Icarus' Uncertainty Principle

Trying to quantify uncertainty, I am;

Reinventing Daedalus' craft,

Losing oneself in a Labyrinth, and no golden clew

To show the way of escape;

Sewing zeroes onto the exponent

Like feathers onto wings

That will only fall apart when used.

Watch me collide with all I thought

I'd left far behind me.

Falling from the sun, too exhausted to be free

Under the depths, with a dead mind

That can move no wakeful limbs.

(3 July 2011.)

The Field Sobriety Test

I'm trying so hard right now, and I think I'm doing some things right, and I'm definitely doing a couple of things wrong, and there are a great many more things that I have no idea how they ought to be done or whether I'm putting my feet right at all. And it hurts—so very much sometimes.
A whole lot of things hurt right now that seem like they ought not to.

Okay, I know I'm not the only one who's frightened of the future.  I know I'm not the only college student wandering around wondering what the heck I'm supposed to be doing, or what I'm doing right now for that matter.  But it definitely looks to me like everyone around me either 1) has everything neatly, confidently planned out, or 2) doesn't give two beans about their college career, so long as they graduate and have a halfway decent chance of making six figures.

But, oh God, I'm scared to death.  I feel like everything rests on me, you know?  I have to keep up my grades and plan out all this community service and make sure I'm not wasting time and money on classes I don't need to take (basically, I don't get to take any electives, because my stupid honors courses ate up all my electives.  Sucks.  — That's another thing.  I feel like like a crappy honors student.  I can do the coursework, for sure, but I'm not exactly the most confident or responsible 18-year-old out there. All I do is write good essays!)  I can make so many wrong choices.  I could do so many things wrong. There are so many ways to just mess up.  I feel so pressured to make the most of my time (I feel like I wasted a lot of it already.); to do something with myself.  

And I'm so scared, because I don't know what I'm doing.  I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.  And I don't have the self-motivation to take time to listen to God.  [expletive deleted] self-motivation that I don't have.  Being a spontaneous person instead of a goal-oriented one sucks so much right now.  I know I need to change, because, face it, I tend to be a rather irresponsible person and I can't afford to stay that way.  But I don't feel an urgent, desperate need to change, except in crunch time, and by then it's too late; and then I get through it, and on the other side it never looks so bad.  So I just keep doing the same stupid things over and over and never change.

And then there are things I'm terrified of—like taking a required physical education class.  I would, in all seriousness, do almost anything to get out of taking one.  Just thinking about it, just looking at the gym, makes me want to run, literally.  And I have no idea why I dread it in any form so much.  Even classes that seem like they'd be lots of fun, like karate or yoga or scuba diving, still scare the daylights out of me.  But I have to pick one eventually [eventually meaning "SOON!"].

Still, I'm scared to death.  I can't graduate in two years without either taking seventeen credits both semesters next year (impossible, unless I undergo some really drastic personality changes), or taking at least ten credits over the summer (am I capable of going to school full-time for twenty-one straight months without going insane?  I doubt it.)  I'm so frightened that my GPA will drift just a bit too low, or I'll procrastinate one day too far or on one project too many, or I'll get one night too little of sleep, or I'll fall in love with somebody and screw up my whole life, or I'll just plain lose my mind and go crazy.  Literally.  And I can't even listen to God, who I've been desperately asking for help.  I can't even bring myself to do that much.  I feel so desperately out of touch, out of time, out of anything but emotion.

If I wrote a song about this, it could be turned into a 1940s-era reenactment of Barbara Manatee.

I hate it when you grow up and you start realizing that everything doesn't come in black and white.  Morals, people, opinions, relationships, politics...everything deals in ambiguity.  Maybe that's one reason I hate drama (as in, melodrama)—why I like "sword-and-sorcery" fantasy books where there's a valiant hero and a dastardly villain and you always know who's going to come out on top, and what's right and what's wrong.  Maybe that's why so many people write those books.  Because, no matter how much we wish it did, life doesn't operate like that.  Things I thought were secure might not be.  People I thought I understood metaphorically up-and-move to another planet.  People have stories buried in dark alleys in another world.  Except—none of this is as dramatic as that made it sound.  Nothing is really fantastically drastic.  

I'm just finding out that the world isn't as idealistic as I am.  I'm feeling hopelessly, incurably naïve.  And it's bundling more confusion onto me than I think is my fair share, what with being a brand-new adult and trying to get the rest of my life sorted out and all.  Can't I just live it moment by moment, and let it all work out for itself?  But, see, that's not black-and-white, either.  Apparently you need forethought, vision, necessities like that.  Since when have those been my forte?  Since when was I a good candidate to sort out my own life?  Who thought it would be a good idea to drag me out from the cupboard under the stairs? (Yes, book reference, sorry.)  People don't work like I spent eighteen years thinking they did.  And that sort of explains a lot, like why I spend so much time wanting to beat people I've never met over the head with something large and heavy and perfect for knocking sense into human brains.  I'm starting to understand why I don't understand so many things about why the world is the way it is, even if that's all I'm understanding.  I really miss being naïve without understanding what naïveté was.  But I can't afford to live like that, can I?  Ostensibly...no. I cannot.  

Good golly, I'm a moody lil' woman.

Compact Intermittency

How many times can I change in a minute?  Is it any wonder I seem to lack vision, that what was fertile seems to have withered and died, shriveling from wondrous warm black sogginess into dry papery beige dust?  I can't even agree with myself on what flavor of ice cream is my favorite for five minutes (yellow cake batter is a longstanding love, but I'm also partial to moose tracks, lemon custard, and seventeen or so other options—yes, I'm a nightmare in a busy ice cream parlor); how can I possibly make decisions regarding life and identity and future? Who would want me to?  (Most people, apparently.)  I'm moody and neurotic and indecisive.  I put things off. In the space of a moment, how much can I change?  And if I change so much in small space, how much little am I thus changing in a bigger sense?  If the leaves on the tree turn from green to gold to red, it's still a maple tree.  If Kiersten is angry or sad or happy or excited or sleepy or just plain stuffed full of idiosyncrasies, she's still the same old Kiersten.  (Like I've said before, Relient K describes my life.)  It's really hard to stay sane long enough to make myself a better person.