Nothing Can Come of Nothing

It's been a great long while since I've read King Lear.  A couple of years, really, since I've either read or watched anything Shakespearean at all.  But as I was mulling over some things I'm not entirely sure that I'm content with, this phrase popped into my head.

I frequently go through periods where I feel as though I get antsy with everyone and everything.  The antsy-ness may or may not be visible, I really don't know, but I sometimes find myself wishing that I could just run away from everything for a while until I get myself sorted out.

Sometimes it passes through, just a brief visitor reminding me that there's no such thing as feeling absolutely settled with everything.  And sometimes it stays for a while, prompting and re-prompting an assessment of things that I can change, that maybe I should change, that maybe I just need a longer reminder can be changed.  Sometimes it morphs into the winter, spring, summer, and fall of my discontent.

I've been known to ponder running away to escape this feeling, but I know that's patently ridiculous: anything internal would follow me.  It's a silly impulse since I've only discovered two ways of getting rid of this sensation--waiting it out and actually making a change.

And I'm starting to wonder about whether I should make a change, because Lear keeps popping into my brain.  Nothing can come of nothing, and I need to make some choices.  I need to take some actions or I need to choose not take some actions.

But in the meanwhile any time I encounter this feeling, I have a feeling this saying will be swimming around in my brain until I choose.  Doing nothing, choosing nothing, will result in nothing.

A New Year

Another year has come and gone--far too quickly, it seems. I used to think time would never pass as quickly as I wanted; years used to feel eternities long. Now time passes more quickly than I wish it to, and I find myself expecting change. Welcoming change, even. And this year will be a year of change.

I should (if all goes according to plan, but really--since when has all gone according to plan?) graduate from my program this spring. And then I'm not sure what I'll do. Where I'll be. It seems like a time of infinite possibilities, I've decided. Sure, it's a little bit petrifying to think I should be planning on what to do with the rest of my life, but I figure that it's always served me best to make it up as I go along.

Last year I made a set of goals, and now I don't remember what they are. I can't decide if that means they weren't important enough or if I need to learn a little self-discipline. Maybe both. Maybe neither.

I can think of all kinds of idealistic goals I could make, but I'm not sure I want to make any of them; if I think of anything I actually feel an urge to express, I'll tell you. In the meantime, I welcome 2010 with open arms . . . preparing myself to embrace whatever life throws me at this year.

Or, at the very least, to catch whatever life throws at me--if only for a second, before I drop it.

Adventures Going Home

Sleeping at my parents' house has become an adventure, in a way. Especially when my sister and her husband are over. (The ones, mind you, who don't have kids. It's even more of an adventure trying to find a place to sleep with munchkins underfoot. Although with nephews and niece as cute as mine, any annoyance quickly diminishes.)

Anyway, before my brother returned home from his mission, his bed was the officially nominated guest bed. And rightly so--it's a queen-sized bed. And it's also the only other bed confined to a bedroom. There's a hide-a-bed in the couch upstairs, and the leather couch in the basement isn't so heinously uncomfortable it's impossible to crash there. But it was nice to sleep on a regular bed.

Those days are gone. My little brother now gets to sleep in his bed. Last night, my brother-in-law and sister claimed the leather couch. My dad wakes up ridiculously early now that he has to work four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days, so he's been relegated to the upstairs couch. And that left me smashed into the sewing room on an air mattress.

But at least it was the good air mattress. The big one. Not the twin size air mattress I slept on the last time I'd been home. When I slept on that air mattress, I turned just a little in the night, and found myself plunked on to the floor. And yes, I bruised as a result. (Thankfully, most of them weren't noticeable. And in regard to the bruise people did notice, I just told them I must have run into something. Technically--I did. I ran into the floor. But I wasn't about to tell them that.)

Still, I remember the days I used to have a bed at that house. That house carried a certain hint of permanence to it. For a short while, I was the boomerang child--I could move out of the house, but there was always a place to move back to.

That, alas, is no longer the case. My former bedroom is no more. My dad, my brother, and my brother-in-law knocked out walls to expand the front room . . . and my former bedroom has merged with the living room.

This means that though Centerville will always be home, I will never be living there again. It's kind of an odd feeling.

A minor change. Nothing I can't handle. But when Bon Jovi asks, "Who says you can't go home?" My response is now: my dad and his sledge hammer. Obviously.

Changes, Changes . . .

The other day, as I randomly perused blogs and kept finding--much to my chagrin!--that it seemed nobody whose blog I had read had updated recently, I started feeling grouchy. These people, I thought, needed to update. How dare they go a week without letting me into a little corner of their lives?

Um yeah. I'm a hypocrite. Not that I think anyone is dying to see what happens in my own little corner of the world, but . . . I shouldn't gripe about people not updating their blogs for a few days when I haven't either. Pot, kettle, and all that jazz.

Moving on.

It looks like I'll be doing more moving on. When my roommates and I moved, we were quite cognizant our house no longer stood in ward boundaries. But since the boundaries to our particular ward seemed less a guideline and more a suggestion, we didn't feel terribly guilty about staying.

The leadership in that ward is due to change. The bishopric will be released this month, and they realized just how many outliers they actually have in the ward. So they're implementing the boundaries, to graciously acknowledge that the new bishopric should not have to be viewed as the bad guys.

I'm not nearly as sad about the switch as either of my roommates, although there are certainly people I'll miss seeing in church on a weekly basis. And I've learned that the Church is true, no matter which ward I'm in. Or not in. In truth, I'll miss teaching Relief Society. And I don't know how I'll handle making a new set of friends.

But I have faith I'll make them. Changes happen for a reason. Yea, verily, I believe there is a purpose to just how much my life will have changed by August 25. I just can't see the purpose yet. (And me not seeing things? Not that new to me.)

And to end on a completely random note: it's official. The only other big change that could happen to me this year would be for me to get married.

(But don't worry. I don't think I'm that much of a change magnet . . .)