With a college graduation date looming and uncertainty constantly running through my head like my blood through my veins, I find myself forced to decide what I want. That certainly seems easy enough, a simple question. It is true, there are simple questions in this life – questions like, chocolate or vanilla? (for me, chocolate without a doubt), do you want to fall in love? (yes, and I am waiting – at times not so patiently), would you like fries with that? (of course), would you rather be hot or cold? (definitely, I would rather be –”) Hold up. No, that is not a simple question at all. It is much like the current question facing me upon my chartered wave of mustered confidence that I hope seamlessly delivers me to a more stable state of adulthood.
The intricacies of the hot/cold question have always fascinated me. People often respond something like, “Well, I’d rather be cold, because then at least I can cover up with layers and warm myself up.” However, that sort of response does not answer this particular question at all. The precise question is which state do you find more bearable? We must consider this regardless of possible ways of escaping said state or improving upon it. A state is something stable and unchanging in and of itself. Changing from one state to another is entirely possible due to the forces of the world surrounding us, but I am concerned now with choosing a state that is most adequately equipped to remain in light of changing landscapes. With this in mind, the hot/cold question really does not seem simple anymore. These states are unchanging – hot is always hot. It cannot become cold, because that is an entirely different state altogether.
The same analysis of the hot/cold question must be applied to my current situation. To answer the question of “What do I want out of life?”, I would have to provide some sort of roadmap filled with a list of accomplishments, all of which are subject to enablement or disablement by the everchanging possibilities that inevitably accompany any future. It is again not so simple. Instead I must answer a different, more precise question – What do I want to be? By answering this, I can strive towards a stable state of being that is able to roll with the possible punches of the future.
After much – well, actually – after not all that much consideration, I have discovered that I wish not to become anything, but to regain and remain something I have always had within me. I wish to retain the spirit of who I was at the beginning of this whole thing (the fantastic, maddening, and inspiring thing called life), and that is a child.
I do not want to grow up. Doing so is too often associated with a loss of childlike wonderment and insatiable curiousity about our surroudings. So in order to remain a child and also to regain some of that spirit I may have already began to lose, I am making a promise to the me of my youngest years that I will find her again, learn from her, and never try to improve upon her enlivened view of the world within her childlike state. I owe this to her, afterall, she made me who I am. In order to do this, over the next few months I will engage in childlike behavior with the enthusiasm of my earlier self. I will reflect upon the wisdom that can be gleaned from this state of being. I have already known these things that are available for me to learn through this, so I guess it will be a time of rediscovery. On the verge of growing up, I am packing up and taking everything that got me this far along with me.
