So, what is it about summer that causes everything to suddenly be so lax, besides the lack of school? It seems like every single day of school when I head in, I’m raring to get out, excited to taste freedom once more, to do what I want to do. When I get out from school and into the vast pool of possibilities that summer brings, I find myself hitting an absolute dead end. I don’t know what to do, ever. I get stuck trying to figure out what exactly to do with my time. I spend it how I like, sure, but there are so many things I’d like to do but can’t get to since I can’t even drive in the first place.
I guess it’s sort of ironic, but I actually enjoy having a job. It’s nice to have my own leg to stand on, my own money to earn. I opened up three bank accounts too; one’s a Way2Save for that little overdraft cushion that I’ll need, and the other two are the standard checking and savings. What is it about a job and bank accounts that make me feel so important and alive, though? I guess it’s just the little fraction of management I’ve gained over my life, that little bit of independence that I get to stretch out and explore while I’m on my last year of high school, my last year of being a teenager. I’m almost legally an adult, and though responsibility won’t come rushing up to get me right then and there, it’ll certainly come marching up in an imposing manner.
I miss my girlfriend. I miss my friend, too. Both are a ridiculously far distance from me, but as the days go by, the distance seems smaller and the world also seems smaller. I’m recalling old stories of times past; the classic want to just dig to China one day, or to visit the Philippines to see what it’s like there, that want to just see the world. The dream itself changed, though. It changed greatly. I don’t want to see as much of the world as I once did, long ago. I just want to be able to stand by my girlfriend, hopefully in marriage. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, and maybe I’m hopelessly romantic, but all that matters to me is that I want to stick with her and live my life out with her. I don’t care if there are half a thousand miles between us, or if this is only my first relationship; a year, ten months, eleven days has gone into it since August 25th, 2009, around 11:00 P.M., when we started it in two different places, me on the porch of my grandparents’ beach house in the Outer Banks, her sitting in her house with another summer day past. I just feel like… Maybe it’s fate. Maybe this is the way I’m supposed to go. If this isn’t really what I’m meant for, life with her and me, then I don’t really know what the purpose is, and if I have to search for a new one past what I’m looking at because something goes wrong, it would take ages. I’m trusting my heart and going with her. I won’t regret it.
The school year ended a while ago. All of my friends just ahead of me are splitting up and going everywhere, all to vast and different locations. I loved them all. They inspired me to be me, and though sometimes I’d feel like they were all busy and I would just go to sit in the corner, away from everyone, it was still nice when I would get the time of day from any of them where others would just leave me to sit and contemplate on my own. Maybe I did get a little bit more difficult and weird towards the end of the year, but… They took me for me, at least. Maybe I hid a few tears from them, pushed away from them when it wasn’t the best thing to do, but they gave me space, let me air out for a bit, then checked back on me if I was still out of it, still keeping an eye on me even if I put up a facade and a smile and said everything was okay, when it wasn’t. I really will miss everyone. Each person leaves holes in my life that are really impossible to fill, and that is even more of a reason to push and try to fill them anyway. I want to use what I learned from all of them.
Soon, I’ll have to take my fall from the tree of support. What a weird metaphor. I’m like a dandelion seed, I guess, with my family like the stem. I’ve grown out from them, and now I need to drift along my own way, to find my own place to take root. I’ll float through college for four years, and that’s the last that any institution designed for education will hold me in terms of what I need to learn, and not what I want to learn. I want to be an interpreter for the Far East, to learn the languages of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This is a legit want, too. Not just because I want to understand some music or show, or be able to read some manga. I want to immerse myself in the different cultures to temper my understanding of the world. But it conflicts with my dream of settling down, too. I don’t know how comfortable my girlfriend would be with going places, changing areas every so often, uprooting just to move to a different area where I’m needed. If it were an easy and plausible career in this day and age, and had I the correct inspiration, I would gladly take up the banner in fine arts that I’ve always wanted to chase, but it just is, as heart-breaking as I consider it, difficult to maintain a career in music. I need steady income, and I’m not solid in math or science. I love languages, maybe not so much as music, but almost as much. Speaking different words than what I’m used to mystifies me. Being able to understand other people speaking the same words is incredibly gratifying. I guess life will see where I end up after college.
Religion. This topic has always been hanging at the back of my mind. One half of my family is very heavily Catholic. The other half, I am not quite so sure what they are. My immediate family all follow their own path. My brother is the only one out of us defined in a denomination of the church currently, having joined the Baptist faith. My mother has shown interest in joining a Unitarian church in the past. My father remains ambiguous to me in terms of what path he follows. What do I believe in? I can’t believe in a God that would discriminate against certain groups based on what actions they did, or what faith they follow, or what principles they were raised on, or how they lived their life. I can’t believe one religion is supreme to the other. I think that every system of faith or religion has a glimmer of truth hidden in it, some manner of philosophy that just happens to match with other doctrines of faith. It may be a starkly agnostic-seeming view, but I am, in a way, monotheistic. However, I believe that, if God were real, and if he were watching all of us, then no matter what we all acted like in life, fools or wise men, we all would end on an equal stage. I believe in the love of a forgiving God, and I refuse to fear him merely by merit of power or status. I believe that, if we were created, be it by a big bang, God’s hand, or any combination of the two, if there was a God involved, then he would have created us with nothing but love in his being. I’m not preaching that people should go and do whatever they want, however. I cringe at today’s society, one that seems to have less an less respect for the fellow human in interest of getting ahead. I myself am guilty of this line of thought too, but I do try to keep conscious and aware of what actions I perform and whether or not they are bad or good, gray moral area aside. I make it known to people if I don’t happen to like them, but I do still try to get along as cordially as possible, even when I become annoyed and bitingly sarcastic. Some people just seem to lack that manner of respect for others, barging around and taking what they like out of life for only themselves. It is a shame, but I believe that’s just another hook in the divine plan. Hopefully, in the end, everything will turn out alright.
All of my thoughts, a stream of consciousness, are impossible to record. I end this at 4:51 in the morning.
