With every mistake, we must surely be learning

Two days off in a row with a potential third tomorrow. Probably not the best thing for me at the moment, but not the worst thing, either. With my time off, I have a lot of time to think, something that I used to really really enjoy. I always thought that, if you were afraid to think, you were afraid to live. Maybe it's still true, but lately, I don't like having time to think.

My brain, in all of its awesome power and humility (sarcasm?), has the amazing ability to analyze. It's a special gift of mine, one that I hope to build a career on. My ability to analyze allows me to cut away the fat from arguments and ideals and open up the raw underbelly to the outside world. Unfortunately, my Ginsu brain is double edged, and it has a tendency to cut both ways. Decisions are laid open, and with them, fears and insecurities long since scabbed over.

I think about how long until school starts and how long I've been waiting. Waiting has never been something I'm particularly good at, but it's something I have done for a while. Waiting for love, waiting for purpose, waiting for success, waiting for understanding (both from within and without). I think I'm a better person for it, but waiting stretches me in a very uncomfortable way. It shows that I'm not complete yet, and then leaves me with time to ponder the imperfect, unfinished parts. My education represents a large part of me that is yet incomplete and therefore an imperfection.

I think about long distance love. I am lucky to be in a long distance relationship with Cat, a woman who tries really really hard to be what I need her to be and lets me try really really hard to be what she needs me to be. And please note, I said "woman", not "girl". In my time of thinking about her, I think about how distance is so incredibly difficult to deal with. There are many times when I just want to go home to her at the end of the day, put on a movie, and feel her fall asleep on my chest as we watch it. Unfortunately, there have been some really difficult things that we have had to do by ourselves because the other one of us simply couldn't physically be there. Having time to think means having time to think about being physically alone while not being emotionally alone.

I think about the place I left to come here. I was in such a hurry to leave Provo that I think I might have thrown out some of the baby with the bath water. Not all of the baby, just some. *strange mental pictures abound* I left because I felt like it was time to leave, and it probably was on some level. Perhaps it was time to leave so that I could learn that I was leaving behind a lot more than I thought I was. I don't know if I could live in Provo for the rest of my life, or ever again for that matter. It was good for that part of my life, but I don't know that I need it for anything else. Salt Lake, however, really doesn't seem too terrible a place. Sugarhouse would be an amazing place to live. I have come to realize that I do love Utah. I love the weather, I love having family close by, I love that I know where everything is, I love that I feel a connection to it. I love that it feels like a home to me now, after all this time. Maybe that's why I had to leave when I did. I needed to see that I have a home there. In fact, the last time I was there, I realized how comfortable I was there. That comfort was heavenly and was worth a lot to me.

I think about the upcoming school year and I wonder what it holds for me. There is that part of me that wonders if I will succeed or not at this. I have a lot of passion for what the program claims as its main theoretical orientation, so I think that should be sufficient to claim the day, but in this time of thinking that I've been so abundantly blessed with, my brain finds things to worry about, specifically if I'll be good enough for it. Scary as it is to admit, I sometimes worry if it will be good enough for me. Granted, I can't imagine what on earth this program could present to me that would leave me wanting, but you never know, and I'm a worrier. So there's that.

Having said all of that, I am happy to announce that my fears are far less likely to demolish me than they used to. I can look most of my fears straight in the eye and not flinch. This does make me happy. Let me repeat that. I am happy. Sometimes it's just a little easy for my brain to think itself out of being comfortable with a good situation (my life).