I thought there were certain things that had to happen as you aged, things that were a part of being alive, a part of living a normal life. It was like life was an equation that you plugged yourself into, and I was comfortable with the concept of routine from the get go.

I remember the first time I realized that life is not standardized for all people. I was in fifth grade at my doctor’s for the annual check-up. You come in, put on a paper robe (he was still giving me the ones with dinosaurs on it), sat up on that loud, crinkling paper while he checked my glands and listened to my heart. As I waited for a yellow lollypop that he hides in a drawer in his desk, he informed me that I had officially stopped growing. It was like it was announced on the news that the world had just stopped turning. I didn’t understand what he meant. “I’m not growing anymore?”

“Yup, that’s it.”

“This is as tall as I’ll ever be?” my voice began to break.

“This is it.”

“You mean, I’ll never be as tall as Terri?” Terri is my oldest sister – a whopping 5’6” or 7” and I’m not being sarcastic, it IS whopping to a fifth grader who is 5’2” and waiting to sprout. I thought it was a part of life that you grew “up.” You hear everyone talk to you about what you’re going to be when you grow up, how much more you’ll understand when you grow up, what you’ll finally be allowed to do once you grow up. Well, they didn’t tell me that at some point I’d stop growing up and that I’d just keep getting older. It was such a terrible disappointment, and it messed with all my ideas of what else I believed was a part of life that would not be a part of MY life.

There were tons of these minor disappointments that set me and other kids like me up for the unpredictability of life. These included the end of our belief in Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy. The thing with me though was that I never believed there was an actual Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, and I stopped believing in Santa Claus by first grade. In fact, I was the little bitch who went around telling all the other kids he didn’t exist. I know, I know, that kid sucks, and I SO was that kid, but I didn’t know I was ruining Christmas for the other kids. I knew something they didn’t that was true, and I thought I’d let them in on it. Also, I hate being wrong, and ALL these kids thought I was wrong when I was right, and I wasn’t about to stand for that. “Well, who brings us the presents, smarty-pants?” They’d chant. “Who ate the cookies in the middle of the night?” And like a true realist, I replied, “Your parents, you idiots. They do it all after you fall asleep. Santa is just a figment of your imagination that adults use to keep the spirit of Christmas alive for little kids.” I don’t know what happened to me. It wasn’t until a year later that I realized what I had done, so I tried to reverse it and tell everyone that Santa was alive. They all knew by this point, so I took the angle of Santa being alive in our hearts. They all looked at me with eyes that read, “You already fucked it up for us, Lor, so shut it.” Yeah. Oh well. But I digress…

Then there was the belief that went you got older, you eventually wore suits, carried a briefcase, and went to meetings in tall buildings. I must have gotten this from TV because neither of my parents did this. Nonetheless, this was what the future held for everyone in my stupid little eyes. It wasn’t until middle school, or maybe the beginning of high school that I even bothered to think that something had to be IN that briefcase, that those meetings would be about SOMETHING that I currently did not know about. I realized how much work and effort is put into becoming something. I realized whatever you had to know to work in that building, carry in the briefcase, and talk about in that meeting – I did not know, nor did I feel like I was in route to knowing at all. I really had to wonder what I was going to be, what I was going to do. I hadn’t a clue. I had a long list of possibilities, of tiny temporary dreams that I didn’t even realized I had to pursue. I still believed at this point that things happen to you, that you don’t actually make them happen. I thought there was structure to the future. I thought there was some sort of scaffolding.

I did well in school. I did very well. I was always one of the top students in the classes – never actually the top, but up there. My parents were so supportive. I had such passion for learning, such motivation to do the best I could. I worked so hard at everything, I didn’t blow a thing off. I wanted to be in the arts, I wanted to be a scientist, I wanted to be a writer. At the time, I believed I could do it all. I was good at everything I wanted to be good at, and nothing got in my way, ever. Nothing. Everyone thought my future was so bright. I did too. I knew it was bright, but no light fell on any one thing. No focus, just excitement.

As I got went through college, I still managed to avoid my directionless truths. I was still under the impression that I had everything in the world ahead of me. My mom still encouraged me to think big, to know I could still do anything I wanted. My dad was the one that saw me not making enough choices that would lead me to a steady paycheck anytime soon. I knew I was learning life lessons, and I knew that my experience was indeed invaluable, but he was right. I had no focus because there was still a middle-schooler in my head that thought everything would work out for me. Like Charlie (an analogy I’ve used before), I thought that I could buy only three Wonka bars tops before I found the Golden Ticket, even when the whole world was busting its ass to get it too. I thought that I could win an entire goddamn chocolate factory by being honest and good all while having the time of my life. I guess it doesn’t work that way. And you KNOW it doesn’t, but part of you can’t stop believing it.

Then I got on the show. Sounded like a golden ticket to me, and I knew I’d get it, not because I was better than anyone else, but for the same reason why Charlie bought one last Wonka bar and opened it slowly with so much faith that a coin found in a sewer could bring him his dreams. Then it happened for me, and I believed somehow that my dreams would all fall into place, even though I never took the time in 22 years to figure out exactly what those dreams were. I’m realizing now that THAT is the scariest part – THAT’S what I’m most upset about with myself. I still like the idea of having a big corner office and going to meetings. I still want to work in a lab and analyze tornados. I still want to be hectically painting make-up on runway models at fashion shows in Paris. I still want to publish a book on empathy. I still want to record with Dave and make my millions singing with my eyes closed. Obviously, I’ve been forced to lean towards some dreams over others. I mean, I’m not going to start with bio I and begin my scientist aspirations at 23. I’m not going to buy thousands of dollars worth of make-up and search for opportunities to freelance make-overs. I don’t think that singing is just a default dream at all, but it’s true that it wasn’t the ONLY dream I’ve had. Besides, I’m scared of following through and coming up short. I don’t do that very often, and though it’s a part of life, I’m sort of sick of certain “parts of life,” and can’t help but try to avoid them. Maybe I need Brad Pitt to hold a gun to my head, ask me what my dreams are, and threaten to kill me if I’m not immediately on my way to making them happen. I wonder how good that man’s breakfast did taste that next morning.

Nonetheless, the show did not place me gently on top of a freshly paved highway towards success. In fact, it just scrambled up some of my theories on life, and then threw me back where I started with a handful of insecurities and slices of confidence I didn’t have before.
So, here I am, a typical post-grad in tears over the loss of my givens, but there’s something even greater than that now that is so enormous, I haven’t had the capacity to fully absorb its reality. I haven’t surrendered all my givens yet. I still believe with all my heart that I will be married before I’m thirty to a perfect man for me, and we will live in a well-furnished home, and we will have beautiful, healthy children. In five years, I want my life to be in order. If I haven’t conquered my dreams by then, I will be actively pursuing them with all my heart. Only within the last eight months has something attempted to shatter what I considered to be my reality. War.

I don’t know much about politics. In fact, I know so little about who’s in the government and what is going on in the world that I literally leave the room when debates among friends begin, purely out of sheer humiliation and shame for the lack of effort I’ve put in to learning more. I admire people who do read the paper, who do have strong opinions of world affairs like my friends Erin, Aine, Dave, and Jim. They teach me patiently, and I learn what I can from them. This isn’t my point though. My point is that though I don’t know all the details about what’s going on the world, I know enough to be scared. I know we’re supposed to fight terrorism by living life without fear, and I don’t live in fear everyday, but there are some things I’m in no way prepared to sacrifice about my future. The bad guys have some serious plans, and they don’t seem to back down very well. There is a bunch of shit that goes on that is so terrifying that the government would never let us know about it. I wonder how many times some dude has his finger on the button that would have turned me and my family into shadows permanently stained into the earth. I, like many Americans, have believed that warfronts would never exist in this country. I could never imagine New York or Boston being a Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Even after it happened in NYC, part of me never believed it because it was all still something behind my TV screen. I know this sounds stupid, and I pray it isn’t offensive, but there is a part of me that wishes Coral and I did not leave New York that night of September 10th. My friends were there – Dave in particular saw some things with his own two eyes that he said made he was happy that I did not see them too. He said he felt protective over me and the other girls in our group of friends, and though he felt oddly blessed to be a part of such a devastating, life-altering, monumental, and historical experience, he did not wish it for anyone else. There is a beauty in pain because only the most horrific things in life will truly open our eyes to the significance of love. It’s almost as if you can see God, and though we could hardly handle it if we did, who wouldn’t want to? Dave has tasted a bit of the secrets to our existence, the proof of our souls, and though his heart had to break to learn it, he is a better man now. I am still naïve. I still cannot possibly fathom the pain so many people had to experience because of some fucking asshole and his moron followers who have their ideas of what is right so messed up that they believed killing innocents was their ticket to salvation. How distorted can the mind be? How absolutely sickening are some people in this world that they rejoice over such disgusting evil?

I cried with the world. I cried the hardest when I saw the whole planet crying and praying together. I was so moved by the unity of people, by the awesome display of love and sympathy that I thought my heart would burst. I realized that the world is indeed a paradise, but with so many bad seeds growing into dark orchards. I once wrote about my feeling a guilt for having all my loved ones safe, my home still in tact, my life still insignificant and unaltered directly. I felt distant from the world, not personally united. I felt objective, I felt setback. I looked at all those faces of people in fear, of people praying so hard they never unclasped their hands. I hated that I could not alleviate any one person’s pain. I was angry that I was so far away that I could not cry along with a stranger on the streets of New York. I couldn’t explain why I was so lucky when others weren’t. I couldn’t explain why I felt that nothing like that STILL could ever happen to me when it happened to so many people who were just going about their daily lives as naively as I do today. All their givens were destroyed. Why can’t I surrender mine?

What if this war continues and our country with all its perfect cities becomes rubble? What if my future is no longer about worrying about my career but about surviving? What if my daily problems are about avoiding bullets, evacuating from one place to another? I can’t believe that my givens may not be so. I can’t help but be so angry that someone out there is destroying what I thought life was supposed to be like when you grew up. I can’t help but want the worst of my problems to be which restaurant me, my husband, and my kids go to for a birthday dinner. I can’t help but hope that the reason I’m upset in ten years is because my son is pissed that I won’t let him stay out until midnight, not because most of my family died in biochemical warfare. I want to cry over a small stain in my wedding dress right before I walk down the aisle, not because of some devastating explosion for the third time that week. I cannot compromise the reality of the political situations in this world, and the pleasant simplicity of what I always thought life would be. I know how superficial it sounds, but it isn’t. Who doesn’t wish that our lives were simple and easy? Who doesn’t wish that we didn’t have to worry about Bin Laden and all the crap he has planned?

I don’t know how to handle life really. I don’t know if it’s best to spend your life preparing for the unexpected or believing in your givens. I’m not sure what to expect, what makes me a good person, what I should be doing to ensure a good life if it were at all possible to ensure such a thing. I guess I’m just acknowledging how difficult life continues to be. When you finish school – an institution that was your whole life since before you started forming memories, you feel like you were dropped from the surface of the earth. I always had September to look forward to – to hold my months in order, to keep my life feeling purposeful. Now, the beginning of the year is January. Now, I need to learn to take responsibility, and be prepared to for life to take turns that may sometimes feel unfair to have to experience. If there is one lesson I’ve learned, it’s to always tell the people you love that you love them regardless of pride. At least I know I do that much.