The Good News!

Following up that last post, guess what I'm doing with my life???!!!

So, I'm graduating in one semester.

I'm also about to start editing the third novel for my "client" (who is published, so nyah to my pessimistic side).

I'm also attempting to write another book - currently in outlining phase.

I have a rough draft that just needs a little more editing before I can send it out to the first wave of test readers.  *insert pessimistic self* You know you're not actually going to work on that one for a while, since you're starting another one.

Yeah, well at least I am starting another one, while you're just sitting on your butt whining about how you're 26 and not going anywhere.

I got my photography published.

I'm getting involved in other book-publishing-related ventures, and learning a lot while walking with my mom through the publication process of her books.

So, depressing though numbers may be, though I'm not where I thought I would be, I'm on my way.

I just need to do the math a bit better and figure out that starting college late + time it takes to graduate = I'm gonna be older than I expected when I start my life.

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Six is a big number!

If you're talking about number of orangutans in tutus that were hired to do a pole dance at your birthday celebration, that is.

Twenty-six is a very small number.

But only if you're talking about the number of times you've heard that Taio Cruz Dynamite song in the last six months.  Really... when will that song DIE???

Twenty six is weird.  It's bigger than 25.  It's closer to 30 than 20.

Whatever happened to 23?  I liked 23.  It's my favorite number.

As you can tell, I have a mild crisis.  Actually, it's not a crisis anymore.  It's calmed into an attempt to reassess and figure out if I'm the about-to-be-26-year-old that I always wanted to be.

At first glance, I'm gonna go with no.  When I was like 15, I figured that in 10 years I'd be married, have 3 kids (I was gonna get married super young, and then have twins, okay?), have graduated college, have published 5 books, and have figured out how to read minds, fly, time travel, and belly dance.

Now, ignoring my 15 year old "life plan," let's go with my "I'm going off to school now!" life plan.  I never really paid attention to numbers.  For some reason, I never calculated how old I'd be when I graduated.  The number "26" never occurred to me.  I was 21 when I started school.  I figured it would take me 5 years.  Maybe I should have taken more math, because last time I checked, 21 + 5 does, in fact, equal 26.  Still, I never thought I'd ever be 26 and not graduated.

On the other hand, if I wasn't dragging out this last year with all the snails I have in me (seriously... 6.5 credits spread out over 3 semesters) I'd probably be graduating... well... like now.  Whatever.  I'm taking a scuba diving class.  Bet you can't beat that.

Anyway, I think the main issues are that I don't have my own family and I'm not published.  Those were always my two life goals.  I'm still single, living in a cramped, barely-off-campus apartment, working in a call center (a very nice call center, but a "would you like fries/noni extra with that?" customer service, no education required job nonetheless), dreaming of reaching those goals... and I'm at an age I never thought this phase of my life would see.  26 was always "what's next."  Somehow I got to now without accomplishing what I thought I would.

Wow... depressing, isn't it?