Welcome to Holiday Cards

Call me old fashioned, but I love getting snail mail. No, not bills. I mean snail mail from friends and family. There's something about getting home after a long day and finding a letter in my mailbox.

I have a few friends who write me letters (and I write them back). We usually include a quick update on our lives, a few plans for the future, and the latest book we're reading. We still try to stay connected via social media and texting, but I love the feeling of pen to paper.

I like sending holiday cards to my family, especially the family I haven't seen in a while and I know I won't see before the end of the year. I include a quick update about my life. Sometimes I add in a few details about how my family is doing.

As I write these letters I start to realize how much has stayed the same and how much really has changed. Time seems to be slipping more and more away from me as I'm getting older. There are many days where I think that it was only last year that I was still at school, but really it's been nearly four years since I graduated.

I'm not going to lie, I can't wait to see what the future holds, but part of me can't let go of the past. Maybe it's because the adult world is a lot more complicated than young me ever realized. Time always seemed to move so slowly when I was a child. It felt like things would always be as they were. I don't think I knew any better.

"Time waits for no one." I don't remember who said this, but I remember it was in the movie Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The movie is about a young girl who suddenly discovers she can go back in time. Instead of using this power for anything heroic, she uses it to eat the pudding her sister stole from her and avoid awkward conversations with a boy she likes. In the end she realizes that she can't keep leaping through time and has to accept the past and move towards the future.

The past is the past and the future is going to show up sooner rather than later. As the years go on, my list of holiday card recipient is going to change and likely shorter. Nothing in life is preminant, even if I wish it was.

I hope everyone is having a good holiday season so far. Now I need to finish these letters, before I realize it's 2017.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Planning Things Out

If there's one thing about myself that I know for certain, it's that I always need a plan.Without one, I admit that I am a little prone to panicking. That's not to say that I can't be spontaneous and suddenly change my plans or decide that I don't feel up to what I was originally planning to do. I am able to do stuff like that.

It's just that I like to have a plan.

 A plan gives me goals. If I do this, then I know that will happen. It's a simple statement. Shame that the world isn't as simple. A more accurate statement would be: if I do this, then that is most likely what will happen next. Unfortunately I can't control the future, but I can attempt to minimize changes to my plans.

Plans and goals change. Just because I want something right this second, doesn't mean that I'm going to want it tomorrow. This can cause my plans to change. I don't like changing my plans too often, especially if they involve other people and responsibilities. It's not very considerate for one thing. For another, I personally don't like the erratic nature of deviating from my plans.

It's one thing if I change my own plans. It's another when things beyond my control change my plans for me. The weather is one of those factors that no one can control. If I plan on going to the beach next weekend and it thunderstorms, I guess I have to chance my plans because going to the beach in a thunderstorm does not sound like a fun activity. The exception to that might be if I were an extreme surfer and even that's questionable.

The weather, illness, the washing machine exploding are all things that I can't always plan for. The weather person is sometimes way off. Illness can strike at anytime. I don't think anyone actually believes their washing machine will explode until it actually does. I can do things to minimize the risk of these things happening (check the weather reports for the week, wash my hands, pay attention to that odd clanking sound during the gentle cycle), but I can't predict everything.

I like having a plan. It gives me some sense of security and a purpose. It allows me to reach my goals in various steps. I might not be able to see the future, but you can bet I'll have three or four plans ready for whatever comes next. Unless that future is a hostile dolphine take over. I don't have a plan for that one yet.

Until next week...

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome To Driving In The Rain At Night

Its a better metaphors for the future than I Thought

So I just got home (yeah I know, way after my bed time for a Sunday) and its raining. It's dark, hard to see the road and everyone seems to loose the ability to make good driving decisions. It can be a really stressful and I have to be able to react at a moments notice. Driving fast is also not an option as the chance of an accident greatly increases. This is not much like trying to plan for the future.

I have a very limited idea as to where I will be and what I will be doing six months, let alone a week, from now. Oh I can sort of visualize a few things that are coming up (moving to NJ is now set in stone), but I don't know if the universe is going to change directions, go into a tight curve and have me go over the edge of a cliff. 

I really hope not, but I don't put anything past the universe anymore. It loves to mplay so with me. All I can do is hope that I react in time to prevent disaster.

After many years of driving experience, driving at night in a torrential downpour doesn't faze me. However moving far away from the two cities I grew up around does. It's new and strange. I don't feel like I'm in control of my life.

I just have to take a deep breath, pay attention and trust my instincts (they're usually right). Wish me luck. I'll check in next week. It will be my last in post in Maryland.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you like hearing from me. Until next week.

Welcome To Crystal Balls

The future is always cloudy...

I am aware of the fact that today is Monday, not Sunday. I completely forgot yesterday was Sunday yesterday. If I had realized I was going to forget it was Sunday, I would have written this on Saturday and timed it to go out today. One of the many whoes of not being psychic. 

It would make life easier if I could see into the future (or at least the bad stuff that could/might/is likely to happen) that way I could be prepared. I like being prepared, it makes me feel more secure and in control in a time I couldn't possible feel less secure or in control. Its like the universe wants me to loose my mind or something. 

Oh I can make plans and then completely forget the plans. That's when I make it up as I go.

Or I make plans and something else happens to change those plans. That's when I curse out any plan making I had done and swear to never make any plans again. 

Then there are the days that I don't have plans and a floating ball of annoying light tells me to go somewhere, I get completely lost on my way there, countinuously fall into a river until I realize I need a chicken to help me fly over the river, accidently hit the chicken with my sword and finally death by angry chicken (this last one might be from Zelda: Ocarina of Time).

True the chickens aren't called chickens in Zelda, but they look like chickens, they act like chickens, therefore they are chickens. Really annoying chickens.

Of course, if I did know what the future had in store all of life's little wonders would be spoiled. As much as I want to know everything will eventually be alright, I don't want any spoilers. Yeah this coming from someone who loves to know how everything ends before it even begins. Fine I admit that I'm incredibly impatient and have a burning desire for "Happily Ever After", but my gut tells me things will be okay. The little details are still a mystery.

I will plan to post next week, but no promises. They are way too easy to break.

If you enjoyed this post, or it really pissed you off, please like, share or comment. I enjoy hearing from my readers. Until next week.

Welcome To Your Identity

 It's Never What You Think...

I was thinking about writing about my war on UPS this week, but then bunch of odd coincidences happened that have caused this post to steer in a completely different direction. I don’t know if anyone else who is a recent graduate is going through this, but I am finding the more people I talk to, the more they also feel uncertain about their future. I am not just talking about losing a job or going through a tough time. I mean that there is a whole future ahead of them and they have no idea what to do with it. 

I have come to the conclusion that I have no idea who I am and who I want to be. I know who I was in college and high school. Heck I may have had a small identity crisis when I was seven (I somehow never realized until then what gender I actually was). From that small stepping stone I was able to shape who I was up until middle school. When high school started I decided that I didn’t care anymore what people thought about me. I tried to keep my head down and concentrate on my studies (anyone heard of the IB program?).  I did manage to make a small name for myself senior year by becoming the head of the Model United Nations Club. It was stressful and fun. 

My college identity was fairly similar to my high school one. I was somewhat unconcerned with my (nonexistent) reputation and I wanted to focus on my studies. I did have to get my ego deflated a little bit, but I tried to just enjoy my time and not flunk out. College was great for self exploration and sometimes I wish I had done more. Now I’m just not sure what I want or who I want to be. 

Alright I sometimes imagine myself as future queen of the world, but it’s just a fantasy. I don’t think I would like the lime light. I over analyze myself way too much; I don’t need the media to add to it. 

At the moment I would describe my mental state as standing at a crossroads on a foggy night without a flashlight (though I'm not there to make a deal with a devil). I know where I am and where I came from, but I have no idea which direction I should take or where it might lead. I would also compare myself to Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. I find I take myself way too seriously and nothing seems to go the way I plan. Luckily I also have a great group of people who have my back. 

I hope to eventually get my bearings and blaze a trail for my life. I just don’t want to wake up one day and realize that life has totally passed me by. At the same time I don’t want everything planned out so that I never have anything spontaneous happen. I need a balance of both. As my uncle said, "sometimes I wish I was five years old again and could get on my bike and just ride without a care in the world."

I think all of these introspective posts are happening because a lot of things have been going on. I've started meditating and it is helping me calm down and clear my mind. Thank you all for reading. I hope this helps someone other than myself.