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April 20th, 2010

“My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? So many other men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills.”
-John G. Neihardt from Black Elk Speaks

So perhaps it has been awhile since I have taken to the pen and page, or in this case, to typing on the laptop, but it seems that times have called for me the necessity to write again. And for some reason, writing this blog seems to be more appropriate than hiding things away within the pages of a dusty journal that sits by my bedside. Over and over again throughout this past year, there have been numerous people who have come to me with claims that I will be a writer, or that based off of talent, that I should become a writer. Edifying as those comments and thoughts have been, the notion of what exactly to write about has plagued me and thus prevented me from committing to the idea. Nor do I exactly have a foundation for writing – unless of course one considers infinitely many college essays, a stack of a dozen or so personal journals, or…my love of literature.

A new friend of mine, after hearing about my love for reading, asked me to tell him a story. A bit perplexed, I asked what kind of story he would like for me to share with him, because I have read many genres of books. Much to his amusement, and to my astonishment, he asked that I make one up and type it to him via text message! After denying that I had the capability to do so, I eventually caved a day or so later and told him a story. What surprised me about it though was that it was, for the most part, autobiographical. He managed to start the gears that now go cranking through my head as I go about my day to day business. And granted, my thoughts and my story may not be all that important, but perhaps to someone it may offer, in the least, some sort of entertainment. And at the most, maybe the story of my God, my life, literature, love, and learning at this quarter life stage could provide some sort of guidance or importance to someone out there…somewhere.

Personally, I find it an interesting time to start this pursuit seriously - mainly because of the difficulties that have arisen in the post-undergraduate-college months. Being fresh out of university, with a slight chip on the shoulder, a naïve sentiment of being able to save the world, and a fear of being useless, has created quite a number of days of frustration amidst the endless search for what to do next with my life. The world is such a big place to seemingly shut myself into only one career path for potentially the rest of my life, and at this moment I stand with eyes wide, and it seems as if the training wheels have been taken off of my metaphorical bicycle, I cannot help but feel rather small. The question of, “what do I want to do now?” has placed me between a rock and a hard place, where I find myself optimistically hoping I am just small enough to slip through the cracks between the two. This next chapter of life I know will take a lot of hard work, courage, boldness, humor and a little bit of elbow grease, but there are also some mornings when I wake up squeezing my eyes shut tight just hoping for an epiphany to come to mind. This should be the exciting part of the novel, where the plot thickens, where there are unexpected turns, and where the reader sees the hero grow in ways that carry her through until the last page ends.

And so I shall start to post to this blog, and hope that there will be some novelty involved for the readers who choose to follow this. There will be ups and downs of course, frustrations and triumphs too I am sure. And it will all seem like a normal life. But I think that is what makes it interesting, because I think it is safe to say, we are all pretty normal mixed in with a little bit of quirky. And it is that quirky that makes us interesting and gives us our individual story.

This will be therapeutic for me, as some of the seemingly unique quarter life difficulties are in essence, rather normal for my age. Venting them out to those who would be willing victims and confidants who will offer advice will certainly help prevent my having a quarter life crisis. But I think this will also be an exercise – so that I can hone in on my strengths and weaknesses in writing – and thus do more than just entertain the thought of becoming a writer. So please, offer criticism if you would enjoy to do so. You may also just enjoy silently reading on as I offer up my experiences and haphazard attempts at poignant meditations of God, life, love, learning and literature…and that is okay too. And so I say, goodnight!