i got a beautiful text message yesterday that read “made some gnarly fadeorade today and thought of you! miss you!” from someone i used to call my soulmate. we haven’t seen each other in years. it made me nostalgic for the time in my life when things seemed a lot simpler. living on dreams and financial aide and very few hours of sleep. lots of candy.

BOO

i most often dream of bears in my house trying to kill me.

or i dream i live under water. but not like a mermaid with a tail, we walk around like normal, just underwater.

A bear or large animal in your dreams represents a female authority figure in your life, or an emotional memory you don’t want to deal with. Bodies of water in your dreams represent huge emotions or uncertainty in your life you don’t want to deal with; the bigger the body of water, the bigger your fear. BUT being able to breathe underwater means you at least want to try.

so….that’s encouraging?

Right now I’m working full time and in school full time and also complaining full time. I’m reading and writing and studying a billion hours a day. But something that calms me and lets me emotionally and creatively vomit through the power of the typed word is this blog. And so I make myself write.

wow. so long ago.

i recently scrolled back through every blog i had posted on Facebook. the first one is from May 2006, and i was freaking out about graduating and leaving my friends and the life i had created there. i sound like a scared little tipsy lamb. i can still recognize my voice in those words, i can visualize myself typing it on my old yellow desk, swirling in my chair, listening to reggae music really loud, probably only wearing a bikini and its 10pm. but my thoughts and priorities are so different now.

the voice that sounds the same from that first post is the one going “do you have any idea what you’re doing with this life?”

I had just turned 22 when I wrote that first blog, and by 27, the age i am now, I was sure I’d have a husband and family. I do have a pet fish, and he’s doing okay, but that’s it. I live with two roommates who drive me bananas and I spend as little time possible here at “home.”

im a teacher, not the famous actress or rock star or novelist I had envisioned for myself. and i so did not see that one coming. but i think there is still time to get it all together, right?

like my recurring dream, history repeats itself. i come to the end or the beginning of something major, and i freak out and wonder if I’m doing it right. who’s to say? how will i know? hindsight is the only 20/20 vision i’ve got.

looking back at that desperate end-of-college blog, i was clueless and scared. but i was also excited and ready for a challenge. and it took me a while to pull something together. a lot of waiting tables, mistakes, regrets, tears, friends lost and then sometimes found again. but i kinda made life work.

I managed to see the world, help people near and far away from me, write for a newspaper, learn to like salads, and spend more hours a week on a beach than some people do in a lifetime. does that make it a successful life? i don’t know. would i do some things differently, given the chance to go back? Definitely. But I can also say that about eating the expired yogurt I had this morning.

but i know ill make it. i know that, Lord willing, I will be able to look at this blog post five years from now and smile, shake my head at 27 year old Rachel, and be able to trace the path that led me to wherever my future self ends up.

Oh man I will have to turn 32 one day to make that come true. YIKES.

The Future. Next Exit.

I hope there’s a potty.