Dreams of a Dying Star

I'm finally hitting that stage in my education where the future really matters. I have to think about exactly what I want to do, what I want to continue studying for, where I want to head and what will pay my bills and feed me. Ideally, I should have been thinking of this when I started college, not just going head first into junior year.

I spent a lot of time traveling in the world before this point. Australia, New Zealand, England and Wales. I loved the freedom of being out in the world, meeting all kinds of people, trusting all kinds of people, learning more than I thought I would from locals and just being out there. My time in England and Wales, showed me how much I did love my major and want to pursue a career in my field. I just have so little idea about how to go about that, and sitting in a classroom back in Ohio makes these aspirations fade again.

When I was little, throughout all phases of childhood there was one thing I always wanted to do. Travel. I wanted to be that person backpacking around the world. I wanted to be a photojournalist for National Geographic taking breathtaking photos in the most exotic of locations. But having traveled some, I hate that I have joined in the cliches of loving being home. If I wanted to be completely honest there is a specific reason that home holds me stronger than the wonders of the world and without it, there would be nothing keeping me from running away, if only to forget it.

However, outside that, talking it out with my lovely housemates, I realized, I don't need all the traveling to be happy. Sure I want to be able to travel, but I am happy having a stationary home to cuddle and watch my laptop in. I don't need a lot in life. Simplicity is golden and wonderful. All those childhood dreams of being like a comet, always moving, no destination only a journey, are dying away in me as I get older. I want to see the world, but I want to spend it at home sometimes too. I want that person beside me to share it all with yada yada cliche cliche cliche.

I think every year I come up with something else I want to do with my life. This type of thing scares me more than anything. How can I know when nothing sticks? The more I learn, the more that fascinates me, but never enough for a full career. I just give up on things as easily as I was drawn to them. To quote Elton John

"The more I learn, the more I see
The less the world impassions me
The hungry heart, the roving eye
Have come to rest, do not apply
The frantic chase, the crazy ride
The thrill has gone, I step aside"

 For all things college is supposed to be, it has been just a time of putting off the inevitable and a delay to me having to accept responsibility for a means to sustain and provide for myself. I don't know what I'm learning and I don't know what to do with it. People around me are meeting with employers, have plans, know where they're moving to continue school, and just know. I don't understand how they can or how they got there. I just go with the day and freak out the rest. I don't even have an official resume to go for any job. I can't even chose a topic for my term papers that are due next month.

All the dreams we're supposed to bring with s through our life. They weigh me down, more than boost me up. All the things I could be or could do just make me feel more burdened with finding the right fit and trying and failing or succeeding. They are condensing together and pulling my insides deeper and deeper in until I fall too far or they explode.

I don't know my future and for the first time, it scares the hell out of me.

A Budding Engineer

When I was younger I always wanted to be an engineer. I didn't really know the specifics of what kind was what, but I did want to build things like toys or awesome structures of immense proportions that took ones breath away and did many tasks. I believe this would be mechanical engineering.

So in the form of a young child, having a certain dream of course meant that I had to start work on it right then and there or it would never come true. I wasn't allowed around the power tools so the big projects were out. My vision was already crushed at a young age. I decided to use what I had and what I could con out of Grandma for whatever big project I was going to do. I managed to gather a lot of string that originally would have been used for those bead buddies. (You know, the lizards and other animals and things people would make.) I had some bandannas, beanie babies, blankets and whatever was in my room.

With all my supplies gathered I was ready to do something that I didn't know yet. I laid down in bed for the extremely long time of ten minutes. An eternity to a child but necessary to stare at what I had and think about the possibilities as well as going off to many other unrelated things for about eight minutes. After this, I finally had an idea. I was going to make a ski lift for the Beanie Babies that went across my room.

My dresser was exactly across the room from a window with curtain rods. My bed was underneath the window so my short stature could reach the curtain rod. Now it came to how exactly would it work. I had no idea how the real ones worked and I was too young to have learned about pulleys or any of the simple machines. At this point it was just problem solving.

First I went simple. I tied a string from one of the dresser handles up to the curtain rod. I had a track. I spent more time than was probably needed tying and retying it for strength and straightness, and a taunt line that didn't slack in the middle. Now I needed a cart. I used the bandannas and tied it up longways to the line. having no weight it just sat there. I wanted it to slid down but couldn't figure out why it wouldn't. This caused another ten minutes of staring and thinking about things probably like the book I had just read or something before I tried putting a Beanie Baby in the cart. This worked gloriously for me! It slid down the line, but then caused the line to bow in the middle. I needed a perfectly straight line. It was extremely important to me to have a straight line.

My anal attentiveness to the straightness of the line lent me to probably about ten more minutes of retying and pulling and retying and trying to outsmart gravity until it was acceptable to me. When it finally was. I added more Beanie babies and had to restart the entire dang process again. My tenacious impatience finally won and I decided to give up on that so I could just see it in action. I moved it up to the top of the line and watched it slowly slide down the line and stop and start at places. I was slightly annoyed at the imperfectness of the ride but I was ecstatic at the same time. I hopped off my bed grabbed it and slid it back up to do over and over and over again.

At this point I realized something. I was sick and tired of hopping up and down from the bed to grab the darn cart. Here was a new problem to solve. Thus began more staring. More thinking. In an eternity of five minutes I was able to reason out tying a second string to the cart to pull it back up with. A few test runs with this, proved inefficient as it just pulled the cart toward me and threatened to undo the string from the dresser. Then came the greatest brain storm ever. I slipped the string over the rod and pulled from there. It worked! The cart could slide up and down without me getting out of bed! I was so excited! I ran off to find someone to show it to.

I found Jaime.

As only a father can, he begrudgingly followed me to my room.

The only thing he had to say?

He yelled at me for bending the curtain rod horribly out of place from all the weight  and pulling on it. I never had even noticed it.

Grounded.