I Think I’m Thinking

There is just no turning back now.

Have you ever got an idea in your head that eats you alive until you fulfill it? I’m getting to that point.

I can accept that the person I have been for the past month has been a product of the grandiose changes in my life, but I’m not going to let anyone tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing or understand what I’m thinking because of those changes-because of this “hard time” I’m going through. Irrationality is common after break-ups, I know; and I can admit that I have made some irrational choices lately, but I don’t think every bit of my thoughts and actions are entirely irrational.

In fact, I think that I am thinking for the first time in my life. I know that probably makes no sense; maybe none of this post makes sense, but I just have to admit this: I was living life so conventionally. I read the Bible and sang hymns in a Southern Baptist church; I graduated high school with honors; I went to a four year university in my home state; I dated my high school sweetheart for all my young adult years

…. and I expected to have a ring on my finger within the next year, a job that is relevant to what I busted my rear studying for the past four years, and eventually a family and house of my own.

And all that is changed. I know, I know; you can still have that, Amber. You’re going to find someone who deserves you and gives you all that and more. Here’s the thing, I don’t know how much I want that anymore. I have a friend that refers to this as the “cookie-cutter lifestyle”. I guess because it’s been done before and can be done again no matter how many batches of dough are thrown on the table; of course, the domestic implications probably have something to do with the reference too. I’m not saying that I don’t want a husband, or a job, or a family and house one day! I’m just realizing how much of that “American dream” I was seeping into with all my life assumptions. I don’t have to have that right now. Heck, maybe I don’t even have to have that. Maybe. I’m also not criticizing anyone who wants this pattern of life; there is absolutely nothing wrong with it if it’s what makes you happy. But I don’t know if that’s what is going to make me happy. In fact, I think the thing that will make me happy is finding out what will make me happy.

I completely enjoyed my time over Thanksgiving break with my family-I love those people with every piece of my heart, but every time I go home (and I mean to my hometown, more than just my house) I get an annoying, itching nerve to get out. For awhile, I thought, it’s just hard right now being around all the memories made around here  (I’m mostly referring to the ones I made with Jon), and it will get easier as time goes on. And though it is true that it will probably get easier to be in those places and see those faces, I don’t think the urge to get out of Mississippi is going anywhere.

Would it be terrible to explore some wilderness? To travel? To work a few different jobs? To meet a whole lot of people, and people that don’t exactly think and feel like I do?