I'm Fine

I miss being fine. I would love to be great. You know, when people casually ask you how you are doing, and you say “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” It is just a greeting. People don’t really want to know if you are NOT fine. So sometimes, if it is a person I don’t know well, I just go ahead and lie.

It isn’t that I mean to be untruthful. The truth is just too complex and too sad and to wearisome to tell. I’m not so fine these days. But I am well, I suppose.

I’m clinging to my cosmic egg theory. I am nesting and keeping this precious, delicate thing warm until it hatches and I get to become acquainted with the nascent universe inside.

The truth is, I don’t really know what I am becoming. The pain of surviving nursing school and losing Little A and all the other hurtful things I am enduring now may be making me into a goddess or a monster. Or both. I am more ferocious now, but I am also more tender now. I cry more, but I also laugh more.

I was telling a friend yesterday that all the weak and useless things in my life are falling away. We are nursing students, so we are learning to be like firefighters in that we run into the crisis when others are running out. We face down the blood and viscera of other people unflinchingly. That is shaping me emotionally, as well. I am learning to see people much more clearly, and by extension, myself.

I know what I want. I want to bed down in hot coals. I want to howl at the moon. I want to make the world tremble when I roar. I also want to hear the whispers in silence. I want to cradle precious love in my hands. I want to heal. I want to be able to rest my head somewhere safe.

I can’t fall apart. If I can survive being hollowed out by grief, then I can be a vessel to contain joy. If I can avoid filling myself with anger and bitterness, I can fill with the appreciation of all of life’s small, almost indiscernible moments of beauty and truth. That is what happy looks like to me. Then I will be beyond fine. I will be transcendent, incandescent, and very, very good.

Manifesting the Future

You absolutely cannot get what you want if you don't know what you want. Because you cannot ask for what you want if you don't know what it is. This belief is at the core of who I am. Because I spend perhaps an inordinate amount of time in considered introspection (otherwise known as navel-gazing) I usually know what I want out of life. And I often get it, just not always in the way I first envisioned it.

In one of my notebooks, I wrote a list of qualities I wanted my child to have. I wrote it sometime in early 2006, well before Little A came to be a part of our family, before she was even in foster care. I rediscovered the list when I cracked open the notebook to use it for a personal journal and place to write poetry. That list describes Little A in startling detail. It is uncanny, really. I got exactly what I wished for.

"Be careful what you wish for." That is what people say, right? I think some folks use that as an excuse to abstain from wishing, to avoid the consequences of getting something they wished for frivolously. I take a more discerning attitude toward it. I am CAREFUL what I wish for. I still wish for things, but I am very specific about what I want.

I met with one of my academic advisers today, and she asked me to think about what I want for my future, beyond the day-to-day goals of getting through the nursing program. I had lots of ideas at the ready for things I wanted for myself, which I think surprised her a little. She told me to write them down, which I will do. I need to organize my thoughts first, because I realize that some of my goals are amorphous and I don't want to write them down before getting specific about them. Because I won't set my sights on something unless I really intend to get it in its fullest capacity. Otherwise, I should put my energies toward wanting things that I can commit to fully.

One of my areas of interest concerns my academic goals for after the nursing program, especially what direction I want to take with my BS and MS or MA degrees. I will be making an appointment with someone in the next few weeks to discuss a plan for that. I realized that I had been pooh-poohing some of those dreams as impossible. My adviser looked me right in the eye and told me that as "brilliant and articulate" as she finds me, that my most cherished aspiration could in fact be totally doable, but I would have to start planning sooner rather than later. I intend to live on that compliment for at least a week.

Of course, back in down to earth terms I need to focus on studying for an exam on Monday. No use counting those chickens yet. But for someone to tell me that I can have something lofty that I want if I work for it was really gratifying. And it reminded me of my list. I have the power in me to, perhaps not predict the future, but to manifest it.

I don't know what is going to happen, but I know in vague terms what I want. Time to get specific and write it down. I need to write a new list for myself and put it away, like a letter to my future self. The letter will begin:

"Congratulations, Stacie! You have accomplished the following..."

Good for me. And good for anyone who is with me when I get there.

Now, what to put on that list? I am open to suggestion, so get your requests in now. :)