[Telling Time (Off).]

"

There was no time yesterday to write of my best birthday present. Anne Woodson was to have come for lunch today, the only "free day" I shall have for some time to come. When I got back from Cambridge on Wednesday I walked into a house full of surprises...and a note from Anne to say that she was giving me a day's time...This is the day that she has given me and I have two poems simmering, so I had better get to work.

"

*

My last day of student teaching was on Friday.

I am now -- officially -- a real person.

I didn't quite know how I'd react to that fact, even though I've had a lot of practice faking it since I "graduated" last May. Two days in, all I know is that I am ecstatic to be moving on, a tinge sad about the college chapter of life being completed, and am especially excited about the potential that December holds for me. It's a month of timeless freedom. My job isn't slated to begin until January, so I am left to simply do whatever I feel I need to do to get by until then. I've got a few odd jobs lined up, a project that will add some purpose to my existence, and days upon days that I can spend however I so choose. (Granted, the empty wallet will have quite the impact on my options, but entertaining myself creatively is my favorite past time.)

This new reality of empty calendar pages full of promise makes my life feel like it is, in fact, my life.

The best part thus far is that I am not rushing through life. I am able to look past my own immediate plans and stressors and have plenty of flexible time to spare for people. It feels good. Fulfilling. I can breathe.

Life is not meant to be lived the way we've been trained to live it. Most days simply blur together and by the end of any given week, I remember little and learn even less. To have time to process things, time to venture into the core of existence and coexistence, time to take in the snowflakes and the sunshine...

I'm sure it will be a far-from-perfect December. Yet any moment when I have the time to feel-- whether that's an uplifting feeling or otherwise-- I am learning to be entirely grateful. So many of my days I've wasted building walls to keep feeling out. I wonder just how many of us go without feeling day after day. (I never want to know the answer, but I wonder, nonetheless...)

"

Sometimes I wonder whether what is often wrong with intimate human relations is not recognizing [the necessity of suffering]. We fear disturbance, change, fear to bring to light and to talk about what is painful. Suffering often feels like failure, but it is actually the door to growth. And growth does not cease to be painful at any age.

"

*

*excerpts from May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude