Hello Blog World

As kids, most of us kept a journal buried in a drawer of socks or under a corner of the mattress. That small book kept our most intimate secrets. At the ripe age of 13 that usually was about the latest boy to catch my eye. Now, you all may have had better secrets to keep tucked away in the journal's crumpled pages. Because my real life didn't interest me nearly as much as my imagination, the pages of my journals were filled with endless stories about foreign lands, make-believe species, and a knight in shining armor (that often looked remarkably like my latest crush). When princesses and princes weren't involved, stories about large, crazy families formulated, spurred on by blockbuster hits like Cheaper by the Dozen or Yours, Mine, and Ours. As I grew older, writing stories became a part of my past, like the secrets that collected scattered amongst crumpled pages of forgotten journals. Free time became spare time, and then, spare time became no time. School took over my life. I had no idea the meaning of the phrase until I came to college. Granted, I attended an all-girls, Catholic, college preparatory school, so I'm no stranger to late nights turned early mornings, strict teachers, or endless assignments. College is a completely different matter. Here, I have free time, and I have no idea what to do with it. I spent a majority of my freshman year dancing around commitments, reveling in the newfound concepts of freedom and avoiding the necessary ones of time management and organization. And boy, did that hit me like a speeding truck. After multiple rounds of consecutive all-nighters, I quickly decided procrastination just wasn't working for me like it did in high school. (Quite honestly, I'm not sure it worked for me then either.) In any case, two years into my college education, I've got it down to a science. I have found a balance, and that precarious position is rocked on a daily basis. Somedays, the scales tilt towards insanity, and it seems that I'm barreling towards a cliff with no signs of slowing down. Other days, I'm on my a-game, and life seems to be a walk in the park. I never know what kind of day it's going to turn out to be. Like the bipolar Texas weather, it's possible to leave my apartment as Queen of the World with the sun shining brightly and walk back 75 minutes later in a torrential downpour hanging onto the edges of sanity with my fingernails.  As I'm sure you've noticed this far into the post, I have a talent for the overdramatic. It oozes from my being, usually with a dose of brutal honesty and a jigger of sarcasm. But hey, it makes life a touch more entertaining. Not that I need the entertainment, but my friends supply a more-than-healthy helping of crazy. I wouldn't have it any other way. People keep telling me that these are the best days of my life. I wouldn't want to look back and only see the inside of a library. I want to see days speckled with insanity and companionship like I do when I look back at that tattered journal hiding beneath the mattress of my bed at home. I want to look back and see my imagination caught for a moment in time as a post (this time around) as opposed to a rambling story about a princess in a large family traipsing through the country looking for her prince. I still don't have many juicy secrets to share, but I'm more than willing to provide stories of my crazy encounters as I try and balance life. As the Cheshire Cat said, "We're all crazy here."