Easter Sunday.

“I want a summer to myself. I want a year of nothingness. I want to escape life for awhile.” ~ 2002

It amazes me sometimes. How much I used to write and how little I write now. I just checked my diary (I usually check my favorites every day even if I don’t leave notes). I wanted to see what I was doing last year at Easter time. But I didn’t write an entry for it. And it upsets me a little. Looking back on the things I’ve written, I’ve seen myself grow in some ways. It’s interesting.

I feel older now than I did when I started this whole adventure. I feel seasoned and yet at the same time feel naive in so many ways.

I don’t know which feeling I prefer.

One thing I wrote last year I used in the opening lines for this entry.

“I want a summer to myself.” In all acuality, I spent my summer falling more and more in love with my current boyfriend. I found out only after I had him that I had been missing him through out my entire life without even knowing who he was.

“I want a year of nothingness.” That’s what this has been for me. Nothingness. In this far away town set in the mountains, I have come to like a life of simplicity. And come to realize that I want more. I needed this year. A year of wonderful students, a caring administration, a chance to grow slowly. This school has been a blessing as has this area. Perhaps if it had been more challenging, I would have written more. One of my students, Jimmy, was given an assignment. Write a childrens’ story. He look dumbfounded when I first told him what to do. Then, slowly, he came out of the coma-like state. “But I don’t do happy. I can’t write happy.” I felt hypocritical when I encouraged him and told him he could.

I don’t do happy either.

But I am happy. I’m learning how that feels.

“I want to escape life for awhile.” I’ve done that this year. It feels like I’m not living here. As we go downtown and see the same people on a daily basis. Live in this small existence. The war seems far away. My family seems far away. The months fly by and leave me here.

After this year, after 999 entries, I end up here. Where am I going in life now? Do I want to spend a forever in this this utopia? Or do I want to really live my life. Explore and set out.

R. and I just got back for a short jaunt throughout some of the other states surrounding PA. Oftentimes, when I’m driving, I’m lost in thought. As we stopped at a stop sign somewhere in Delaware, I looked at the car beside me. There was a boy of maybe 8 years old sitting in the backseat–a baseball cap pulled slightly over his face. He was devouring the landscape with his eyes–such an intense gaze. He tried to see everything in one glace. And as his father turned the corner in the car, the boy’s eyes were left to slip one last time over the horizon behind him. Then he was lost from view.

I feel like that boy. Only now, I think I’m starting to take the wheel myself. So next year as I look back on my diary, to see what I did on Easter Sunday, I’ll find this entry. And hopefully, if things go well, I’ll be one stop closer to finding tomorrow.