Mantra

"I just want to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Well, we'll have to see what we can do."

"I've been here for seven years--I don't know how much longer I can stand it." I was sitting in my advisor's office at school. He was munching on little red bell peppers and I was fighting back hysteria.

"Let's take a look at your transcript," he said.

For half an hour we chatted about classes and internships and grad school applications while he created a master schedule for me.

"So, it's a tall order but if you don't mind crazy work loads, it looks like you can be done in Spring 2015." [Sam (that's my advisor's name) does this thing where he kind of shrugs with his whole body--his shoulders come up, his arms flop over, his head tilts sideways, and his eyes get really wide, all at once. Usually when he's saying "so."] He full-body shrugged throughout this pronouncement.

"You know, I think I can handle a full schedule in the summer. Could that help? Could I do it by Fall 2014?"

"Well--"shrug"--It's possible, but I don't recommend it." Shrug. "Some people do it, but since it's a block schedule, it's a lot of work in a short space of time." Shrug.

I sighed. "I've been here for so long. I just want to move on with my life."

"I know. But if you think about it, figuring out what you want to do with your life is kind of a big deal. Your education is kind of a big deal. And in the grand scheme of things, seven, eight, nine years is not a lot of time when you're going to be working for the next forty, fifty years of your life. No two people are the same, and the educational process is different for everybody. I say it takes as long as it takes. If you finish in four years, great. If you finish in ten years, great; you've learned a lot. It takes as long as it takes, and you shouldn't worry about it."

It takes as long as it takes...


I thanked him, wrapped up the meeting, and wandered down the hall to a bank of unoccupied chairs. Normally, such a statement would have driven me crazy.

It takes as long as it takes?! Pah! I should be done by now! I should be long gone! I should be running wild through the Scottish lowlands, being all international and independent and free from the burden of the last ten years of my life! It takes as long as YOUR FACE!

But that day, those were the exact words I needed to hear.

It takes as long as it takes. I'll finish when I finish. I have my whole life ahead of me to worry about my life, about bills and jobs and seeing the world. I'm here now and that's that. This is my situation and I can live through it gracefully or I can squander my time feeling sorry for myself, pining after a future that isn't certain anyway. So, live gracefully it is.

With this new philosophy fresh in my mind, the next few days were different--brighter, easier, more comfortable. And then I realized that I was falling in love with someone who had just fallen in love with my friend. And a fresh wave of lonely impatience rose up and razed my newfound confidence.

Seriously? Again, Aubrey? You're really good at this. At this rate, you'll be 65 when you get married.

I'm pretty sure I can't recognize flirtatious behavior. Or maybe I have really bad timing. Or maybe I don't know myself very well. Whatever the problem is, three times in the recent past I've fallen in love and realized it too late. Three times I've decided to risk everything on a guy the second after he picked someone else. Three frickin' times I've been shy and emotional and slow on the uptake, and then when I finally think, yeah, maybe this is it, maybe it's my turn to belong to someone, to have comfortable conversations about mundane things, to hold hands, I turn around to face this possibility and he's holding someone else's hand, tracing patterns on her palm.


Three times I've looked on and thought, if only I'd realized it sooner, I could have prevented this. But that's wrong. Prevented what? Prevented happiness? Prevented two wonderful people from developing a loving relationship? Prevented an eternal marriage, that thing so precious and sacred? In my selfishness and my cowardice, I would prevent all of that so that I wouldn't feel passed by, because I thought it was my happiness, my relationship, my late-night talks about the possibility of us.

I completely missed the point. Three times I was so far off the mark that I couldn't see this invaluable truth: it takes as long as it takes. I'm still here, I'm still alive, I haven't died of a broken heart. In fact, I have a pretty good thing going (except that my new pants smell like mothballs and it's driving me CRAZY). Obviously it isn't my turn yet, and that's okay. Really, I'm okay with that. I know that I have so much to learn and so much to do and so much to give. If I can't graduate for another year and a half, that's fine. I'll survive. If I don't find a boyfriend in the next fifteen years, that's okay. I'll survive. I'll keep learning and doing and giving and receiving so much in return and trusting in my Heavenly Father and cultivating lasting relationships because that's what's really important.

And everything else? Well, it takes as long as it takes.

~~~

Recorded 9/14/13

Tongue-tied

I wrote about two pages of drivel in Miss Fix-It and deleted a couple of versions of this post.  I can't write about anything right now; words escape me.

Just know that I am happy right now.  I might have missed my chance with a wonderful boy, but this time I'm not going to let it destroy me.  Every painful experience harbors great change in its wake.  The new semester is right around the corner, and, provided I convalesce from this recent bout of stupidity, I have fourteen spectacular weeks ahead of me.

Who knows what they will bring?

~~~

Unsuccessfully recorded and consequently disregarded 1/7/12

And I Didn't Even Pack a Lunch

I pushed the snooze button for almost an hour this morning.  I laid in bed for another 40 minutes after that.  I was tired, my lungs kinda burned, it was a chilly October morning and my sheets were snuggly and bodywarm, and I kept thinking about my inevitably long, lonely walks down the hallways at school today.  Eventually I decided enough was enough, and I scrambled out of bed and set it back up, tetrising the pillows into an acceptable pattern and instructing Madeline to stand guard.  Since I didn't have any oatmeal or pancake mix, I settled for Cocoa Puffs -- the ones I bought just for the Kung Fu Panda toy inside.  I read the first chapter of Daughters In My Kingdom, rinsed my breakfast bowl, rinsed my dinner bowl from last night, took a shower, packed my backpack, put on some eyemakeup, and was out the door by 9:50.

I missed the bus.

Actually, saw the bus.

I try not to look over my shoulder when I'm running late because doing so inevitably summons the demon while I'm still a mile off, but I did.  I looked over my shoulder, turned my head ever so slightly at the sound of a passing Fed Ex van, then followed through on the impulse to see if the bus was coming.  There, on the not so distant horizon was the strip of aged white forehead sign and bug eye glass windshield, the symbol of my impending doom.

I picked up the pace, walked a little bit harder, half hoping I could make it.  I almost convinced myself when it stopped by the dollar store, and again by Down East.  But the bus approached the library just as I did.  It sat at a red light while I fought the urge to dash across State Street between the cars, behind the crosswalk.  Then it pulled up to the stop, and I watched from the other side of the intersection as it loaded the passengers and drove away.

I barely missed it.  If I had arrived less than a minute earlier, I would have caught the bus.  If one thing in my morning routine had been different, say if I had left my bed unmade or let my tuna bowl sit in the sink; if I had left off the makeup or not washed my hair, I would have been at that bus stop with enough time to complain about how the stupid thing is always late.

Instead, I stood lamely on the corner of missed opportunity and chatted idly with a stranger about student insurance and dental work.

~~~

Recorded 10/14/11

"Walking the Last Bridge Alone"

I mentioned earlier that I felt better.


That was before.


Actually, I'm worse now than I was last semester.
...


Yeah.
...

So.
...

...

Meg asked me tonight, "What's your problem?" And I sobbed and said, "I don't know."


I don't know what my problem is. I don't know why it's getting worse. I'm sure I would if I thought about it, but I don't want to think about it. I don't want to start poking around only to discover that it's far worse than I thought and I'll never be cured and I'll live my life NOT as a lobsterman's wife, but as some poor, crazy sap at a loony bin who never finds love and then escapes to collect grocery bags into a stolen cart and scream at people when they get too close to her corner.


There is something seriously wrong with my mind.

Harvey Is My Dear Departed Car, By the Way

I dug this up out of the debris in the top drawer of my dresser. I don't know whether it's worth anything, but I feel like I should share it.

Flawless blue melts seamlessly to sun's favorite yellow, green feels completely neglected.

We agreed that normalcy, oddly enough, exists near that shack in the PG cemetery.

Bodies so imperfect cannot contain pure contentment for more than a few dusk lit moments.

As night crept onward, we went back to Harvey and hammered out the details of our relationship.

We didn't stick around long enough to see the troubled moon. Absence forges biased thoughts, and two long years and two odd weeks have kept us wandering.

Chained only by my empty sighs and pent up ambition.

I know I won't feel the same way in the morning, so Harvey and I stare down the troubled moon, watching it slip through jigsaw clouds.




I still haven't made up my mind, and the sprinklers came on to chase me inside.

And I will add, enigmatically enough, that people change and circumstances change and things have changed and I have moved on. Nevertheless, this week I was drawn to (and perhaps I connected with) the idea of barely missed opportunity.