Little Boxes

"Well?" They ask, looking expectantly for an answer. My anxiety starts to rise as I tremble on the inside. Fear fills my soul because I know that I don't have the answer they're looking for. Do they realize the stress they are inducing, or is it merely an automated response? It's as if society has instilled in us this sense that we ought to have it all together. Go to school, go to college, get a job in your field, work for the rest of your life. Why does it have to be that way? What happened to living?  There are too many boxes in this world. Too many cubicles, check lists, files to fill, and houses that all look alike. When I was younger I used to think that adults have everything figured out. That somehow, when you reached that magical age, you would simply know things. News flash: it doesn't work like that. I don't always have an answer. I don't always know what I'm doing, but I'm learning. I'm learning that I'm not a nice, neat little box. I'm more like a Pollock painting, and that's just how life is. Life is messy, even though we desperately want it to be organized. There's beauty in the chaos, there's beauty in living. 

I'm well aware that life doesn't go as planned. Because of a mix up in my advising, I won't be graduating till next May. I worry too much about the future, and my anxious little heart beats a million times per second (or so it feels). However, my mom gave me some expert advise the other night: just live today. Live today, right here, right now, and don't stress so much about things far in the future that you cannot control. Focus on the splatters and brush strokes that make up the life you are living right now. I still don't have things figured out and I probably never will. The best thing to do is to keep moving forward. For instance, my plan is to move out when I graduate and head west. I long for the mountains and the vast ocean. I figure one can either go where the job is, or go where they want to live and find the job once they get there. I've been landlocked my whole life, and it feels similar to living in a box. Maybe I don't end up with a job in design, but I'd be content working in some small surf shop on the coast-making enough just to get by. It'd be an adventure, my adventure, and I just want to enjoy it as long as I'm alive.