Come with me. Together, we can take the long way home.

My life right now is similar to my drive home. I hit every yellow light but kept on cruising.
I didn't, however, get pulled over for racing the reds; so I guess in a metaphorical sense this can be considered good.

It's funny to think how, at this moment, I am every hopeless cliche that I ever hoped to be in high school. Dream job on a yacht, good group of friends...going to class and working out during the day and sitting in coffee shops at night.
I have to admit that these things are much more romantic on paper than in actual life.
I feel caught somewhere between alive and pathetic.

My fingers have been buring to write lately, and the fews things that I've scribbled have been horrible at best. But I got an unexpected message from an old friend asking how I was doing and if I still wrote. Alas! A reminder of who I used to be and who I used to like being.

This summer has been shakey and unfamiliar, and I've found myself feeling completely disoriented. That message was exactly what I needed to remind me that I used to be someone before I was this empty shell of a person. So I took it and ran with it...

My semester was all work. 9-4 classes, followed by an unpaid internship that often required unpaid overtime, and my weekends were entirely devoted to the responsibilites that a newly 21 year old shouldn't be so overly concerned with. I've become dreadfully responsible, and I almost convinced myself that I enjoyed becoming another clone in the hustle and bustle of our work driven society. The main tragedy is that I wasn't enjoying any part of it.

And then my relationship came to a crashing (burning) end, and I began to question everything I knew about life and love and God.

I can't say that I've found any answers at all...but then again it's only June.

This summer has been far from ideal.
I don't go out, and I'm burdened by my adult limitations. (I have to work for my money? I can't go anywhere I want, whenever I want, with any friend of my chosing?)
I'm too broke to go out, and even if that weren't true Knoxville is a ghost town by night and full of work driven zombies (like myself) during the day.

But, as if God himself had given it to me, a friend recommended: Here, read this book.
And handed me a copy of Eat Pray Love.

This small work has begun the transformation of my summer.

To keep it terse, it was as if Elizabeth Gilbert had crept inside my head and caputured my silliest emotions and then articulated and developed them in a much wiser and more poetic way. I fell in love and will continue to reread this book throughout my life as a devotional and a spiritual.

The most wonderful thing I've gained from this book is a vow to myself to make this summer one of beautiful simplicity.

I'm writing again, and I'm working my way back to the positive aspects of my younger self.

I want to be hopelessly romantic to a fault because that means I believe in love.
I want to go for walks and watch sunrises because that means I can make the most of my surroundings.
And I want to sit and enjoy the newly painted walls of my apartment because that means I can enjoy simplicity.

Gabby and I don't have cable, but we have wonderful movies and a coffee maker.
There is a fantastic half priced book store not 10 minutes from here.

And I just bought two new books to occupy my time: The Old Man and the Sea and 47 Roses

This is the start of a very happy beginning.