Winding down.

All things considered, I'm having a lovely second-to-last week in my adopted home town; my friend Ben is visiting me all the way from Alabama, I'm watching copious amounts of World Cup football and overdosing on Wimbledon when on the internet, and I'm communicating lots with my family in Europe arranging my trips to visit them. It looks like my life will be made easiest if I just wait to book flights to see Sylvie and Eddie until I'm in England with my Uncle Peter; they can better instruct me on how to get from place to place.

I'm feeling listless and a little frightened about my future, which I think is to be expected after spending five years as a student, only to have that identity yanked from you once you've finished your studies. When I remember that come August I won't be returning to UAH for classes in Morton and Roberts Hall, I'm put a bit off-balance, but I think that ultimately this transition away from academia and into the world is good for me. When I was eighteen I had such a clear idea of what I wanted to do once I graduated; grad school was a certainty, not only in pursuit of a masters in English or history, but maybe even a PhD, and a future in a classroom surrounded by maps and textbooks and faculty meetings, etc. It is incredibly ironic to me that now at age twenty-three, with some considerable life experience at my disposal that should have given me more direction, I have less of an idea of what I want to do with my life than when I started out as a kid. I don't have the head for a masters or PhD program in history or literature--at least not right now--and I don't want to spend the rest of my life thinking about paper deadlines, critical book reviews, or whether or not my historical and literary analysis can compete with my colleague's. I don't want to look in the mirror every morning feeling as though my self-worth is entirely dependent on which institution published my dissertation... and more importantly, I'm not sure I have it in me to spend years on just one research subject. The anxiety and pressure of writing just one honors thesis was enough to render me completely immobile mentally; I think going after a dissertation would be an absolute disaster for me.

I guess there are simple things I want to do once I get home. I'd like to learn to garden; I'd like to get better at cooking and expand my spice rack; I'd like to get some serious work done on my writing project; I'd like to get involved in St. Thomas's in Huntsville; I'd like to swim in the Tennessee river, and go down to the Gulf to see if I can help clean up the filth on the beaches where I used to play as a child. I want to do things with my hands that produce a visible, tangible result. I'd like to leave more things to chance.

Just for a little while, I want to live a life without deadlines and less certainty. I think it will be good for me.