The title of  this article is the name of my favorite Unbroken album and I have been listening to it during my frequent pondering sessions and momentary panic attacks. As I mentioned earlier, I am graduating this spring. So is Carrie. We will both be twenty year olds with Biology BS degrees. So, being the overachievers we are, we know exactly where we are going and what we are doing next right? WRONG. I still can’t shake the desire to go to Film school or art school. I got into NYU with a scholarship and for some reason I didn’t go. I don’t want to regret for the rest of my life that I sold myself short as  an artist, yet I can’t shake the feeling that I need to have a solid respectable career which for me means being a scientist or maybe an environmental lawyer. God knows our environment and the animals need both. Also, because of all my work with americorps, I also feel this need to do a sociology/community type job. I can always be an artist on  the side and, hey, I don’t really want to begin to have to do art and start hating it, right? Nowhere to go from here...  and everywhere to go at the same time. We talk about just up and moving to a different place for a while to have some decision making space. We pinpointed Atlanta, Austin, San Diego, San Francisco, New York and Germany  but we both keep vetoing all of them for various reasons depending on our current whims.

    Love is also a deciding force. DO you stay with the one you love or move to where they may be or what? In my case, I just want to be with a friend I love since my love life is in constant flux. Carrie has a relationship though so it’s harder for her to say OK, I’m leaving plus she also has a good, stable job willing to pay to keep her. I moved half way across the country once already but I had school as an excuse and security. Moving just to move and find a job by myself is scary. If I do that I really want to do it, and move somewhere where I know no one, which pretty much means west coast, and hey, if there isn’t a hardcore scene that wouldn’t be all that bad.  Plus, leaving behind things I have worked so hard to build up, like my SLP Program and earthwell, is also really hard but I guess you just have to trust that if it really means something other people will continue the projects. What does all this mean?  I guess I have applied to the peace corps, some fellowships and graduate school. So, I guess whoever lets me in will decide my future or maybe I’ll be brave and take some time to play with ink and photos and film and see what happens and of course along the way, I will live vivaciously and without any regret because I already see people who are a couple of years older in full blown regret, yet unwilling to change their situation, and that will never be me.

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
Albert Camus (1913–60), French-Algerian philosopher, author. The fool, in "Intuitions" (written Oct. 1932; published in Youthful Writings, 1976).

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