life of a saturday

That's right. I haven't written in a while. Sixteen days, to be exact. Which is a while, for me, seeing that I process life through writing.

I'm taking this day slow and welcome. It's not black-and-white - not slave to plan, either of work or play. I'll get some stuff done. And I'll rest some too. I decided to do the simple and quiet first, instead of waiting til the list got finished, and it feels good.

Can I say too many times how I love a Saturday with no commitments?

***

Required life updates: I have received four rejection letters, from Wash U., Vandy, Boston and Rice. I think you already know I'm okay with this, except that I really wanted to live in Nashville, and St. Louis I love too (can anybody say Ted Drewe's?).

So when I got a letter the other day from Virginia, I was braced already for the "We regret to inform you . . . " - and it was there. They were very sorry that the MA program does not offer funding, but they were pleased to offer me a place in their program. And I am a little bit astounded. And a little bit yearning, because one I don't have the money and two I'm excited about ESL, dangit.

I'm basically saying that I want both, I want to see the light of understanding in the eyes of children and I want to analyze and argue literature. My dad wanted to be a pilot and a doctor. So I'm filling out financial aid forms and going for an interview at UAB next week. And I feel, I don't know how I feel, I feel that whatever I do will not be the whole picture. If I stay here and do the practical and wise thing, that costs the least money and has the best program and provides the most valued set of skills, then my parents will be glad and some of my friends will be disappointed, and some will be excited, and I will be both okay and disappointed. If it somehow worked out that an MA program is financially do-able, then my parents would be less happy and my friends would be supportive and I would still get to use my English brain and I would emerge in 2 years with a worthless sheet of paper that says I have a Masters in English.

All that word spillage to say - I'm not even trying to work things out.

***

Breathing in sunshine. Trying to lose the pressure to believe right, to be right. Captive to fear and fixing most of the time. And the thought of God, He wants us to have Himself, not an experience, just Him in this ragged life, that thought sparks pinpoints of hope in me, and I get gloomy because I can't hold onto them, because I am not consistent and my prayers are anchor-less a lot. So I say to myself, and to you, don't hold on to the pinpoints because you feel you have to, don't make the holding on a burden, because that's what I have done. But realize that you can hold on, sometimes, if you want to, and pray pray pray for freedom.