Skip to main content

In which I doze off on a Love Sac

I think one of the most important developments of early adulthood is coming to know yourself well enough to know exactly what it is you want at a given moment, no matter how simple the desire is. There is something empowering and satisfying in saying, "I am an individual, with unique desires, and what I desire at this moment is to sit on a couch surrounded by friends who I love and watching a movie that I have already seen before (so that I can fall asleep in the middle of the movie without worrying that I'll miss the end). Also, it would be nice if this movie-watching/naptime could also involve me cuddling with a cute boy who I care a lot about." There is a freedom and a power in knowing your own desires, whether big or small, because once you know what you want, you are in a position to seek it out, to make it reality.

However, another important development that comes at this time of life is the understanding that you can't always get what you want. Even the most satisfying self-knowledge cannot change the fact that tonight, the friends I want to watch a movie with are all busy, in different states, or otherwise M.I.A., and if I'm being honest with myself, there will probably be no cuddling in my life any time in the near future. Along with the power and confidence of knowing my own desires comes the helplessness of knowing that wanting something isn't enough, that my will isn't the sole force in the universe. And the trickiest lesson of adulthood, one that I'm not sure I've learned fully, is that even when things don't work out how you want them to, they still work out. That even if you wanted nothing more than to fall asleep on a couch full of friends with "Beauty and the Beast" playing in the background, sometimes you instead get to blog, catch up on the news, and then go to bed wonderfully early, and that's okay too. 

But there's one more important thing about life that I keep forgetting, and that is how often life can surprise you by giving you exactly what you want. That sometimes, even as you are in the middle of writing a blog post about how things don't always work out the way you'd like, you'll get a text that causes them to work out exactly that way. There wasn't any cuddling, but there was a movie, a projector, a Love Sac, and four of my best friends. And as I drifted off to sleep on my Love Sac, I smiled at how wonderfully surprising life can be.


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In which I pen a tribute to my ex-boyfriends

So, I promised a friend I would have something substantial up here by tonight. Another friend told me that I needed to post soon, because...MY READERSHIP! I didn't know I had a "readership" but if I do, I'd hate to disappoint them! So here goes. Lately, I've been getting a lot of questions about whether or not I'm dating anyone, or if I'm still dating "that one guy" (which has been used in reference to both the man I stopped dating about a month ago, and the other fellow I stopped dating over a year ago), or simply condolences that things didn't work out with some relationship or another. These questions and condolences are often coupled with the idea that I'll "find the right guy soon," or "I met my husband right after a break-up," or that "if it isn't right, it isn't right." And while I don't disagree with any of those statements, I also feel that these relationships and subsequent breakups,...
12 comments
Read more

This is the birth day of life and love and wings

In honor of Easter, and spring, here is one of my most favorite poems, by one of my most favorite poets, e. e. cummings. (Yes, he really doesn't capitalize his name, I'm not just being a lazy blogger). (P.S. for best results, read this poem out loud. It's better that way)/ i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth day of life and love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
6 comments
Read more

This would probably be a good New Year's day post...but I'm writing it on December 22nd instead.

Today I had one of those magical moments where I found the answer to my own thoughts and prayers in someone else's words. I was reading my friend Todd's blog, and it near about floored me. He was writing about the way history tends to repeat itself, and said, "So my friends, don't be surprised if 2009 ends the way it started or if a semester comes to a close in the same fashion it began. The trick of it all is to learn from the often symmetrical journey and be better for it." Holy Cow. For me, 2009 is ending nearly exactly the way it started. I started 2009 with uncertainty and excitement, along with a fair amount of heartbreak and angst. It's been a year full of ups and downs, lessons, strange romances, wrenching of guts, and newly discovered strengths and weaknesses. And yet somehow, I'm ending the year where I started it. Same uncertainty and excitement, albeit about different people and events. And, unexpectedly, the exact same feelings of ang...
3 comments
Read more