"What Happened To Her?" Answer: "Life."

Today was a good day. I had my last exam (which I posted about earlier), and now I can look forward to figuring out what to do with my life. I'm not entirely sure where to go from here. I stand in sharp contrast to most everyone I know that is my age. Most of my generation, and especially among those that I know) has settled with (or settled for) children, possibly a spouse. They've locked themselves into a very clear future- they will live in this place, with these people, have children, and work in this profession.....for forever.
As one girl said to me earlier today: "I still live on West Street. I'll probably always live here, and I'll die here." She's lived on West Street since she was three months old, first with her grandparents, now with her husband and son. She's going to business college. She thinks it's wonderful- and I do too, honestly. That's a great deal of security in a very, very insecure world. It must be great to look out upon the vastness of time and know that it's gonna be a pretty good ride- maybe not the most thrilling, but nothing that you can't handle. She is doing what millions, perhaps billions, have done before her- there's nothing wrong with that. But still, for me, it means that I have one less role model. I do not walk the path of certainty. I never have.
Life to me is fluid. That means that one thing will lead to another, but that I'm not guaranteed a meandering stream...when storms come, it can become a raging, out-of-control river.
I have recalled many times this moment in my life: I was sixteen years old, and I fervently prayed to God that I would be allowed to really live, to please not let me just be passing through, but let me see it all. Well, I would say that my prayer was answered. I have not gone the way of the herd. But I find that going my own way is daunting- not because I'm afraid of it, because I'm certainly not. But I don't know what to do or where to go next. Picking and choosing destiny is a perilous activity, and therefore I give a lot of pause to making decisions, and I won't lie, I wait for signs...someone will know better than I.
I'm not so smart that I don't know that I'm secretly stupid, that my mind, for all it's sharpness and mountains of facts and logic and processes, is inept at grasping the true magnitude of possibility.
So, while everyone follows the prescription for a happy life, I'm left standing in a somewhat less certain position. What I am sure of, while we're all going this way and that, is that we're all going to go wanting for something someday. I also know that my life will be an adventure, and that upon my death I will be able to smile.