Spring = Renewal & Hope

Contributor: Speak Coffee

I hope I'm not being too optimistic.

I am genuinely an optimistic person. Inside of me, down in the deepest, darkest part of my core I believe in the good of the world. That things will work out when you strive to see them work. That good things happen to people who try to do good themselves. That the passionate find their passion. And that the energy around you is the energy you have sought to attract. I believe that if I believe in a positive future I will live some form of that future.

That said, speaking aloud specifics of my optimism scares the shit out of me.

Maybe it's superstitious of me. Maybe I'm afraid of jinxing things. Maybe I'm afraid of stating the future and then failing to achieve it to the nth degree I described.

One way or another, I can't sit down and say it's beginning. I'm beginning to live the life I want to live. Good things are happening to me. Because I am utterly afraid of being stripped of the good and called a liar.

It's much easier to complain about what one doesn't have than humbly rejoice with the world. Public rejoicing is distinctly hard to be humble about.

But I guess all this is just a tangent. The truth is that things have been working out okay for the time being: I got in to an MFA program (a good one that I really wanted to go to); I'm not going to have to mortgage my soul to pay for the program; I may have an in on nice housing; I may (but most likely won't) have an absolutely fabulous roommate from college to live with; I've been making money subbing as a secretary in the school system here; and I've been writing.

Okay so I've been writing really random pulp fiction but yea! for variety. Boo! for not finishing any of it. I've been submitting stories but it's all one or two stories that I finished before the start of the year. Truth be told I haven't finished a short story since New Years. Which is awkward as I have four started and unfinished in that time period.

I've also gotten into the MFA program for the fall, talked to the professor in charge of the fiction side of the MFA, talked with the graduate director once and now need to talk with her again, but through all this I remain unenrolled. I don't have classes signed up for, I don't have a student ID number, I'm not getting obnoxious amounts of mail from various departments at the university ... and it's making me anxious. Hopefully that will resolve itself this coming week, as I feel like I'm counting my chickens by telling people that I'm going next fall when their computers don't say that I'm going.

I'll still feel "up in the air" until I'm enrolled, and once I've done that I'm certain I'll feel "unsettled" until I find a place to live in my new city. Once I'm "settled" I'll have to deal with "first day at school" syndrome as well as "new kid on campus" -- although I've always liked being on new campuses and rarely have had any trouble finding myself at home in those places. But my point is that if it's not one thing it's another. As soon as one question is answered another one presents itself. We sit around saying if only I had this answer I'd feel okay, I'd feel happy, but when we get that answer we're nervous about something else.

My life is going well, it's even sounding like the future is going to go well for me, but I'm still nervous about all of it. I'm still wondered about the unanswered questions.

Pat Yourself on the Back: I Think I Need an Upper.

So far I have carried the least weight on this blog when it comes to inspiring posts. While this may not be the most original of ideas, I think it will be fun for us.

A lot of our Lost Year revolves around failure - around those plans and ideas we had about Real Life that just went down the toilet. And, let's face it, it's not fun to write about your failures all the time. So tell me: what have you done, whether it be from the beginning of your Lost Year or from just earlier today, that you're proud of? That makes you feel accomplished? And I mean in even the tiniest, smallest of ways - or the big fat ways, if that's what floats your boat! (Floating....big and fat....oh, I'm awful.)

Write down as many things as you want, anything that you want - from "Ohmycrap I figured out what I want to do with my life!!!" to "I tried mussels today, and I didn't like them just like I knew I wouldn't (and I spit them all over the table) but dammit at least I tried them!"

Too bad I still haven't had the guts to try eating a mussel. Slime + food = just doesn't sound pleasant.