Goodbye, Ordinary

"Live like there's no tomorrow, love extravagantly, lead a life to be followed...goodbye, ordinary!"

It's not as if I want to say goodbye to ordinary. I am content with ordinary. I love ordinary! But that's the thing, I guess. In a lot of ways I'd be perfectly content to stay with this life forever. To live in one house, eventually falling in love with a very wonderful person, getting married, moving into another house, and having very wonderful children. The theme of this blog should be "All I desire out of life is it's mediocre simplicities, but it's amazing how good I am at complicating things by thinking about them all the time." Well, let's not.

But something within me screams "Do something!!!" I often stare blankly at it and when my mind comes round I finally ask it what the heck it's talking about. Why would I need to do something?? I'm living my dream right here. Don't push discontentment on me! And what do you mean by "something" anyway?

And I am sure we all get that feeling. That there is more to life than what we've known so far. More than what is right in front of our faces. And for some of us, this is a call to explore the depths of life and the world, to discover all they possibly can as they strive to fully live; to meet their own expectations of whatever that means to them. Then there are people more like me, who usually shrug off any such longing, keep on enjoying everyday life, and treasure family vacations to the beach or mountains.

Note: people such as myself are perfectly sane. They are not selling themselves short, and they are not to be thought of any less than your average, more driven person, looked down upon, or felt sorry for. Thank you.

Note #2: Of course, these are the two extremes, and there are many people in the middle, as well as crazy people that take the extremes to extremes, but to keep the length down, I won't go into great detail of all the different personality-types in the world.

Back to the blog.

But sometimes I do feel like I am selling myself short. Not because my life here does not meet expectations of a good life, by any means. Like I said, I would be perfectly content just to live my altered-for-Christian-non-feminist-people-who-homeschool version of the American Dream till the day I die. But because there are so many opportunities I have laid eyes upon in my life that I think I would have liked to take. I tend to imagine vividly what doing these things would be like - from going to Indiana to study wolves, to Oxford to intensely study creative writing, to Nicaragua to backpack the gorgeous terrain.

I think, more than anyone I know (I could be wrong) I have wanted to do basically everything. I've wanted to be a circus acrobat, an equestrian, figure skater, prima ballerina, conductor, Broadway performer, Olympic swimmer, soccer player, hockey player, dog behaviorist, whale rider, personal trainer, psychologist, photographer....there's no need to go on. And every time I get one of these ideas in my head, I start imagining. I research it, and sometimes I even have started to make plans. But then it's all forgotten, usually for these two subconscious reasons:

1. I love this life, I am content, and what I really want is this normal-ness I've grown up around to be my normal-ness, if that makes sense.

2. If I am going to do anything career-ish with my life, I am going to write. Because, no matter how hard I might try, I can't stop writing.

So I drop it all, and go back to my normal life, reading, writing, being Jessica, and swimming as often as possible. Works for me!

Then, along came a spidey who sat down beside me. Its name was Novel Writing Camp-ish-thing in Oregon. 1 month. Write a novel. At the beach. In another state. At first, I was sold. But, figuring it would interfere with normal life I, again, shrugged it off and kept swimming (not a figure of speech or Finding Nemo quote; it was early July).

Later in July, I mentioned it to my dad in passing, and he encouraged me to actually go. After all, I want to write, right? And now, I am leaving tomorrow.

No, it does not seem real to me. All my life I have said, "yes, I am definitely going to do _______," and my brother would be happy to point out to you that I just DON'T. I never do. I always back out of it quietly, whatever it is. It's a wonder I ever took college classes, graduated from high school, joined a swim team, own a chinchilla, take piano lessons, do improv shows, or anything else that now is a part of my everyday life (that I love, have I mentioned??).

I don't want to love travelling so much that I lose sight of how I love normal life and never come home again, so I guess that is why I am writing this entry. Still, I think it's good for every young person to have that time where they go off for a bit into the world and do something new, if for no other reason than to see what it's like and be fully aware that "home is where the heart is", "there's no place like home", and other clichés that Delilah will probably tell you if you call in to request a song.

Anyway, here I go, off to write my book! I will attempt to blog at least a little while I am in Oregon, and hopefully post pictures on Facebook, too. If you are not on Facebook, you really should get one. You know who you are. After all, you don't become addicted/obsessed unless you let yourself, right?

I love you all!!

~Jessica