now what?

If I believed in karma, I would never have children. Because, boy, would I be in for some doozies. When I was a wee lass, I was... terrifying. My parents deserve medals and my babysitters deserve so much more than the five dollars an hour they were paid for having to deal with me.

Let's just say, I've never been a very patient person. Like.. at all. This is probably why I enjoy driving so fast. And why traffic is my own personal version of hell.

Of course, being an impatient person living in this day in age can be pretty exhausting. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that teleportation devices and knowledge-filled-brain-disks make an appearance while I'm still alive so I can experience the wonders of never having to wait for anything. But in the interim, I guess I'll just have to accept the idea of 'later'.

Like I said, that's never been a word I really enjoy hearing. 'Now' is much more preferred.

I want that dress now. My stomach wants food in it now. I could use that job right about now. How about we drop everything, act on an impulse and get that tattoo now? It's like the word 'later' never even shows up as a blip on my brain's radar. So this whole 'figuring out what I want to do with my life later on down the road' has always been something I'd rather not give much thought to.

Until now.

Because now I'm only 13 credits away from graduating from university (hallelujah). And now I'm almost 24 and still living with my parents. And now it's finally struck me that I may actually be a little bit of an adult. So later is approaching a lot faster than I thought.

Later used to be this far off place where dreams come true and money just appears in bank accounts and I always look really stylish and have a Julia Roberts laugh... Later was a place where I was a successful fill-in-the-blank who lived in a really cool city and life was a grand adventure.

Don't get me wrong, now ain't too shabby. I mean, I have a great job that allows for plenty of adventures, fantastic friends and I'm working really hard on that Julia Roberts laugh.. it still sounds a little forced, but it's coming along ;)

But now I have to start factoring in later. If I want to be a successful fill-in-the-blank (which has all of a sudden become 'high school teacher slash author' -- who saw that coming?? Probably everyone but me..), I'll need to put in the time and effort... and patience. Gah! There's that word again! And yet, for once in my life, I'm actually looking forward to the process. I'm staring down the barrel of the gun, so to speak, that is my unknown future and I'm not freaking out. I have a legitimate plan that isn't wishy-washy or airy-fairy and I'm putting it into action now.

Granted, this plan literally came into being about a week ago, but I've never felt so at peace. The plan, of course, being that I finish my undergraduate, go to teachers college and eventually become a high school English teacher (with maybe some drama and history classes thrown in as well). This job would not only allow me to be involved in the lives of dozens of teenagers everyday (something I'm actually looking forward to - I may need to be checked into the nearest asylum), but it would give me the ability to be a writer as well. And, the drama geek in me would probably try to use the summers off to be in as many plays as possible too.

As usual, I'd still like to treat this plan like something that I've penciled in for my life story, whereas God still has complete control over what'll be written in stone, but it feels so cool to actually have an answer for that perpetual question: now what?

That being said, it's now past midnight and my body and my brain are telling me it's a good time to hit the hay, so I think I'll do that. I just hadn't blogged in a really long time, and with the whole new 'life goal' constantly being on my mind, I thought I might as well share it. Next blog post I'll try to talk about something more interesting and relevant to the world.. like, say, the Avengers. (life changing!!) ...But until then,

Keep it real!