life goes on

our assignment tonight was to think about a narrative passage we might include in our book. then to take a "philosophical tangent." our passage was to start with "This much I know is true..." the prof told me that what i had written was extraordinary! i am still floating. :) after class he reiterated that it was remarkable. he was really impressed. *blush* here's what i wrote and read in class:


This much I know is true: life goes on. The problem with not knowing what you want is that life goes on—ready or not.

I don’t know what I expected after having been gone for seventeen years, but I certainly didn’t expect to return home to find my friends middle-aged.

I was the one who had had it rough: I was the one who wandered and wondered. I was the one who had moved more than once a year for the last seven years. I was the one who had lost two jobs due to downsizing in the last two years. I was the one who leaped before I looked. I was the risk taker. Wasn’t that supposed to age me?

I had gone to seek fame and fortune—or at the very least, more excitement than one could find in Letart. To find a mate—a good looking son of a gun who didn’t care that I couldn’t cook but was impressed with the number of miles I had traveled and the things I had seen. Someone more than the “good ole boys” I had known since first grade.

I moved home, jobless and still single. I came back with my tail tucked between my legs and my head hanging low, but with a lifetime of memories and an address book full of friends. I thought those I left behind would be…what? Still twenty years old? Still fresh faced without a care in the world? Well, yes. They who had reached their life-long goal of getting married and having children. They had their families, their mortgages, their mini-vans. What in the world could have aged them? They knew what they wanted and had gotten it. I expected to find them just as I had left them.

I came home to find divorce, grandparents, death, joblessness. And I found they were as surprised by my stories as I was by theirs.

The problem with reaching your life-long dream so early is that life goes on.