Critical Path Items

With everyone returning to college, I often find myself sitting in a nostalgic reverie, reminiscing about my college glory days.  I know I’ve only been out for less than two years, but in that short amount of time I have come to realize how much those years really meant to me.  I’ve also come to realize how much I need something like that again in my life.

Even after I graduated I never was truly separated from college and the St. John’s / St. Ben’s atmosphere since I often went to visit Kristin and some of my other close friends on weekends, and even took some days off during the middle of weeks to go up.  I may have technically graduated, but in spirit I was still living the dream.

Once Kristin left for her study abroad program in January of this year I started to actually feel my ties start to loosen.  My vicarious living was slowly unraveling.  I managed to go up a couple of weekend to visit some friends, but for the most part my ties had come untied.

In the isolation that I felt being removed from the college life, living out in the middle of farm country with my parents, and having Kristin living in a foreign country I was overwhelmed by an unending bout with loneliness and longing.  What had defined me for five and a half years was suddenly, and quite viciously, snatched away.

What was I to do?  Actually, a better question might be, what am I to do?  I haven’t magically “found myself” or suddenly gained direction in my life over the summer, but instead have actually become a little more lost.

Being the goal oriented person that I am, I had a determined path of events that I was planning on transpiring at this point in my life and over the next few years, but as the summer months have passed me by I’ve seen all of my plans start to fade, crumble, or become unstable.  

With that in mind, I’ve started searching for a rerouted life path, in order to right this drifting and aimless ship, but I keep getting hung up on a couple of items that I feel I absolutely need in order to progress onward with the rest of the things I want to accomplish.  Without those items, the rest of my progression feels as if it will be hollow, shallow, and lacking the full depth of experience.

Of course you’re all wondering exactly what it is that I need, but as much as I want to pour my heart out here, there are still some things that I like to keep to myself and that I want to struggle for in private.  As much as it’s welling up inside of me, ready to burst out in a jumble of expressive nonsense, sometimes personal torture is good.  It helps you to realize what it is that you really, truly need in your life.  I know what I need… but I also know that the likelihood of my achieving it any time soon, or maybe at all, is looking somewhat grim.  You can never lose hope, though, and I plan on keeping hope alive.