My Life

Here's what darkens my heart: misery, despair, an intense longing for all that I have lost and all that might have been. Regret for not speaking up, about many things. Regret for never having the courage to admit how I felt, how I feel, and instead watching it all blow away.

Here's what lights me up: books, literature, writing, bookshelves, quills, horse paintings, sun-warmed leather chairs in a library, the moon and stars, the smell of a new book. The comfort of curling up with a novel, hot chocolate, and looking out the window and seeing horses grazing in a field. Knowing I am surrounded by all the things I love, and being secure in that knowledge that it will not be taken from me.

Life isn't giving me any choice about what I truly want in life. Some of the biggest decisions I should have made were made for me by circumstances. I had to go with the default choice because there wasn't any other. My entire life has been about following a path, not forging one.

Life keeps giving me battles I must fight and survive in order to find me. But I don't know what those battles are. Are they the challenge of figuring out who I want to be with? Are they the challenge of working for an incompetent, controlling supervisor and sexist boss? Or are these all smaller, unimportant battles, and the real one is discovering why I respond to them the way I do in order to understand who I am?

I just survived my first day of online college! Woo hoo! Yay me! Three more years to go.