car rides and conversations

We used to talk about snow cones and paper planes, now it's birth control and pregnancy scares. How did we get here? How did we grow up and enter this world of problems we never thought we would have to face?

I wonder about the conversations people have in their cars, those insular worlds that seem so private, but are really like tiny reality television shows with choose your own adventure stories attached to them zooming past your own car bubble. I wonder if that boy with the cigarette hanging off of his lip uses this alone time to listen to Taylor Swift, if that punk rocker is shouting out show tunes, if that blonde with Michael Kors sunglasses secretly loves System of a Down. What that couple is fighting about, what the old couple is sitting in silence. Why I feel the need to watch them so obsessively and empathize with people I don't know to the point of pain.

I nearly died on the freeway today when an asshole cut me off and charged me into a semi truck with a front grill like a T-Rex. But my little car kept me safe from the charging monster. Safe to scream out song lyrics and wonder about the morning traffic, who they are and how they got here for one more day.

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12.1.13

Everyone says it every year but legitimately where did this year go? How can it already be December? How can I be four months away from turning 22? Nothing makes any sense at ALL.

I'm in such a different place than I thought I would be last January looking toward the future. A lot is so different but it is all wonderful beyond words.

• I finished NaNoWriMo!! I completed it. I did it. I wrote 50,000 words in one month! (50,202 to be exact.) This was so hard and frustrated and I have no idea how I did it but I am so thankful I decided to do this challenge. It got me writing every day which is a huge deal. My novel isn't quite done yet but I'm homing to have it finished by the end of January so I can take a few months to edit it and hopefully by this time next year it will be ready to send out to publishers! 
• Yesterday I moved into my new house in Salt Lake. Guys. It has been an ordeal to get moved out. Two times my plans fell through and I started thinking that I just wasn't meant to move out. But then like a pot of gold, there sat my perfect little yellow house at the end of the rainbow. It's perfect and old and lovely and my room is the greatest. Pictures to follow :)
• School starts again in about a month. WHAT. This is another one that felt like it took so long to get to. I've been aching to be back in school and at the U of U for about a year and a half and now after all that time, I'm starting in January. English degree here I come! 
• Growing up = the pits. The fun foam pits, but also snake filled death trap pits. I love independence and living on my own but I'm so terrified of it all as well. I've been having so much growing up anxiety with moving and everything. All I want to do is be alone and sit in my bed and watch Boy Meets World (No joke, that's how I spent my first night in my new place last night and it was terrific.) The prospect of making new friends and forging new romances and all getting a new job in a few weeks makes me sick. I have enough friends, thanks. I don't need romance, thanks. (Unless you are Shawn Hunter in which case ALWAYS). I know all of this is the anxiety talking and I will feel better soon. I'll feel better after my very adult phone call to Comcast tomorrow to get internet set up in my new house. Ugh adult life.

December is so magical and wonderful and exciting. Everyone is happy and full of the holiday spirit and I'm starting to fee it seeping into my bones too. I can't wait to see what else changes this month. Let's do this!

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Complacence

I love feeling swept away with conversation. I love meeting someone who I feel I can talk with forever and ever. It reminds me about how amazing life is and how beautiful dedication and the human mind can be. With so much to do and so much to hope for, how can anyone stand to not be driven and active and excited to be alive? Lazy days are good but a lazy life? Such a shame.

I've been working in the dental office for about three weeks now and time has flown. Sure I've learned about dentistry but I've learned more about people, especially the people I am working with. The dentist I have been assisting has such a wise and kind soul. He is very thoughtful, very smart, very dedicated, and one of my favorite people to talk to. He listens without judging, shares opinions without preaching, and is also hilarious. So. He's a gem. If he's not your dentist, you're doing it wrong.

He's a very active man. He runs races. He raises a family. He works as a dentist. And he is always striving for self improvement and knowledge, a trait I find the most inspiring. He is so thirsty to learn and loves sharing ideas with people for the mutual pursuit of knowledge. He's the kind of person that you talk with that you walk away feeling better about yourself and so excited to get out and live! And run! (Or try and run. Oh exercise... why must you hurt me so?)

His excitement has made me feel excited again. For the past few weeks I have started to get this cringing complacency crawling across my mind. I've accomplished a good deal recently and I've landed into a rare transitional period where all I have to do is wait until it's time to start my next chapter. Because of that, I've gotten lazier and lazier. It's not so much unmotivated as it is...uncritical satisfaction. I'm satisfied for now because I really can't do anything else but wait for my time to come. It's not quite moving day, not quite time to get back to the U, not quite time. It's a lackluster limbo that has made me painfully complacent.

But as I've been talking with the doctor, I've rediscovered how much I have to do with my life. I feel like I've woken up after these past few weeks. Just because my goals and dreams aren't new to me, doesn't mean they aren't new to someone else or that you can't make them new again for yourself. There is never a good time to stop working hard to chase your dreams, especially if they are finally happen.

Is it just me, or did you never think you'd get to where you are right now? Like, you plan your whole life but the day it begins to happen, it amazes you. You can achieve your dreams in this life? You're allowed to get what you want? When did we all grow up? Time flies and before you know it, you're here. You're on your way, and why not? You deserve your dreams.

I know the feeling of never thinking you'd get to where you are right now. It's amazing to see dreams coming true for yourself and it's also very humbling to see how much work and how many detours it takes to get to your dream. When you're little you anticipate a straight shot to greatness; nobody told us the arrow would be curved. I never thought I'd be a dental assistant. I still can't believe it. I'm a professional person working with real people in real time. But this detour has taught  me so much and prepared me even more for my true calling in life.

Surgeons once worked at McDonalds too before they realized their dream of saving lives. The struggle toward your dreams inherently defies complacency. Take it from me, do not let yourself get complacent because you think you've hit a rest stop. Use this time to pour over your maps for the 700th time, reroute if necessary, and then carry on. Even if you are driving slowly in a desert, you are nearing your paradise faster than you know it.

via Tumblr. Quote by John Green