Where do I go from here? Isn’t that always the question?

It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to think about the future. For the first time in my life, I’m OK with dealing with the present. For the first time in my life, I don’t want these moments to end.

It’s such a strange thought. I’ve spent so much of my life wishing I were somewhere else. “The grass is always greener” syndrome. But what is it that is seizing at my soul these days? Sheer laziness? A sense of resignation? Stasis? Stillness?

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t love this place, not by a long shot. There are plenty of other cities that I dig a lot more than this place. But the thing is, nowhere else have I been able to be just myself. For once, I can play make-believe, and do all the things I’ve wanted to do, unfettered by other people’s expectations.

Not that there aren’t expectations. But I got to choose this place, and in a way, I chose to accept those expectations. They weren’t foisted on me from on high, from some painful, self-sacrificial legacy rooted in the agony of a culture that was conquered, nor in the martyrdom of an alien savior from a place half-way around the world. Despite all the disappointments and all the vileness and debasement I’ve partaken in, I did it all on my own terms. I owned these last four years, for better or for worse.

Of course, part of this is immature fantasy. When I fell asleep this morning during a lecture, I found myself dreaming of things that only have a seed of possibility. There is nothing in my life that I can take for granted. The road ahead of me must be seized, must be tamed and ridden. It is not the passiveness that I’ve experienced thus far, the feeling of being carried by a surging river, impelled downstream whether you wish to or no. The road ahead is more like wind. A current of air that must be captured and held on to, bearing me aloft, with the possibility of dropping me into the abyss in the blink of an eye. If I want to take this road, I have to want it every second of my life, and that kind of force of commitment frightens me.

In these four years, I’ve learned to make definitive decisions. No more wavering or dancing around the issues. I’m still nowhere near as certain as everyone else around me is, but I’m certainly more certain than I ever was. And while I have figured out some things about life and about death, I’m still procrastinating about figuring out which way I want to tack my sail, to catch the wind, and to find the shores that I’ve been searching for all of my life.