When Everything Else Comes Alive, the School Year Dies

My time at school is very likely limited. Graduation is in May and my job hunt is in full swing. Perhaps the school will hire me in some capacity, perhaps they will not.

The trees and kids on campus are blooming. The sidewalks and lawns are loud, socks have disappeared, and I still have approximately 100 pages to write, and possibly 700 pages to read. The reading will go easy enough, the writing not so much.

On the same day I got the news I passed my comprehensive exam, I crashed my car. No injuries other than my celebratory mood, and my bank account. As the term winds down and graduation, a happy thing, draws near, the pixie dust is being blown off this whole place. School is not free and as I work to keep my grades where I need them to be, job applications and cover letters compete for mind share and time.

I have done this once before; graduated from college and applied for jobs, but then I was younger. I still have dreams. The failure of my dreams to die is why I came back for another degree. They say hope springs eternal, but every spring gets scorched by summer and then frozen by winter. I have not reached my winter years or even my autumn, but my flowers have grown into leaves. I am looking for fruit.

My wife emails me job postings every day. This one is in Hawaii, or that one is right up your alley. I apply, or I don’t, and that 100 pages I have to write isn’t yet 99.

But as I said, I have been here before. It didn’t go so well the first time and I am still alive. Really, in light of my dreams and aspirations, it went horribly, and here I am now. I look up from the job postings and see blossoms and blue skies. I look back down to my books and love what I read. I look at my life right now, not tomorrow, not yesterday, but now, and it is good. It is better than good but I temper my enthusiasm to keep on task.

I love my now. I do not intend to miss it.