The Illusive California Problem

Yesterday in Mission Prep I started falling asleep. One of my ways to combat falling asleep in class is to write, whatever happens to come to mind. I found it interesting that I wrote about what I did. Here it is, slightly edited.

"I'm falling asleep, so I'm going to keep writing because it keeps me awake. One day I will do something great. Something astounding. Something for which I will be know by my grandchildren, and they will want to tell their friends all about me. 'My grandmother lived with the Himba when she was 19,' or, 'When I think of bravery, I think of my Nanny. She was her own person in the face of opposition.' As Helen Keller said, life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

"California was the adventure I wasn't crazy enough to do alone. I had it planned, every detail, and did not so much as consider asking permission. Adventure was never had with the approval of the opposition. Neither was greatness. And so I found my flight at one in the morning, after hours of looking, agonizing over the decision. But the agony turned into crazed excitement that wouldn't let up. I didn't go to sleep that night.

"I have always stayed inside the lines. I have always wanted to make other people happy. But this time I didn't care. I didn't care about a degree. What worth was a piece of paper? To which fate would I resign myself with the pursuit of knowledge? I would get a low paying job, pining after a man to save me. How did I get in this hole? I would ask. My time and effort and tears put to use for money to settle down, buy a house, set up a retirement fund. My youth spent slaving toward a distant life that was, perhaps, worth living. Because that's what we do. That's what would make my family, society, proud. They would have me believe God found only acceptable a life in a house in the suburbs, depending on a husband, being able to provide for myself if he ever left me.

"Stability. Because that is how it is done.

"I. Am. Tired. Of. Stability. Never have I ever been stable. Not my life. Not my mind. Not my feelings. I want bravery. I want craziness. I want everything to fall apart and to pull me through the cracks so I can, for once, see myself for who I am. We only truly see ourselves when we are full of cracks and are throwing little pieces of ourselves out to the world. They may do with me as they wish.

"And running away from school and my mother and my friends was how I wanted to fall apart. California was where it would happen. The unbearable freedom of the planning and the running and the journey would eat me up, and I would welcome it with my entire being. It wasn't stable. It was insane. For the first time in my life, insane was achievable. Insane was all I wanted, all that mattered.

"I don't think I was ever meant to be a normal one. Perhaps I am going to settle down and have a family, a backup career, participating in PTA and obeying a husband--but I will never be happy with any of that until I have had my great adventure. It is not me, not yet. I was created to be pulled from my limbs, to be thrown into the eyes and mouths of those who know me. I will pursue my California until I am so full of cracks I become invisible. After that I will choose to be stable, to put back the assured smiles on all of your faces, because I'll know what it's like to be nothing but cracks."

Maybe I'm right. Maybe I'm wrong. Either way, those were my thoughts.