On Being Alive

I don't have anything to report, not really, so if you're looking at this and expecting a long in depth description of the nothings that I did while I wandered around in Cardiff on Wednesday, you can stop reading.  The problem is, I have again found the problem of having little to say about the trips I make.

Okay, so Cardiff wasn't meant to be a big excursion.  I didn't leave the St. David's shopping area except to go to the national museum.  And while that was interesting, there's not much to say.  It was a museum.  Better than I'd expected, not as good as the Natural History Museum.

I suppose the only thing to say about Cardiff really was that I thought it would be a good idea to wear Converse sneakers.  I figured it wouldn't matter, since I was only shopping, and I wanted to look a bit more fashionable.  Much as I love my sketchers, they're not exactly what one might call "fashionable."  So now I'm sitting in my living room, feet elevated, arches wrapped, wondering if tomorrow I'll be able to walk to the store and buy taco shells for cinco de mayo.  Such is life.

But I feel like writing a blog, feel like sharing with you the interesting thing that has been happening in my brain lately.

Earlier in the year I was staring some serious financial difficulties in the face.  Now, I am happy to report that I have saved enough to make, not only a trip to Germany to visit Lea, but also to stop in London and Paris along the way.  The tickets are booked, the hostel search has begun, and in less than a month I will be Europe bound.  It's more exciting than I can possibly put into words.  But it has also led to some interesting contemplation on my part.

For years I was sort of wandering through the education system, listening to teachers who liked to tell me that I wouldn't get anywhere, and maybe with the attitude I had, they were right.  But I wouldn't have had that attitude if I had more confidence, and constantly hearing about my continual failure wasn't exactly bolstering my confidence very much.  I was a dreamer, and dreamers have trouble paying attention to things they are told they have to pay attention to.  Sure, every so often we were given interesting books to read, poems to write, drawings to make.  I didn't hate all of school, but when a math problem was put in front of us and everyone else was determinedly scribbling away on their papers while I sat there completely baffled, I wasn't exactly a fan.  When the questions were about how George has ten apples and Miranda has eight pears and Bernie has six lemons, so how many sandwiches can their mother make?  And the answer is sixteen.  Just sixteen.  How the hell did they get that answer?  You can imagine why I struggled.

I went through school believing that, if I was lucky, I might snag a job.  If I was lucky, maybe I might marry rich.  Because if left to my own devices, I would be living with my parents until I died.

I finally dragged myself into an amount of self confidence at continuation school, where the teachers never once said I was a failure, even though I was literally there because I was a failure.  No, those teachers were the ones who smiled when I got confused and asked me to explain the problem as I understood it, and then help me to understand it properly.  These were the teachers who gave me credit for the work I wanted to do, the work I was good at, but still pushed me to do more, to do better, to do everything and anything, and who encouraged me to reach for something better than a job I could get, or marrying rich.  According to them, I should get a job not only that I could get, but that I wanted to get.  And marrying rich?  Really?  Don't be so prosaic.

Because of them, and because of the confidence they helped me find, I'm sitting in the living room of my apartment in Swansea, Wales.  I have a trip to Europe in less than a month, I have a manuscript finished, another started, and six more in my brain just waiting to get out.  I'm wearing a dressing gown I bought at Primark, and I say things like "naught" in everyday conversation.  I had a breakfast of a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam (probably why I needed to go to cardiff in search of a new jacket, since my old, light weight jacket no longer fits.  Again, such is life).

Whenever I say that I owe this to my old teachers, people say I should give myself more credit.  And I do, I am not in any way saying that I'm not here because of me.  I am here because I have worked hard every day for the last eight or so years.  I am here because I put my nose to the grindstone, and though I've spent some time deciding what I want to do, I am here because I pulled my grades up and dedicated my mind to study and work.  I'm here because I believe in myself, and I would never have believed in myself if someone else hadn't believed in me first.  So do I believe that my 12th grade teachers deserve a bit of credit?  Definitely.

The thing is, now I'm sitting here and thinking about this trip I've planned.  I am going backpacking in Europe.  Not an extensive trip, but a trip nonetheless.  I'm in hostels for six days and on planes, trains, and automobiles (read: busses) for 36 hours in total.  I am twenty five years old, studying abroad, attending a real, big kid college, with international friends, running for president of an English Honours Society, have written a novel, going to write more, and going to be published (come hell or high water).  After a quarter of a century of being alive, I finally know where I am, and where I'm going, and that it's where I want to be and with the people I want to be with.  I have one best friend whom I love more than life, with whom distance will never matter, another best friend whom I love more than life, and with whom time will never matter.  I have a family that supports me, faith that strengthens me, a mind that will never fail me, and a hope that sustains me.

And now there's this little girl who pops her head up every so often and looks at this life.  There's the sixth grade me who didn't think she was worth it, who sincerely believed everything that witch of a teacher told her, and she sees these things that I'm doing, and she weeps.  Someone please go back in time and tell her how her life will turn out.

I am going to Europe.  I am going and I'm not looking back, not considering the money that I'm spending, the debt I'm potentially accruing because I know that it's worth it.  I'll return to my school and write my book and finish my degree and go to grad school and get a phd and become a professor and I am never, ever, ever looking back at those teachers and those jerks who used to say that I was nothing.  I wonder if they feel big, if they feel stronger for their criticism, if making themselves feel better and stronger than a small, lost little girl, has given them strength, and if by reclaiming my birthright, I am also reclaiming that strength.  I wonder if they'll see this blog and think that they've done right by me, convince themselves that all I needed was reverse psychology and that a drive to prove them wrong was what gave me strength to begin with, and in that way, they'll convince themselves that they had a hand in this strength that I've found.  On the off chance that they do read this, I want them to know that they're wrong.  That if it were up to them, I would be working at Noah's bagels in my home town, asking if they want lox on their bagel, or just a hefty serving of misanthropy on the side.

But I'm not.  I'm a student at a university in Wales.  I am a student at a university in California.  I am a student studying English, chewing Chaucer for breakfast and Chinua Achebe for lunch.  I write blogs and novels and poems and I speak with the strength I have found in myself and read in Maya Angelou, Sandra Cisneros, and Toni Morrison.  I am a person who is capable of standing up for what she believes in, then buying a ticket to Paris.  I'm a person who isn't afraid of failing anymore, you can't scare me with your threats, because failure is just a lesson and a lesson is just a day in this life.  Life is risks, and risks fail, and without those failures we never learn.  So let me fail, let me learn, and in learning, let me live.  I'm tired of just being alive.  I want to live.

I'm going to London.  And then Paris.  And then Berlin.  And from there?  Who knows.  But for now I'll look forward to that trip and imagine the days after it, when I will look back, smile, and remember that life is made up of moments and moments have to be lived.  So if you don't see me, look to the horizon.  I'll be there.  Don't worry, I'll write.