Dear Professor

Dear Professor,

I think this year was the first time since graduated that I actually got to speak to you. It felt nice. Seems somewhat odd that even in talking to you, I have this running conversation afterwards with myself for months on end. You embed each of our exchanges with simple lessons I feel like I should have learned a lifetime ago, or that I think I can teach myself. And I can't. I always like to think since I'm doing better than last year that each decision I make is the correct one; that somehow The Almighty has led me to each point and now I can pat myself on my back. But the truth is, that never happens. I find myself questioning my choices, scrutinizing my life's path and asking myself "do I really believe that rehearsed answer?" that I always give when someone asks me what my Ultimate Goal is.

I don't know that people recognize the magnitude of what they're inquiring with my twenty-three year old life, but that question is loaded. I think about it days after they have long since loosened their tie and opened their belt buckle. Maybe it's some of the things that I never fully admit to myself that cause me to start that uneasy shifting onto the back of my heels. It makes me investigate each footprint on my life's path and ponder were the shoes that unsettled the soil there really belonging to me.

Sometimes I feel like I'm being pushed around in a dance of other people's dreams coupled with my own to guide me to my current position. Is this really all there is? I could be anything I want. So why this?

I hate this feeling. It's that constant sense of flux, between what was and that which has yet to arrive. My Destiny.

I joked with a friend back home that I was going to drop out of grad school and become a fireman. She frowned at me; something about it made her turn her nose up. The idea of me underneath the neon yellow uniform. I didn't see what the big deal was. Maybe she meant it a different way. Whatever the case, I thought it absurd. I should be allowed to do whatever I want. That's what they always tell you in the fairytales. Why is one Destiny bigger than another destiny? Hell, firefighters make about as much we do anyway. And they save lives too. I thought about everything from Broadway to the Navy and none of them, have I ruled out as a non-option. It's just whenever I used to feel this way as an irresolute Freshman I would flop down in your office and you would make me feel better. Now, it's just me.......groping in the dark for the Key to unlock something wonderful. Although I'm never quite sure what it is. I wish I did though.

Quizzically yours,

Majik