imagination

When I was a kid, I thought I was going to die young because I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be older. I was, say, 13, and couldn't close my eyes and feel what it would feel like to be 16, so I figured I wasn't destined to get there. Which...demonstrates the huge amount of faith I had in my own imagination?! This may have been a coping strategy related moving a lot. I often had to imagine friends before I had any, to imagine being at home in a new place before we'd really unpacked. And more often than not, this worked. So there was proof: if I could imagine it, it could happen; and therefore if I couldn't imagine it...

When I graduated from college, a certain professor of mine said he thought he'd read about me in the papers one day. "You're either going to win a Nobel Prize or shoot up a McDonald's." Um. Thanks?

I am not going to win a Nobel Prize. Nor is there even the tiniest chance that I am going to shoot up a McDonald's. But if those are two ends of a spectrum, I've got to admit that most days I'm closer to the McDonald's end than the Nobel Prize end. More often frustrated than inspired. Frustrated with other people, frustrated with the world, but mostly frustrated with myself. For not stepping up, for not speaking up, for not being the calm, wise, honest, open, loving, non-judgemental person...that I would love to be but am not, and actually can't even imagine becoming. But I did make it to 16, and beyond. So there's hope.