I've sworn to myself I would by this age. In high school, I knew by the time I was 27, I would have finished school, started my career, and moved far away from Arkansas to become a great success. With age has come some wisdom that says Arkansas is not as bad as I had once thought. It's my destiny to stay here and hopefully still have some moderate success.

Let's look at some of the things I have accomplished. I have had a few poems published in the local paper when I was going through the "dark misunderstood poet" phase of my life. I gave birth to a little boy who is the light of my life and have been the best mother I can possibly be. I have married my best friend and have never regretted it a day of our marriage. I bought my first house when I was 22 years old and I can say the alphabet backwards. Wow! What a list.

The only way that I'll be able to live with myself is to plan to spend the next 27 years doing what I've set out to do. In August I'll be back in school to finish up that chapter in life. I plan on finally getting my degree in writing. I know this doesn't mean that I will automatically get a book deal or even sell one story. This will symbolize to me that I finally finished something in my life. It will mean that I have the ability to start a career of some sort. It will mean that maybe I'll actually be worthy of the cards that I will surely receive that will have more praise filled odes about the life I have lived and woman I have become.

New Kids On The Block are back!!!

Rather than call this a new blog, I should call it what it is...an open letter in honor of the members of New Kids on the Block. That’s right! They are back. They are back and my heart quickens a bit at the very thought of it. I remember, vaguely, the moment I first saw a grainy black and white video on MTV, depicting five young guys from Boston, doing their best to "hang tough" because they were, in fact "rough". I remember being a young girl of seven years old, feeling a very real, very strong, very confusing, attraction to an eighteen year old young man named Jordan Knight and knowing, for fact, that if we ever met, he would instantly fall in love with me and he would ask me to marry him right then and there. I remember lying in bed at night, just before drifting to sleep, listening to my little stack of NKOTB tapes or waiting for my favorite radio station to play their songs or announce an item of trivia I hadn’t previous knowledge of. I remember covering my jean jacket in huge, head-sized buttons with the boys’ faces on them and knowing that I was at the height of super fan fashion. To say the least, I was quite smitten as a child. I never quite lost that loving feeling for the boys of New Kids on the Block. I have, at this moment, a CD of their greatest hits, in the console of my car. I asked my husband, in the event of the tour coming through our area, to appease that seven year old girl inside me. I asked if he would think I was crazy for wanting to go to that concert. He laughed and said, "Whatever you want".

This is exciting. The last time I saw New Kids on the Block in concert was May 4th, 1990. My Daddy was aware of my obsession/fascination for the group and subjected himself to an evening of several thousand pre-pubescent, screaming central Arkansan females, at Barton Coliseum. Though, soon after that, it became, somehow, uncool to be a fan. I’ve never really been one to follow a crowd, even then. I didn’t give up on them. (I did, eventually, quit sporting the buttons, however.) When the group broke up, so broke a piece of my heart. I was saddened that an era had come to an end and I had to move on. More boy bands were sure to come after that point. Sure, there was the Backstreet Boys...they did nothing for me. Then there was N’sync...who cared? 98 degrees didn’t faze me. Where were my boys singing "Please Don’t go Girl, I’ll be loving you, or Step by Step?" I was a broken spirit…wishing for the day, biding my time until some cataclysmic event would occur, some aligning of the planets, some way my group would come back and give me some type of closure. Now it has happened. All is right with the world.

As you see, I have no hard feelings, even after getting no response when using my best Lisa Frank stationary to send them love notes. (I wish I was kidding!) I am pumped for this tour. If, for some reason, they don’t come anywhere close to us here in Arkansas, I will at least get the consolation prize of a new album and I will be able to rest easy. I might even have to buy a special button to be donned on my diaper bag.

What is This Strange Feeling? Fear? Hmmm...

Oh God Oh God Oh God!!! I've got that sinking, tingly, sickening feeling. I just looked online at uca.edu, and felt that old anxious feeling that made me run for the hills some three years ago. I don't know if it's nervous excitement about getting back into the old grind. I don't know if it's being scared to actually witness the grades I made (or lack thereof) that last fateful semester. I don't know if it's the realization that in six short months I will be a student again. I'm just kind of weirded out right now. I'll attempt to explain it.

I put myself out there as being stronger then strong, braver then brave, badder then bad, while in reality the prospect of going back to school to finish my degree and (let's admit it) leave my son during the day is terrifying to me. The anxiety I felt being in a classroom was debilitating. The feelings I experienced during that last spring of 05' semester were horrible. I just gave up and let both work stresses and school stresses break my body down. I spent the entire semester in and out of the Dr's office being threatened with hospital stay if I didn't take some time off for myself. That final semester my body gave up just before my psyche. I couldn't handle everything in front of me. I vowed that with the summer before me, I would take stock in what was important and MAKE myself think about what was best for me. I was amid a great debate with my inner self trying to decide if I needed a break from the same old thing. Should I leave school for awhile and focus more on work? Was the stress of my job at Lowe's worth more to my future then school was? What to do what to do? I figured I had a full summer to dedicate to this struggle…..then came the extra little line on the pregnancy test.

A clearer sign of change, there never has been! I wasn't sure that I ever wanted to be a mother but that extra line proved to my heart the answer. No longer was the choice about me and my health alone. It was about my health for the little extra being in my body. I had to take stock in what was most important for my future and the future generation within. I decided that dropping work was not an option, for they paid my way in life as well as insurance. I had to sacrifice something and that would be school. I could always come back to school.

I've come to realize that taking that action was very similar to putting a band aid on a gaping wound. It hasn't really helped much to put on pause one of my biggest fears. Now I'm at the point of slowly (over six months) pulling the band aid off of that college wound.

I try to find solace in the fact that my experience will not be the same as it was before. This time, I will not be working 40+ hours a week, coming in at 10:30-11:00 at night only to stay up until 3:00 in the morning writing. I plan on only taking a few classes at a time to insure that I can dedicate ample time to my son, my school, and myself. I'm hoping that this time, I can make it. I can keep my anxious little demons at bay. I'm hoping by taking classes through one of my favorite teachers, it will help that band aid come off in a positive way instead of taking little bits of flesh with it.