understanding.

am i living it right?

i've been thinking about this post for days. i always do when it comes to the hard stuff. it always makes me think a little more before i push the publish button. and it may sit as a draft for days before i can publish it.

but lately, i can't stop myself from wondering where my life is heading. i had life all planned out. then God knocked me down to my knees. i lost sight of where i was supposed to be focusing, and planned my future around a person, instead of where God wanted me to go. obviously, that didn't work out. then, i was okay. it was just me. and i had things going good. i had a whole other set of plans. then someone else walked into my life that changed my mind again. before the short time our lives were intertwined was over, i had my life going in another completely different direction.

now, it's just me again. and i graduate in about seven months. i will be drop-kicked into the real world after i hold my diploma in my hands. this is the time of my life when i'm supposed to be making all of the big decisions. all of my conversations about my future inevitably pose the question of what i'm planning after graduation.

and to be honest with you? i have no freaking idea. no clue. do i try to find a job and immediately jump into the market? do i postpone growing up some more and go to grad school somewhere? will i even make it to april 30, considering i may drive myself crazy before that point?

i don't know where my life is headed. that is the problem. because i don't have a plan, and i like to have a plan. but my bigger problem is that i know that God knows where i'm supposed to be, and eventually i will figure it out, but relying on that fact isn't reassuring. i'm scared, and i don't know what i'm going to be doing, and knowing that things will work out just isn't enough to make me feel better. i know i'm supposed to accept that God has a plan for me, but i also know that i'm not going to feel better until God lets me in on that secret.

not only am i questioning my future (and my sanity, sometimes) but i'm also losing my faith in love. it seems like everywhere i look, people that i could have sworn would be together forever are falling apart left and right. people that have been talking about marriage are doubting their relationships. it just seems like maybe there isn't real love out there after all. that maybe paramore is right, and that "maybe somewhere deep down i know that love doesn't last, and we need to find ways to be content with loneliness."

maybe it's my quarter life crisis starting early. maybe its just a stirring in my soul. either way, i wonder...am i living it right?

can't wait to get going, but not quite ready to leave.

i am not in a hurry to grow up. i like things poetic, and simple. i like going to bonfires, where the trees are silhouetted by the flames and the embers float up to flirt with the stars, bright against a midnight sky. Where the voices of your friends echo past the water and everyone is sticky from the melted marshmallow of the delicious smore goodness.

but it is ingrained in girls from birth that we are all supposed to grow up, have a fairy-tale type romance, get married, and live happily ever after in the american dream. we are fed disney movies, and from the time that we understand what is going on, we want that happy ending.

so it's no surprise that i'm reaching the point where my dreams of the future stretch past living on my own and experiencing freedom and proving to the world what i can do to finding that man, falling in love, and just living life. i want to fall in love. i want to pick out a diamond. i want to plan a wedding, to get married, to live happily ever after. to save up money to buy our own house. to have children and teach them the wonders of the world. to grow old with the one i love and carved my life out with.

it's looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. because i know that life doesn't always happen that way, and even if it looks that way from the outside, that it is never, ever easy.

but that's the age i'm at. my friends are getting married and having kids. they are picking out their diamonds. the television i watch, however infrequent it is that i turn it on, shows commercials that depict that vision.

and i don't feel this way all the time. i mean, the desire to have that life is there, but i don't always crave it all the time. some days i just feel it more than others. for example: laid-back saturdays like today, when i actually have time to turn on the tv.

and sometimes this is the biggest argument that God and i have. or, correction: that i have with God. because as He is telling me to trust Him, and that it will all work out in the end, i'm demanding explanations for the reasoning behind things that happen to me. i'm demanding timelines, and that isn't how God works. sometimes i'm so stubborn that i drive myself crazy.