THE Year

And I think to myself: this was supposed to be my big year!  The year I got off my butt and did all those Big Things, made plot points in my life, etc., etc.... and now I can't because I have fallen completely on my butt and it will be a long while before I'm up again.  For a youngin like me, it seems like forever.  Now I can barely work to make enough money to go do those Big Things, and my computer is next to broken.

When I think these things, I get really antsy.  And then sad in another antsy sort of way.  I just want to run out the door and sieze the branches of the trees and send myself flying into the realm of success and dreams, but then I can't - I'm stuck in bed or hobbling around for another long while until my leg gets strong enough again.  

Woe unto Jessica.  

Then I roll my eyes: I sure do get whiny about the stupidest little things.   

The truth is, every year has always been THE year.  Something, usually lots of things, always happen to me, and/or I go do things that change my life, whether I realize it right away or not.  If that wasn't so I would still be teetering along in baby ballernia classes and spending my days gluing dried beans onto popsicle sticks for some reason (however, it's entirely possible that my habits have simply evolved to take on the appearance of age-appropriate sophistication).  Every year things happen, and I grow and change and I become a lame beggar (who blogs) sitting on her (air mattress) bed in her (parent's) house who starts to complain and then decides to marvel at how life and the world and God work instead.  Everything has always lead to something else, everything yucky is always working out for some other good - I've tracked these things, it's crazy - and every time my life is about to reach a plateau, Tarzan swings in and crashes destructively through, throwing everything up in the air.   And by Tarzan, I mean the Fist of God or something.  Gentle, but really scary.

At the glorious mead-guzzling age of 21 I'm young and impatient - I wanted to go to work with wolves this year!  This was going to be my break, the thing I always wanted to do, the thing that is going to prove to the world that I can do what I bloody well want, and cry those tears of blood and sweat because I had finally, finally taken the rope of my future into my own hands, thrown the grappling hook perfectly, and dextrously hauled myself up to the tower of my dreams.

Instead, I tore up my knee last Thanksgiving and I'm left recovering from surgery for half the year, unable to work the way I had planned to so I could save the money I would need to pay for my room and board for the internship I've lusted after for five years now, always putting it off for a lovely "someday."

I actually came up with a HUGE list of goals for 2012 - initially.  It's depressing to look at it now.  (I'm depressing - oh, another Eeyore sort of day I guess.)  I attempted in the first week after surgery to work on everything all at once (that was possible to do while sitting down), justifying that I am ADHD and this must be the best way to work, ignoring all of the other times I (and my parents) have tried this in my life:  if there are a lot of things, but they are planned for specific days at specific times, IT STILL DOES NOT WORK. 

This helped me narrow things down; it was actually useful to try it all and then realize what I truly wanted to be doing most of the time and what I would rather do only occasionally.  This second week I've been employing the "do what you want when you want to" rule and it's working out splendidly: I've narrowed all the everythings down to five goals (with their reasons, a la this blog post):

1.  Learn Spanish - for future travel in Spanish-speaking countries

2.  Learn Chemistry - for better understanding of ecology and DNA (I want to be learning Chemistry??  WOW, this is new) 

3.  Create College Rebellion - a community with a wide range of resources based off of my Life Without College blog.  This dreadfully depends on this SOPA and PIPA thing, which I recommend you go call your senators about.  -  for the purpose of helping more people and perhaps making money as an online business someday

4.  Learn to Draw - to illustrate my stories and for personal enjoyment and benefit

5.  Write new stories and edit the ones I've already written - for The People.  (i.e., I love telling stories and would love to share them worldwide someday, along with their corresponding illustrations once I can figure out shading!!  Bah humbug!)

And as this list came into fruition I realized: every day can be THE Day of My Life.  You fill life with a million little "aha" moments and you get art, wired substance reaching to a thousand hearts, almost suddenly, what-will-you-do-with-your-hands (I never know what to do) and there is your life, every second of it is that second, and there it happens...

What.  What can I do with this second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, in that order?  So what if I want to know everything?  All I have is the position of the sun or the moon in the sky and not a moment before or after.