It only works to a certain point

The amount of introvert time I have is directly proportional to how much I blog.

A family friend of ours, who is Irish, asked me if I thought American students (i.e. myself) felt a lot of pressure to study hard and thoroughly because our parents (or some other source) pay for our education. At the time of answering I said that American middle class students often see it as a given that their parents will do whatever they can to pay for college.

But this afternoon I was thinking about my education and the fact that when I was born my grandfather set aside a small sum of money that would go towards my education. For some reason knowing that my grandfather did this makes me more conscious of the value of this education I am building.

I feel I am at a strange point of redefinition, or definition.

I wrote the following in an e-mail to my mother this morning:

I realized, remembered last night that I used to be considered artistic. Always, growing up, I was considered artistic. I considered myself so, even. I have been clinging to the rational side of myself, the thinking part, so much that I don't know what happened to the other part of me. It is hard to know how to get it back and develop it. I suppose I have sort of reclaimed it, through poetry, but poetry seems really rational to me a lot of the time, at least with the way that I write. I think being artistic scares me because what happens when the art doesn't come anymore? What happens when you don't know where the next poem, the next piece of choreography will come from? I don't know.

I wrote her a lot of things, actually, and she wrote me back some more things. This is unrelated to the excerpt I printed that I wrote her (I think), but here is part of what she wrote me back (in relation to something else I wrote her), I there is a lot of wisdom in it:

We so prefer to sing things rather than to live them. "From life's
first cry, to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny." Am I really
willing to submit to him commanding my destiny? Do I really trust him
with my life circumstances? Believe that all will work together for
good? That my pain matters to him and he collects my tears in a
bottle? Do I believe that he will take care of my kids or my extended
family for that matter? That his heart for me is better than mine is
for myself? Is the destiny that he has for me good enough or am I
convinced that something else will satisfy my soul?

Will he satisfy? Does he satisfy now? Maybe if we ask him he will speak to these questions.

On a different note, the past few weeks have been Tracy Chapman, Loretta Lynn, the Cranberries, three very good choices to background my life. But my mother's third daughter sent me four new bands today... and the prospects look good.

I like chocolate. But it only works to a certain point. I need more things in my life. This is what I told Brittany last night after dancing to about eight songs in her dorm room and collapsing to the floor. I also told her that I don't like reading as much as I should, as much as I would like to. And that she should never let me marry someone who won't dance with me to Kanye when I turn him on. (Kanye that is. Or the man. Whatever.)