The Auspicious First Entry

I suppose I should explain myself. I did, I confess, swear many oaths never to get a Livejournal. However, in the interest of an experiment, I signed up for one here. I mean to make it not so much a daily account of my activities as a kind of free-form journal, just to get my thoughts out in writing. I haven't done much creative writing recently, so maybe this is the sort of outlet that will help get the juices flowing again. I'm not sure.

Where am I supposed to be in life right now? What am I supposed to be doing? I am so young, the world is full of excitement and possibilities. I could buy a ticket to Europe and fly there tomorrow. I could probably even buy two tickets! We are both so young.

So what business do I have doing what I am doing? What business do I have living how I am living? The fact is, no matter how young and free I may be, we may be, I am in school. That means responsibilities and that means commitment. To work, commitment to learning.After I graduate from this school, I will move on to graduate school. I'll need to have at least a Masters to support any kind of family, and I would love to support our family. But that means five years. Five years until I can consider marriage. So we return to my point: what business do I have doing what I am doing now? How can I be entering into a relationship -- heck, I "entered into" this relationship long ago, I mean continue this relationship -- when it is going in such a serious direction and when I am so unprepared to get serious right now? It is not that I have issues with commitment, not at all. I am just not free to commit myself right now, and won't be for another few years. It is not that I do not love you, I do. Maybe that is the problem.

When I talk about youth and possibilities, I am talking about you and me. When I talk about freedom, I am talking about the freedom that I do not have right now. So why does it seem like we are starting to pretend that I do? Why does it seem like we are starting to pretend that graduation -- itself still 2.5 years away -- does not only bring two years spent apart?

It's not that I'm not willing to wait. I've waited a while already and if I was going to leave you, I promise, I would have done it long ago. Still, I keep hearing my parents' advice: that these relationships are so high-intensity and are so hard to keep up for long periods of time. And then I start to wonder if we aren't getting too high-intensity far too soon. Do we need to spend time together every night? I know you enjoy it, and you know that I do too. But it only makes you resent your schoolwork more. Every time I hear you say that you just want to stop doing this whole school thing, I hear "run away with me". I feel you wanting that freedom, the same freedom that I want. But it is illusory. We can run, baby, but in the end we're all just Jonah.

So what do I say? Do I ask that we spend more time apart, become not quite so emotionally involved? Can you do that without breaking a girl's heart? Or even if I could, and you agreed, would that be enough? I guess we'd see. I know I'd far rather lose you on the docks of life -- as you board the ship to your own private Nineveh, and I go off to mine -- than lose you in the belly of that whale that would surely come.

I'm not sure what I should do, other than continue as usual. It wouldn't be the first time that I've wigged out without need. Sometimes all you can do is live in uncertainty, because God sure doesn't give you His plans in advance. And maybe that's why I have this journal now, because it is uncertain. Will I ever write in it again?

Like so many things in life right now: I'm not sure.