To Live Is To Risk Dying

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk being called sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk showing your true self.
To place your ideas and your dreams before them is to risk being called naive.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair, and to try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, is nothing and becomes nothing.
He may avoid suffering, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave, he's forfeited his freedom.

Only the person who risks is truly free.

Two Weeks

Today was the last day of class. Finals start Monday. A four-hour Torts exam. The LSAT wasn't even four hours. That is only the first of four exams. Two weeks from today it will be over. One semester down. Almost.

Bus Ticket

Last Thanksgiving, one of my roommates and I bought bus tickets to my uncle's house in State College, Penn. We purchased the tickets a few weeks in advance on the internet for a noon bus on Wednesday. When we arrived at the "bus station" in Chinatown, there was no bus. Searching for answers, we found the "bus office," only to be told that there was no noon bus. Naturally, we asked for a refund so that we could catch a train. The guy manning the desk points to our tickets, which reads in very small letters, "No refunds." He shakes his head. So, I point out that our tickets says "Departure time: 12:00pm." "Sorry," he replies, "no noon bus." In our hands we held non-refundable tickets for a non-existent bus. That's New York for you.

When Music Speaks

what I wouldn't give just to forget
what I wouldn't give to get some rest
so I can remember how to live again
I wanna live again

am I desperately losing this fight
when I should really be choosing my flight
take me now

what I wouldn't give just to forget
what I wouldn't give to get some rest
so I can remember how to live again
I wanna live again

"What I Wouldn't Give" Holly Brook

Dallas to Fort Worth

I'm driving east on I-30 tonight. It's a drive that I've made many times in the past few months. Now its 10:30pm. I'm stopped somewhere near Arlington. Stopped. Not just crawling along. Stopped. Seriously, this is why I hate driving. You can be cruising down the interstate at 70mph one minute and the next, you've gone two miles in thirty minutes. So, now at 10:30pm on a Friday night I'm stopped on I-30. And I'm really aggravated at the drivers who ignore the neon blinking arrow flashing left and fifty signs that read "left lanes closed," and, instead, continue driving until the last possible second so that someone at he front of the line that everyone else has been patiently waiting in has to let them cut in.

As I wait in traffic, my mind starts to drift. I'm trying to figure out what kind of girl I am. Am I a Fort Worth kind of girl or a Dallas kind of girl? Kind of stupid, I know. But the cities have such distinctive, almost contrasting, personalities, I'm just curious as to where I fit in. Or maybe if I fit in at all.

Dallas has the pretentious air. I don't think that's me. Fort Worth is a little too cowboy, though. I like the energy of Dallas. But I also like the simplicity of Fort Worth. Dallas is trendier. Fort Worth has a homey feel to it. Dallas is a "let's put on a dress and heels" kind of place. In Fort Worth, you would be way overdressed if you wore that out. I mean I do like to dress up every once and awhile...

So I'm sitting here on the interstate between the two cities wondering where I fit in. I feel like it's somewhere in the middle. So that would put me in like Arlington. No thanks.

I miss New York.

Wide Open Spaces

This weekend I participated in a "mini-reunion" with college roommates and old friends. Some I've kept in touch with regularly, some its been a once-a-year thing. Regardless, when we get together, we click right into the place we left off...almost.

As the girls sat around the coffee table in the front room, we reminisced on memories and foreshadowed the future. Their futures consisted of buying houses and having babies; mine, well it's just a question mark. I don't know if I'll ever buy a house or ever have a baby. I don't know if I want to. I don't know. I don't know what I want. Seemingly, as I sat there observing conversation about baby planning, I felt disconnected from them. Years ago we stayed up until 2am playing pranks on the boys, now everyone left by 10pm to go back to the home they made with those boys. At some point, we stopped walking on the same road and started walking down our own path.

It was good to see them. It was even better to realize that I prefer the road that I'm walking down because in front of me is a wide-open field.