Life 101

What is it about life events that make us feel like we are still beginners? After 22 years of speaking English, attending Sunday mass, singing with confidence, reading history books and math books and biology and geography and physiology books, and then writing and writing, seeing new places and unfamiliar people and forcing myself out of my comfort zone to befriend them for my own benefit, seeing my parents every single day for so many of those years and then just every so often for the past 4, and trying to decide where I fit and where God sees me and comparing that to what I want, you'd think I'd have a pretty steady grasp on how to deal with the unknown. But no matter how hard we try to plan or set ourselves into a mode or a place or a feeling, such as happiness, events that are beyond our control can alter what we thought was happening and going to happen, in a matter of (for me at least) just a few minutes, leaving us feeling irksome in place of our previous contentment, and again, for the four-hundredth time, facing the realm of the unfamiliar.

In my past 22 years of life, I've flown across the Western hemisphere and seen plenty of new places, bought lots of new things, learned a new language in a new school living in a new home with a new mom, created new opinions, attended a new church, and lived in a number of new houses with new roommates, and bought a new, not so easy to use camera and completely refocused my perspective of everything. I've found a new home that I'm soon leaving, a place that I love dearly but am widely trying to escape. I know that there are are always bigger and better opportunities, but I have to decide the largeness and goodness myself; the perspective is my decision. Yes, yes, it is all about the attitude.

Maybe more insignificantly, I've used new laundry detergent, tried a "NEW!" Clif bar (and liked it), purchased new, more expensive stamps, found a new fruit at a new stand at the farmer's market, and taken a new route home. No, these are not insignificant, but only less significant. That's not the same thing, is it?

Change is scary, nerve-wracking, stressful, questionable, and just plain uncomfortable. But if you think I'm racking up the challenges I've faced in new situations with new people and a different taste in my mouth just to say that my life has been full of change that has scared me and merits some sort of approval, or that I'm saying life is full of the unexpected so be careful, or "Try everything new! Embrace your fears by facing them!", you are dead wrong. I try my best not to be too self-centered, I don't offer anything "self help" and I am not inspirational or motivational in the least, and it would be hypocritical of me to tell the reader to get over their fear, for I am not far from deathly afraid of all things water, and I will never SCUBA dive unless involuntarily nailed to the sea floor.

No, this post isn't meant to serve as a life lesson, despite the title. Because my experiences serve only me in my 101 course; this isn't your text, but my essay. There should be no pointing fingers are bragging about passing the intro class, because for one thing I am not to be ridiculed, but secondly, I am unconvinced. Unless you have predicted every outcome in your life thus far (boring), tasted all the fruits of the earth (bland), overcome the struggle of deciding right from wrong (unfaithful), and mastered goodbyes (heartless), please humble yourself. I'll humble myself- I cannot do any of the above. If there is someone out there who can, maybe I've read the wrong user's manual on life. No thanks, though. I'll stick to exploring the vastness of the earth. Above all fears, the unknown serves to excite me. I will take my chances.