What is it about transition that always seems to bring me back here? Whenever my life has reached cruising altitude for any particular slice of the year, it becomes incredibly easy to pass by both pen and keyboard without bothering to reflect on anything except the daily busy-ness that fills my thoughts.

But there’s something about times like these—times between times—when my heart is creeping back to school but my belongings and responsibilities still lie largely at home—when I feel, quite literally, neither here nor there. At these times I feel the need to steady myself—to get a grip on something other than the land ripping in two beneath me—and so I grasp at words and pictures in an attempt to see both where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Of course, times like these also force me to examine the staggeringly-many (it seems like millions of) posts titled-but-not-written, canvases collected-but-not-painted-on, emails received-but-not-answered—all of them planned-but-not-realized episodes in this rapidly-ending season. For someone to whom completeness appeals so deeply, I have opened an awful lot of books I haven’t closed.

I am dwelling on transition and my life’s so-far accomplishments (or lack thereof) in part because I just celebrated my twentieth birthday. It was truly a lovely day—an opportunity for me to be reminded, once again, of how blessed I am to have the family, friends, and community that I do. I am very glad that I turned twenty.

But twenty is such a singular age. Teetering on the brink of adulthood, it is a number brimming with both promise and regret. Promise because, at twenty, my soul still insists on looking ahead, anticipating the excitement and fulfillment which it believes will no doubt characterize the rest of my life; regret because, at twenty, I have already experienced enough to know better.

It’s a humbling thought, the realization that this world is going to let me down, and it’s one I hope I can hang on to as I navigate this particular time of transition. Not so I might throw my hands up and say life is not worth living, but so I might sit calmly through the turbulence I will undoubtedly encounter, and remember that what is truly important cannot be shaken by those small bumps and jostles.

With all that said, here’s to the new school year: may it be meaningful and character-building for us all.

Songs that are currently haunting me (please ignore the associated videos):

• Richard Thompson – Beeswing
• The Flaming Lips – Do You Realize?
• Sun Kil Moon – Carry Me Ohio

GROUP A: Well-intentioned, amiable folks who are truly kind and loving. They’ve got it going on. Safe.

GROUP B: Bitter, self-deluded ne’er-do-wells who make bad decisions that hurt those around them. Unsafe.

Why must the never-tiring sorter that sits hunched up in my brain find a way to cram every single person into one of these two boxes? With the exception of a few fortunate individuals who have not interacted with me enough to be assigned to either category, I pass this judgment so subconsciously and instantaneously that almost no one I know is immune from its verdict.

Why am I always taken aback when someone from Group B extends me kindness? Why am I so quick to let them switch places with someone from group A who has grieved me? Surely, even the corroded, gnarled-up, ugliest part of my sub-conscious must realize that human beings are more complex than any on/off switch can account for.

I should not be surprised at the members of Group B who demonstrate Group A tendencies—because, you see, Group B does not exist. And neither does Group A. We are each of us a special blend of the two—a treacherous cocktail so equally capable of love and hate that any attempt to see which rules in our hearts from our earth-bound vantage point seems futile at best. It’s like trying to judge someone’s driving by looking at a snapshot of their car.

I am honestly ashamed that this truth has not yet sunk in—especially when all the evidence I could ever need beats in my own chest. Have I not embodied the “Unsafe” so well and so often that any fellow sorters must have me pegged there? How can I look down on others for speaking what flows so naturally from my own lips?

I can’t, of course. But I do. Every day. Every encounter. Every opportunity for my sorter to sort. How I wish I could send that sorter packing—or at least, force myself to realize that just as I sort others, so I will be sorted.

Please, Lord, forgive me for sorting.

The amount of worry that I can put into looking, acting, and living a certain way is truly dizzying.

It’s like spending twenty-four hours a day trying to wind the details of your life up into neat little skeins and arrange them on color-coded shelves (and convincing yourself that if just one of those skeins were to come unraveled, life would simply not be worth living) only to discover they are still a tangled mess of yarn on the floor—and what’s more, that these threads have been distracting you from what really mattered all along.

Sometimes I think that all of my anxiety in life can be traced back to that intense desire to be other than I am. Better, in the world’s eyes. Perfect, in my own. I know it’s wrong. But I also know I am not alone in this.

So, please—forgive everyone for not having their skeins neatly wound up and sorted. And even more, have mercy on those of us who are still trying to pretend that we do.

Both of my windows are looking out on gorgeous flowering trees right now. Despite the fact that it is bizarrely cold here, spring truly has arrived.

I am sorry for my absence. It turns out that life is not always easy to bottle up, classify, and set on a shelf for scrutinization. Because of this, and because said life has been incredibly busy, blogging of all kinds has had to take a back seat of late. But I am still here.

Today was one of those days. The kind of day where it was sunny outside but foggy in my head; where every glance at my piles of laundry and scatters of papers was not a reason to take action, but instead a reason to furrow my brow and feel sorry for myself. It was the kind of day where every single molehill, no matter how tiny, seemed like an everest-sized mountain to climb.

And I have oh-so-many molehills.

That’s the problem with these kind of days; they find me when I need them least. This is, has been, and I fear will continue to be my pattern for dealing with life. I roar ahead full throttle on projects that I care about until the details of my life come knocking at my door and my to-do list grows too long—and then I shut down. I can’t answer emails, I can’t work on photos, I can hardly bear to lift my head off the pillow in the morning. Wake me up when life is easy, please.

It doesn’t work, of course. This perverse determination to procrastinate is not the least bit relaxing; it gives me chills and makes me nauseous and feels like a hundred-pound weight on my shoulders. Please, Lord, hurry up and make life easy.

I won’t pretend for a moment that I’m proud of this behavior. It is sick and wrong and irresponsible. (If only correctly labeling it as such made it easier to stop.) But the sick, wrong, irresponsible truth is that my broken spirit often reaches this point of desperation; the point at which doing nothing seems so incredibly much easier than doing something.

And it’s at that point that I realize how much I need help; how much I’m not going to crawl my way out of this canyon on my own—little, tiny, powerless, human me.

Thankfully, we tiny, powerless humans are not alone. Which is good, because I don’t know if you noticed, but life doesn’t really get easy. But even though it’s not easy, it’s time… time for me to pull myself out of this mire of self-pity and sloth, brush myself off, and keep moving forward.

Please, Lord, help me keep moving forward.

One of my good friends (and fellow Gutenberg students) has described summer as a “pit-stop on the highway of life”—a time to relax, refuel…. and just sit there. Going nowhere.

Mind you, take my friend’s words with a grain of salt—he despises summer with rarely-seen fervor. But this year, I think he has a point.

I know it’s an odd sentiment from someone whose summer has been characterized by ceaseless activity, but I, too, have felt “paused” since the middle of June. Partly, I know, this is due to the unsettledness of my worldly possessions—one look at my bedroom floor, piled three layers deep with clean (or dirty; who can tell?) clothes, reveals the story of a girl who is perching, not nesting.

Another contributing factor is the absence of friends who became dear to me over the course of the school year. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with class- and house-mates leaving me for the summer, and I can’t say I like it.

But more than the practical realities of far-away friends or a messy room, something else is not quite right… something in the air at Gutenberg that is as hard to pinpoint as it is conspicuously absent from my summer.

It can’t be simply the absurd level of busy-ness that my life reached last school year, because between working at my anonymous retail location, shooting and editing four weddings, and trying to get my fledgling photography business off the ground, I’ve been rivaling that level all summer.

There is a qualitative difference, I’ve decided, between my activities at Gutenberg last year and those I’ve occupied myself with this summer. My summer undertakings have all locked my focus squarely on this temporal existence of ours. They’re fun, they’re challenging, they’re engaging—but they leave me weighted to the ground—engulfed by daily matters and completely oblivious to bigger, greater goings on.

Thankfully, Gutenberg does not hesitate to jackhammer away the kind of cement shoes I’ve been pouring myself all summer—eternal importance is peeking through the very weave of its curriculum. One cannot put themselves through the readings and discussions and interactions at Gutenberg without asking themselves what this whole “life” thing is all about—about what’s really, truly important. My soul is beginning to yearn for this atmosphere of fumbling and frank exploration.

My parents and I stopped by Gutenberg tonight as we were running errands, and we took the opportunity to check out the room I will be living in come fall. This tiny room, which I have longed to live in since I was ten years old (a story for another post, perhaps), has been tickling the back of my mind all summer—a tantalizing reminder of the school year that lies ahead. But not until tonight, as we measured for curtains and a desk, did the reality of the coming year really hit me.

Suddenly, that amorphous feeling of Gutenberg nostalgia solidified into four walls, a ceiling and a floor—this room would be my Gutenberg. This is where I would read, and laugh, and cry, and have my mind blown in ways I can’t even imagine. It was all real. We were coming back for another year. And I couldn’t have been happier.

I have to admit: as far as pit-stops go, this summer’s been a pretty nice one (definitely one of those fancy gas stations that has really clean bathrooms). I have so much to be thankful for, and so little to really complain about. I know that. I do.

But even so, I hope you’ll understand me when I say: I’m ready to hit the road.

My roommate moved out today. She packed up her clothes and her books and the netting that hung above her bed; she put them in boxes and loaded them into the truck that carried her home—and with her, she took more than half the life away from our little basement room.

Her departure was a visceral reminder that my mind has been so focused on the details of this final and that paper that I have been totally oblivious to my first year of college slipping out from under my feet.

But here it goes—there it went. This time next week, I will be back on my growing-up end of town, spending time with my friend Savanna and processing photos and going to work at my anonymous retail location—and, most likely, I will be missing school.

I guess what I’m trying to say is—I need to appreciate what I have while I have it. Because as much as I would love to fast forward past my studying and my paper-writing, there’s so much in these days to appreciate: the lovely evening air that’s blowing in these windows; the familiar, beloved faces buried in their books just like me; even the pressure of having to make myself work—these moments are blessings. Life is thick with them, and they are thick with life.

And they are slipping by faster than I possibly could have imagined.

For weeks, I have longed for the sweet, sweet freedom that is spring break. While I was staying up all hours of the night writing papers and studying for finals, I imagined what it would be like to spend my time taking photographs and writing blog posts and cleaning my room and organizing my life and when I was tired just… going to bed!

And then reality hit.

You see, while a normal, sane person might look at a day like today—a day completely free of prearranged responsibilities—and say, “Hey! Today is my opportunity to do all kinds of things! I can get together with friends, I can write, I can draw, I can take care of projects that have been nagging me,” I took one look at today and said, “Too many options. Overwhelmed. Going back to bed.”

And that is how I found myself, after I returned from taking my roommate to the train station this morning, sleeping away half the afternoon. You could argue that I needed the sleep, but all the same, it left me feeling bitter at myself for wasting all that precious time.

One of the nice things about having a confining, crazy-making school schedule, I’ve discovered, is that it tends to crowd out all the ways you could be spending your time and focuses your attention on the task at hand: completing schoolwork. In that way, it actually removes responsibility. It also prevents you from sleeping through the whole day.

There I go again—eyeing that grass on the other side of the fence. Don’t worry… in a few weeks I’ll be longing for summer break.