kellinator | Blasts from the past and assorted musings

It isn't every day that your past walks up to you and says hello.

Or rather, that you say hello to your past, as I did when I realized the girl waiting for the elevator was someone I used to go to grad school with.

I don't think she recognized me at first. Then she squealed "You look great!!" I fired back the first thing which came to mind, which was "Of course I do. I'm not suicidal anymore!"

We caught up, and she kept telling me how terrific and happy I looked.

And really, it's true. Lately I seem to be getting into several conversations about the whole grad school thing, where I am now, blah blah blah.

The day I got kicked out of grad school, I cried for eight hours. Not because I was going to miss grad school -- hell, I had been seriously contemplating dropping out. No, it was because I had failed at the thing I thought I had wanted the most, the thing I had worked for all my life.

And now it turns out that it's the best thing that ever happened to me.

Dylan, as usual, was right: "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose." I had to start over. Figure out who I was, besides a brain. Expend less energy trying to impress others and more trying to impress myself. Spend less time planning -- Ph.D. by 26, first book published by 27 -- and more time living.

chuck_lynn just told me that I'm one of the people who really lives life, so I guess I got that part of it right.

Yes, I still bitch and gripe -- it's not in my personality to be Little Mary Sunshine. But every once in a while, I stop for a minute and think about it -- what I was, what I am now -- and I just grin like a loon.

And I think, it doesn't matter that my dreams didn't come true, because I'm living a life beyond my wildest dreams.